EP 301 – Sean Ringsted – Chief Digital Business Officer at Chubb – Harnessing the Power of Digital: Embedded Insurance and Beyond

Read the best-effort transcript below (This technology is still not as good as they say it is…):

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:11:08

Michael Waitze

Hi, my name is Michael Waitze, and welcome to a special episode of the Asia Tech Podcast. We are very excited to speak with Sean Ringsted, the Chief Digital Business Officer at Chubb. Sean, it’s great to have you on the show.

 

00:00:11:09 – 00:00:12:19

Sean Ringsted

It’s great to be here. Thank you.

 

00:00:13:00 – 00:00:21:14

Michael Waitze

Let’s give our viewers a little bit of a quick introduction of you and a general comment on how your role at Chubb intersects with technology and the partner experience.

 

00:00:21:14 – 00:00:34:19

Sean Ringsted

That’s great. Happy to. So, what I do day-to-day is look after our businesses globally that are transacting digitally. Wherever we’re trying to put Chubb’s products and services in the digital channel, that’s what I do and it’s a lot of fun.

 

00:00:34:21 – 00:00:39:16

Michael Waitze

I’m sure it’s a blast. So, how does that intersect with the partner experience?

 

00:00:39:18 – 00:00:40:18

Sean Ringsted

Well, you mentioned the digital channel, so what we’re doing is transacting with partners. Really, they’re our gateway to customers, so B2B to C as a channel. There what’s really important is to have the technology to be able to transact with partners, but it’s more than just the technology. It’s developing the experiences that they want, providing the services and the value creation back to the customers. And so, we call that whole rapid a partner experience. So, technology is front and center there, think of that as an enabler. To me, that gets you in the door and then it’s the hard work.

 

00:01:29:18 – 00:01:40:02

Michael Waitze

Let’s talk about this too. What’s the balance between this technological automation and this hope for this frictionless experience and the human touch that customers may expect?

 

00:01:40:04 – 00:02:02:16

Sean Ringsted

Wow. There’s a lot in there, so we could try and unpack that and maybe give your listeners some different perspectives on that. I mean, I think that the shift that we’ve all seen, call it the Amazon effect and I’m the same when I’m shopping, you want that to be frictionless. The moment that you’re reaching for something like a credit card or to put some details in or you’re going to another screen, you drop off, it’s just not enjoyable. So, you think of that as where you want to eliminate friction and clearly technology is part of that, but you’re also thinking of design experience. It’s just the whole wrapper around that. Technology enables you to do that. So, wherever you have a digital touchpoint, you want to be frictionless, but in there I think you said omnichannel as well–

 

00:02:44:02 – 00:02:45:01

Michael Waitze

We’ll get to that as well. Yeah.

 

00:02:45:01 – 00:02:47:01

Sean Ringsted

…and touch.

 

00:02:47:01 – 00:03:00:21

Michael Waitze

So, this automation is really important. This idea of frictionless is also super important as well. You’re right, when Amazon introduced 1-Click, it made drop off so much lower because people realized, “All of my data is already there, all of my information’s already there. I don’t have to give my credit card. I don’t have to do anything else except hit this button and wait for my product to arrive.” This is a really incredible frictionless experience and this is what you’re talking about. There are places, though, where humans are necessary and this is a hybrid experience. Yes? Are there circumstances where hybrid is more appropriate and in what cases can technology completely take over? So, there are two things there, right?

 

00:03:23:06 – 00:03:50:23

Sean Ringsted

Yeah, absolutely. Wherever technology is relevant, it needs to be frictionless and you can really solve a lot of pain points in a customer’s journey with technology, but it can’t do everything. So, some examples of where it can’t do everything, certainly in an insurance context, for complicated products. Insurance, it’s painted as complex across the board. If you simplify a number of the insurance products, they’re actually quite simple and so we can help with the explaining and the positioning of those products and use technology to deliver that in a very seamless, frictionless way. You’ve got the complexity of insurance, it needs explanation and that’s undoubtedly where you need somebody to help you with that.

 

00:04:27:18 – 00:04:29:05

Michael Waitze

It’s where I come into the loop, right?

 

00:04:29:09 – 00:04:49:00

Sean Ringsted

Come in, right. And so, if it’s a down one on your home, there’s a lot of complexity, that’s one end. So that’s clearly where you’d still need to have and it’s very important that you have an agent or a broker. Chubb, we also transact commercially and so when you get into commercial transactions, there’s a lot of complexity to a commercial transaction. So, think about it at the sale point, nothing about the claim point and I’ll give you an example of the human touch there is just so important at that time of need and that’s where you do need somebody. So, we blend it.

 

A new bank is a great example of a blending. A new bank we have access there through our partner to over 60 million customers in Brazil. Now one of the largest digital banks globally and we’re selling life insurance. You might think of life insurance as a complicated product that needs someone, but we’re transacting that through three clicks on a phone and in a bank.

 

00:05:51:08 – 00:05:56:22

Michael Waitze

This gets back to that hands on experience you were talking about before. So, clicks to buy an insurance product is very fast.

 

00:05:56:24 – 00:06:11:05

Sean Ringsted

Right and simple. You might think that’s a product that needs to be done with someone, but we do that digitally. Now, the claims experience, we do that through a person because you think about the claims experience on a life person.

 

00:06:11:05 – 00:06:14:00

Michael Waitze

The claims experience is so much more emotional.

 

00:06:14:02 – 00:06:15:02

Sean Ringsted

It’s so much more emotional.

 

00:06:15:02 – 00:06:24:23

Michael Waitze

And having a person involved just makes it easier. I want to feel comfortable, that’s the promise of insurance, is that we’re going to be there when you need us. And if a person is there, it feels better in some cases, no?

 

00:06:24:24 – 00:06:55:21

Sean Ringsted

It feels better and so that’s why we do it through people. Even though the sale is done digitally, we fulfill the claims experience with a person. Here’s what’s interesting, too, about that, our MPS on the claims experience for that is 92.

 

Michael Waitze

92? That’s good.

 

Sean Ringsted

And when we first got it, we first saw those stats, we thought they’re wrong.

 

Michael Waitze

Something must be going on.

 

Sean Ringsted

Something’s not right, but it was true. So again, you’ve got this blending here of the digital. You want to execute that flawlessly where you need it, but you also need the human.

 

00:07:06:09 – 00:07:11:21

Michael Waitze

That’s such a great example of the hybrid experience. The beginning of all technology. One, two, three, done.

 

00:07:11:21 – 00:07:12:04

Sean Ringsted

Done.

 

00:07:12:09 – 00:07:14:12

Michael Waitze

Claim comes, I just want to talk to some people.

 

00:07:14:12 – 00:07:15:24

Sean Ringsted

I got to talk to somebody.

 

00:07:15:24 – 00:07:17:01

Michael Waitze

I just want to talk to somebody, that’s perfect. Okay, let’s move on a little bit. What have been some of the interesting aspects of integrating technology into the partner experience? We introduced this at the beginning of the conversation and maybe we should talk about this in the context of Chubb Studio.

 

00:07:29:09 – 00:07:59:23

Sean Ringsted

Yes, so Chubb Studio for us is so important to us, that’s how we fulfill the insurance part of the value creation to our partners. So, we integrate into our partners. We can do that through APIs, SDKs and widgets, so there’s various ways that we can do the technology integration. What that means for our partners is we’re delivering the complicated insurance stuff, if you will, the sales, the servicing and the claims, anything to do with the policy that’s being fulfilled. On our end, we can deliver that through the technology. We’re in 54 countries, 200 partners, what we’ve done is abstracted a lot of that complexity up into Chubb Studio.

 

00:08:23:00 – 00:08:23:12

Michael Waitze

You’ve got a layer, though, right?

 

00:08:23:12 – 00:08:38:16

Sean Ringsted

Right. We have two API layers, so for the partner, they see one set of API sales and the policy and claims APIs, and then underneath that there’s all the spaghetti.

 

00:08:38:18 – 00:08:40:24

Michael Waitze

But they don’t see it all to which they’re not exposed, right?

 

00:08:41:00 – 00:08:50:10

Sean Ringsted

Exactly. That’s the beauty of it. It’s really just plug in. So, for us, that’s very powerful.

 

00:08:50:10 – 00:09:08:19

Michael Waitze

I think a lot of companies in many industries have this whole idea of trying to make the customer experience as good as it possibly can be and forget about the partner experience. And the customer experience could fall down if the partner experience is not optimized. The inspiration for this must have been amazing. We want to do the same thing for the partners that we do for customers and make their interaction with us as seamless and as easy as possible, because then they’re much more incentivized to provide these products on the other side of service agreement, right?

 

00:09:21:10 – 00:09:34:00

Sean Ringsted

Yeah, that’s exactly right and what’s been interesting, I think, on that journey that we’ve had, our thinking around partner experiences now really sort of evolved from technology.

 

00:09:34:01 – 00:09:35:23

Michael Waitze

It feels like a game changer to me. Sorry, go ahead.

 

00:09:35:23 – 00:10:00:21

Sean Ringsted

It is. For us, those meaningful partner experiences have gotten a lot deeper than technology. Technology gets you in the door, it’s a ticket to the dance. If you can’t converse and go toe to toe with the tech teams on APIs and SDKs how they work, the documentation, the security and all these great things, but we’re beyond that now. I mean, it’s still critical and important, but now when we’re talking about the partner experiences, same thing with a partner, understanding that their pain points and the pain points of the customers, the problems that you’re trying to solve, it’s co-creating product.

 

We mentioned in the prior question, the complexity around the insurance product, but we can simplify that insurance product and really design something that helps the partner pain points. Then having come up with a product, great, but now you’re into the design thinking and the experience that you want to create for their customers. You don’t want to disrupt any of their digital real estate at all. You go in and they’re maniacal about every pixel that’s on the screen and rightly so.

 

Michael Waitze

And they should be, right?

 

Sean Ringsted

And they should be and they’ve spent forever orchestrating, perfecting their customer journeys. Now what’s on the table potentially is you’re going to bring insurance in. It’s going to be contextual, relevant at the right point. So, you’re aware of it, but it’s okay, I understand it. I understand what I’m doing. This is what I want to do, that is very difficult to orchestrate. And so, when we think about the partner experience, it’s really maturing to that point. Yes, we’ve got the technology, now can we sit down with the partner and understand their pain points, and then can we deliver and execute on that promise?

 

00:11:44:20 – 00:11:49:23

Michael Waitze

These APIs, this whole system you’ve created with Chubb Studio abstracts away the complexity for them.

 

00:11:49:23 – 00:11:51:04

Sean Ringsted

It does.

 

00:11:51:04 – 00:12:10:20

Michael Waitze

Like you said, it doesn’t change their customer experience on the other side. So again, they get all the benefits of this product co-creation and none of the complexity of having to think, “Oh, no, this integration is going to be hard.” You can’t underestimate how easy the API integration is and like I said before, it changes the game for this because it creates this real close relationship between that partner. It’s not just we’re going to integrate and then every time we have a new product, we have to change the integration. The APIs are there and like you said, it abstracts away this complexity on the other side, everything then becomes more seamless and that’s got to be great for that partner experience.

 

00:12:26:11 – 00:12:50:05

Sean Ringsted

It’s great for the partner experience and what we just launched as well is another step in that helping of partners. So, we’ve organized and exposed our APIs in a partner portal so they can go in in a sandbox environment and test stuff. It’s really cool. I think it’s cool.

 

00:12:51:03 – 00:12:52:07

Michael Waitze

I think it’s super cool.

 

00:12:52:07 – 00:13:16:07

Sean Ringsted

It’s super cool and so we’ve organized it by verticals, so you think of e-commerce and telco, fintech. We’ve organized in that way and we’ve shown different propositions that you can introduce into these verticals where insurance is really relevant to the customer base. But the partner and their engineering teams and so on can sit down and they can test stuff. It makes it even easier for them.

 

00:13:19:08 – 00:13:31:12

Michael Waitze

Well, sure because they don’t have to test it in a live market per se. If they can test it in a controlled environment, see if it works, then they can roll it out with confidence, you don’t have to worry about it. That again is amazing.

 

00:13:31:14 – 00:13:40:11

Sean Ringsted

And they can understand how it’s going to integrate, how it’s going to fit into their existing tech and customer experiences. So, yeah, we’re super, super excited about that.

 

00:13:40:15 – 00:13:59:19

Michael Waitze

So, let’s switch gears again a little bit. You mentioned the word omnichannel earlier and I’d like to understand what your view is, particularly in relation to the three biggest, I think, tenants of omnichannel, sales, marketing and services and just like any channel, any method. What are the associated challenges with this and what’s your view on omnichannel in general?

 

00:13:59:21 – 00:14:29:02

Sean Ringsted

I think it’s the next step in the journey of what we’re doing. I think a lot of talk around embedded. Embedded is fantastic and it’s exposed real opportunity for us and our partners and customers, but it’s not just about like a fully digital end to end. You can think about a sale originating physically and then you want to close out that journey digital. So, you buy an expensive watch in a store as a beautiful watch and you put a lot of thought into that. We can cover that and we do and we do it digitally, but you want that to be a seamless experience. So that moment of sale may be physical, but I can close it digitally.

 

00:14:55:19 – 00:15:08:04

Michael Waitze

Right and this is really important because you’re buying a physical product in a store. Again, when you buy a nice watch, you want to talk to the salesperson. Then you embed the insurance into it and create this digital experience at the end, this is omnichannel.

 

00:15:08:06 – 00:15:27:10

Sean Ringsted

Think of it as omnichannel phygital we like to call it and I think a great analogy of that would be the Apple store. You think of Apple as a tech firm.

 

Michael Waitze

That’s a great example. Go ahead.

 

Sean Ringsted

And you’ve got the phone and of course you go to the app store and you download and it’s beautiful.

 

00:15:27:11 – 00:15:44:19

Michael Waitze

Really beautiful.

 

Sean Ringsted

Yeah, think about the experience running in the Apple store, it’s beautiful.

 

Michael Waitze

Unbelievable.

 

Sean Ringsted

Unbelievable. Okay, so I want to try out the latest iPad because it’s got this awesome new set of features, I’ll go to the store–

 

Michael Waitze

Every time.

 

Sean Ringsted

…every time I want to try it.

 

00:15:44:19 – 00:15:46:17

Michael Waitze

Sometimes I go there even when I’m not buying stuff, it’s such a great experience.

 

00:15:46:18 – 00:16:20:01

Sean Ringsted

Right and then you buy stuff and now think about that experience when you buy Apple stuff. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?

 

Michael Waitze

It’s beautiful.

 

Sean Ringsted

It’s beautiful. I know who you are, you pay by your Apple Pay and so on. All of that is a seamless digital experience and so you can think of omnichannel in that way. There’s a physical start to the sale, but the rest is fulfilled in the same way we may acquire and do acquire customers digitally, but we’ll also close it out. We have significant call center capability and so a customer has gone through, they’ve been exposed digitally, they’ve done their awareness, they’ve done their research, and they just simply want to call somebody to say, “I don’t quite understand this term,” or, “Is this the right thing,” and so on. So, you can close it out digitally, you can start it digitally.

 

Then you’re also thinking about cross-sell and upsell of products. You can start with a simple product, but you may want to add more coverage or buy a different product. As we talked about earlier, as you get into more complex products, then you need somebody there to help and explain it. So, I think this omnichannel is very important on the sell side. Then on the service side, gets really interesting too because you just want to be there. I love these chatbots.

 

00:17:23:00 – 00:17:23:15

Michael Waitze

You do?

 

00:17:23:19 – 00:17:24:06

Sean Ringsted

I love them.

 

00:17:24:07 – 00:17:33:10

Michael Waitze

I love them. It’s so efficient and you can ask them anything.

 

Sean Ringsted

You can ask them anything.

 

Michael Waitze

And they’re getting so much better. If you think about what they were like five years ago and what they’re like today, so much better.

 

00:17:33:10 – 00:17:59:21

Sean Ringsted

Yeah. I came across this beautiful omnichannel experience, actually, with an Allen, which really, really surprised me. I was trying to change my flight and I was on the phone. I was with a chatbot and I was also getting messages through the phone, so three different–

 

00:17:59:23 – 00:18:00:20

Michael Waitze

This is omnichannel.

 

00:18:00:20 – 00:18:19:19

Sean Ringsted

It’s omnichannel and the way it toggled across, it was beautiful.

 

Michael Waitze

Really?

 

Sean Ringsted

It was just seamless. So, you can orchestrate great omnichannel experiences. At the end of the day, though, you have to really understand, Michael, do you want to talk to somebody at ground? Pick up the phone and know you’re going to have a great experience. If I want to do it through the bot, I’m going have a great experience. So, it’s really important and we spend a lot of time, energy and effort on this, orchestrating the right omnichannel experience for the servicing and then also for the claims.

 

00:18:34:12 – 00:18:40:23

Michael Waitze

Again, the reason why I want to bring this up is because there’s this sense that omnichannel is just a sales thing and it’s not.

 

00:18:40:23 – 00:18:41:12

Sean Ringsted

It’s not.

 

00:18:41:12 – 00:18:53:04

Michael Waitze

It’s not. It’s the full experience and that includes the service, the sales, and the marketing side of it too because you want to approach people where they are, anywhere. This gets back to like any channel, any time, right?

 

00:18:53:06 – 00:19:01:10

Sean Ringsted

Right. It’s any channel, any time. You want to approach people where they are, you also want them to be able to approach you in the way that they want to.

 

00:19:01:12 – 00:19:10:00

Michael Waitze

Exactly. So, there are some companies that just want to do one thing or this thing or that thing. You have to be wherever they are and in the way that they want to be served and sold to.

 

00:19:10:06 – 00:19:10:23

Sean Ringsted

That’s right.

 

00:19:11:00 – 00:19:34:14

Michael Waitze

So, Chubb, recently released a report entitled Banks and the Digital Wallet Race: The Embedded Insurance Strategy. And this was a global survey of established banks, fintechs and consumers in which Chubb wanted to gauge perceptions of banks and fintechs that have explored or implemented digital insurance offerings for their customers. Some very interesting data points arose from this study. Can you give us some insights here?

 

00:19:36:17 – 00:20:06:06

Sean Ringsted

I’ll try and I encourage everybody to download it, because it was a very, I think, thoughtful report and comprehensive in how it approached it, because we spoke to partners across the globe, so we had depth that way. We spoke to customers and a couple of, I think interesting data points around this, the majority of partners, they expect revenue coming in from insurance in three years to be more than 10%. Today, that’s only 20% of partners think that way. So, you got 20% growing to majority in the next three to five years where insurance, I mean, I think a revenue stream of 10% is impactful.

 

Then when you look at the customers and individuals, again, a significant majority, I mean, you’re talking in two thirds to three quarters are saying, “Look, I want to buy more insurance. I believe I’m under insured,” and I think that’s true. When you take a step back and you think about all the things, whether it’s your digital assets and things at home–

 

00:21:01:08 – 00:21:04:15

Michael Waitze

I’m looking around at all the things that I have and I’m just thinking, “Am I under insured?”

 

00:21:04:19 – 00:21:22:20

Sean Ringsted

I’m under insured and then also, how do I buy that? Well, I want to buy that digitally where I can. So, for me, I think that’s really interesting where you’ve got on the partner side an expectation that insurance is going to provide a more meaningful impact to their business model. And you’ve got on the demand side customers saying, “I need more insurance, I need more coverage and I want to be able to do that digitally.” So, when you look at those two things, I got really excited because that’s where we come straight in and help. We can help customers get insurance. We can do it digitally and we can help our partners be more successful.

 

00:21:53:10 – 00:22:07:11

Michael Waitze

This was a global study, right?

 

Sean Ringsted

Yes.

 

Michael Waitze

I want to break down a little bit, because embedded insurance does more than just give coverage and just make it easier to get coverage. I was thinking, we buy cameras, we buy microphones and it would be great if I could just get the intro. I don’t want to do it when I get home.

 

00:22:07:13 – 00:22:08:04

Sean Ringsted

No.

 

00:22:08:06 – 00:22:23:12

Michael Waitze

When I buy it, I want to feel safe. If something goes wrong, I’m covered. I don’t want to have to take care of it later, fill out some kind of form. So, this is where embedded is really great, but can we talk about how it also builds trust and how maybe this is different by region as well?

 

00:22:23:14 – 00:22:25:01

Michael Waitze

Yeah.

 

Michael Waitze

You did this whole study, right?

 

00:22:25:02 – 00:22:54:18

Sean Ringsted

Yeah. That’s a really interesting question and point, I think because when you think about the model of B2B to C and you sit down with partners, you could sell insurance and it could be just about revenue because you’re paying partners for access to their customer base. I mean that’s the simple business model. They have a cohort of partners, whether it’s in banking or e-commerce or an airline and you’re paying for access. So, it’s a revenue stream to the airline, that’s one way to look at it.

 

Another way to look at it, on top of that is thinking about retention. I’m providing something additional to my customers. There’s a value-added service piece to this, so am I going to build greater retention through that loyalty for my customer base? What really came through in the survey and it was particularly true nature was this idea of trust. So, actually, what you’re doing is creating trust with the customer base because now here’s something that’s more personalized and it’s about you. It’s protecting you, your family, your stuff, your house and so on, so the trust element really rose to the top of the survey.

 

Just coming back from Philippines and Thailand, spending some amazing time with our partners and this really came through in the discussions as well. For a number of them, this is about financial inclusion and we’re talking about resiliency as well. So, this idea that insurance can be there to provide a level of trust really resonated. I think it’s so important because we talk a lot about embedded, we talk a lot about transactions, sort of moment in time, boom, boom. It’s almost like commercial, but what you’re doing over time and if it’s done in the right way, this is about building trust.

 

00:25:02:03 – 00:25:09:06

Michael Waitze

I agree. Look, I was just thinking as you were speaking, when I shop, I only shop the places where I feel covered.

 

00:25:09:08 – 00:25:11:20

Sean Ringsted

Right. Where you’re getting a–

 

00:25:11:22 – 00:25:32:07

Michael Waitze

Where I feel like I can trust the person. We went and bought some stuff yesterday, and I just went to the guy that I always shop from where I feel safe and that’s what this does. Particularly in Asia, at least in my experience, is that 10 years ago, whether it was mobility or banking or fintech or e-commerce, there was a lack of trust there. And by embedding insurance into the product, people feel like, “I can use this now because I feel safe.”

 

00:25:37:16 – 00:25:46:05

Sean Ringsted

“I feel safe. It’s relevant. It’s providing—”

 

Michael Waitze

“I can get it easily.”

 

Sean Ringsted

“I can get it easily and it’s providing value to me and my family.”

 

00:25:46:05 – 00:25:54:11

Michael Waitze

Exactly. Okay. Before I let you go, just some final thoughts. What do you think are the most exciting opportunities you see for Chubb Digital in Asia in the next 5 to 10 years?

 

00:25:54:11 – 00:25:55:07

Sean Ringsted

In Asia.

 

00:25:55:09 – 00:25:56:19

Michael Waitze

You can go global. It doesn’t matter to me.

 

00:25:56:19 – 00:26:26:09

Sean Ringsted

No. Look, we love Asia. We’re really excited about the opportunities in Asia. When you look at the growth curve that it’s on with the economy, you look at all the amazing businesses that are being created out here and what people are doing in terms of building a newer fabric around society and the economy as a whole and it’s digital front and center of all of that. I mean, you mentioned the wallets, the fintechs, the payment mechanisms, everything is done digitally. So, for us, it’s super exciting because we’re here, we can transact and deliver the Chubb brand and promise in the digital channel.

 

And then what we’re doing as we touched on, we’re providing such a value proposition here. When you look at some of the trends globally and I don’t think Asia’s any different, whether it’s cyber, whether it’s health care, whether it’s climate change and these sorts of things, so it’s trying to build a resilient economy and society. Insurance has such an exciting role to play in that and I think it’s often glossed over. How just relevant, exciting insurance is. We touch everything. We touch everyone. It’s such a role to play and when I look at the next five years, it’s all of that. It’s super exciting.

 

00:27:40:13 – 00:27:45:17

Michael Waitze

Thank you very much. Sean Ringsted, the Chief Digital Business Officer at Chubb, thank you so much for doing this today.

 

00:27:45:19 – 00:27:48:09

Sean Ringsted

Thank you. Pleasure to be here.