EP 22 - Rebuilding Insurance Around the Customer
For decades, insurance has operated from the inside out. Product design, operations, and distribution have been structured around internal efficiency rather than customer relevance. That model delivered scale and control, but it is now reaching its limits.
In this Episode:
Insurance must evolve from rigid value chains to customer-driven ecosystems. Francois Jacquemin explores how iterative design and co-creation redefine value and trust in a digital era.
The pace of technological change and the speed at which customers evolve have outstripped the industry’s traditional value chain. The expectations of availability, simplicity, and responsiveness have transformed irreversibly.
The question is no longer how insurers can optimize their processes, but how they can reorient themselves around the customer from the ground up.
Rebuilding insurance from the customer backward does not mean dismantling what exists. It means reshaping priorities. Insurers are not lacking intelligence, skill, or will. They are constrained by structures that were built for stability, not iteration. The shift requires a mindset change: moving from planning everything perfectly before launch to building iteratively with real client feedback.
In one major transformation project I led, we developed a global corporate product across multiple jurisdictions. The instinct was to create a best-in-class solution immediately. But reality demanded patience. Each iteration revealed that what the client initially wanted was not what ultimately created value. By working alongside them, not just for them, we created something that endured. The result was not just a product but a partnership.
That experience taught me that rebuilding backward is less about innovation for its own sake and more about disciplined adaptability. It requires a deep understanding of the value chain, knowing where to invest, and maintaining reserves for the learning process. The journey itself becomes a competitive advantage.
The digital revolution and the acceleration of AI are amplifying this pressure. Customer feedback loops have compressed from months to minutes. The rise of connected services, ecosystems, and data-driven insights means that insurers no longer own the customer relationship alone. They are part of a larger orchestration where distribution partners, insurtechs, and service providers all contribute to the experience.
The insurers who will thrive are those who lead this orchestra, who can balance structure and flexibility, long-term trust and rapid iteration. Rebuilding from the customer backward means taking control of that rhythm.
Insurance will remain indispensable. But its relevance will depend on its ability to evolve continuously with the people it serves.
Timecode:
00:00 Introduction: Rebuilding Insurance from the Customer Backward
00:28 The Evolution of Customer Expectations
02:04 Adapting the Insurance Industry
02:57 Challenges in the Value Chain
03:59 Iterative Development in Insurance
04:23 Case Study: Corporate Insurance Product
07:21 Personalization in Individual Insurance
09:36 The Future of Insurance
Francois Links:
Apple Podcast
Transcript:
So rebuilding insurance from the customer backward. What, what does that mean? Well, what it means is that it's not about reinventing the wheel, um, or that, I know reinventing the wheel is, uh, is something that is a lot very often used in, in, in lots of meeting. But, um, here, I mean, it. Seriously, it's not about changing insurance.
Completely reinventing this means that the customer experience and, and the customer, customer expectations have, uh, changed a lot. And there was divergence between the old way of doing insurance and, and, and the expectation of, of, of, of customers 20, 30, 40 years ago. And, um, the newly. Inbred expectation of customers, whether they are the young or old generation, much more in the all young generation, of course, but the old generation are impacted by the digital revolution.
Uh, the internet has been disappeared, like. 25, 30 years ago, uh, was very slow to grow in the population, in, in, in the usage. Um, there were other mini revolution, uh, in, in in tech. But now with ai, uh, the speed and expectation have grown exp expon exponentially. Uh, as I said, also, I guess in another podcast, the COVID time had, uh, also created, uh, a lot of connectivity and, and, and, and, um, the, the.
The need for the population for contact, uh, which were not possible socially have increased, uh, digitally, which also, uh, due to availability and, and, and the speed of the, the connection, uh, created in, in the population and expectation for, um, all the time, availability or, uh, speed or the, um, the need to have answers to questions in a very, very short period of time.
So insurance, uh, the insurance industry is, is, is tried to, to adapt and has, has, has evolved. Um, but um, if you look at that only from the. Um, insurance point of view and, and what is being given to the, to the population, to the client base, and, uh, what also is given to the distribution, uh, whether they are, um, captive or, or, uh, independent.
Um, they, they need to be empowered. To give and, and position the, the insurance product in the best way to client. What, um, insurers have done there is more top down, um, because they have, uh, a, a strong, strong product base. They have a strong operations. They have a very, very strong. Value chain that is rigid and, um, that prevents them from creating, uh, the speed that they, they would like to have because they, they, they're all clever.
I mean, insurance people, uh, and, and, and employees and managers are, are, are very, very, very clever and they understand the world, but they have constraints. Um, and, and this constraints of the value chain is something that we, uh, need to always keep into consideration. This is something, uh, if we want to even.
Reinvent the insurance industry backward. It's something that needs to be, uh, to, to be taken into consideration because overpromising something to, uh, to the client, uh, will be, uh, will have negative effect. Saying that I'm going to change everything and then failing to do so is much worse than just.
Getting the journey, uh, moving and moving towards the client. So the, the, the key element there is to, um, be aware of the element of the value chain, knowing what we can invest along the value chain to make improvement, uh, and keeping a lot of reserves because it will only work by iteration. Um, a long time ago, even before COVID, we.
Worked into a, I worked in a big insurance group and, and we developed a, um, product for very large corporations. And, um, this product. Was very, very international. So it was a global product that has a very, very strong element of centralization and therefore, uh, a, a, an enormous complexity. And I was, I was leading the Drive for change and establishing the, um, the, the, the structure, the division.
That needed to do it. But the division that needs to do it needs to depend on many other structures and, and, and, and companies inside the insurance group I was working for to be able to implement that solution. So having a, a big bank scenario from the beginning would've been terrible. What we did not, not that was happy with that because I wanted to go faster and I wanted to have the best solution on the market, but I need to also understand that we can change everything at the same at at, at, at once.
And uh, also I needed to. Be very clear with everyone that whatever change we were making was something that was validated by client. Insurers had the tendency to create a product that was super clever and worked and and and so on in, in internally, and have sales power that are going to push those.
Product to client, but now it's not, it's not working like that anymore. It's much easier and better to work with client and build with a client, which is what we'd done at the time we were building by iteration. We just presented the, the, the, the solution, which was well received, got feedback from one client.
Well, we couldn't just change the product exactly the way they wanted to, so they didn't buy it, which was something that was great. Um, not for the client or for us, but it's, it's, it's part of the process and this is the illustration on how those elements need to need to work. And by the way, that client finally bought, bought that, uh, bought that product once we had made the.
Two or three steps, iterative steps that were driving towards the end product at the end. What I've learned there is that whatever the client wanted is not what the client bought at the end. Uh, we needed to make some changes. We need to get it approved, uh, by other clients as well, or get feedback from from other clients, and then we needed to move in internally.
What this process. Taught by being iterative. It means that the client, they were complete stakeholder in the development process, that the value chain and the investment from the insurer point of view were kept under control and were driven in the right way. So it was a bit like, you know, succeed fast, fail fast, but in an iterative way and.
We managed to create a structure that was sustainable, uh, for, for the client in, in, in the long term. So that was corporate business. For individual business, it's usually a bit more challenging because we need to create focus group where feedback and those exist, uh, a lot. But, um, the, the, the, the need.
That was created by the latest digital development and, and, and, and, and, uh, the connectivity have increased so much that even the focus group that were valid five, 10 years ago or three years ago, they're not valid today. And there is a demand for an increased level of personalization in the, in the product or in the offering, and.
Maybe that's, that's good that I made the mistake here because the product, if I talk about insurance, is in the insurance contract, and the offering is beyond the insurance contract. Is it goes into what kind of service, uh, is, is, is, is linked to it. Uh, is it a service which is offered by the, the insurer or is it in a service which is independent, uh, or is a service.
The real product and the insurance contract that's in it, embedded in it. Well, the key there is that from the end client, it has to be simple. It has to be clearly understood. It has to be fair, it has to be quick, and these elements and, and, and building that together with external stakeholders and insurance company cannot do everything, cannot distribute, uh, all the product and, and deliver all the service by, by himself or herself.
Then, um. Understanding this, this environment better and willing to learn and creating, mastering the pace. So being, being, uh, you know, the orchestra, you know, leading the orchestra there is very important because if, if, if you're not leading the orchestra, then uh, the iterative element will not be under control of the insurer.
But being able to, to, to drive that element and suck all that information from. The external stakeholders that are now part of the industry ecosystem beyond insurance, beyond uh, the, the distribution, beyond the names themselves then will be a key for. The, uh, the, the future and the ability of, of, of insurance to reinvent, uh, itself based on, on what the client wants, what the client needs, and, um, what the possibilities that the digital and, and the AI and, and, and, and, and the speed of which, uh, is, is, is magnified, has been magnified, um, and, and increased so, so much, um, will be the key for the, for the future of, of insurance.
Um, insurance is there to stay, but the way it looks like, uh, 10 years ago is not the way it looks like today. And in, in 20, 50 years ago. Uh, in the future, it'll, it'll be, it'll be much, much different.