“Traditional insurance will exist for quite some time, but new customer interfaces and new players will enter the field and increase competition” Not Your Average Insurance Interview: David Destappes and Steven Eliaerts of P&V Group
“Customer expectations are changing rapidly and the complexity for an insurer is managing the digitization of all parts of the value chain at the same time.” — David Destappes, Director of Business Development at P&V Group
Could you tell us a little about yourself and what you do?
DD: Hi, I am David Destappes, Director of Business Development at P&V Group, a Belgian cooperative insurer that distributes insurance products through brokers under the Vivium brand and tied Agents under the P&V brand.
SE: Hi, my name is Steven Eliaerts and I’m now Product Manager for Ecosystem Platforms in the department of David. It has been quite a journey in this evolving insurance landscape, in which P&V and we ourselves have evolved as well.
DD: Indeed! Getting the new ecosystem thinking across has been both a challenge as well as exciting. It allows the P&V Group to access new markets and to deliver new services to our customers. And I’m happy Steven has assisted me in the development of this approach.
SE: Thanks, David! It has been a pleasure having you as a mentor over all these years, not to mention all the other ‘strategic’ meetings outside of office hours.
DD: Right!
Are you working on anything interesting at the moment? (could be non-KASKO related projects as well)
DD: Our collaboration with KASKO on a new Netflix-inspired bike insurance subscription model has been an eye-opener on what is technically feasible within very tight deadlines. Additionally, our common work has been recognized as we’ve received a well-known insurance innovation prize in Belgium for this new offering.
SE: I can only confirm that the intense but amazing working relationship with KASKO has allowed us to deliver an end-to-end insurance product, in accordance with all applicable regulations, quickly and at high quality. It has also allowed us to integrate new business model practices, such as Lemonade-inspired donation policies to new partners that encourage safe driving environments for bikers.
DD: Many of the colleagues at P&V have collaborated to implement this project and P&V group is both thankful for and proud of the effort they have put in. It has also generated much enthusiasm in our different sales channels. Of course, we also work on many other projects in Telematics, On-Demand products,.. but maybe the Vivium Digital Awards that colleagues have launched last year deserves a special mention: this was a great success for our organization. It encourages and rewards Vivium-brokers that digitize their offerings and operations.
SE: There are many interesting projects at all levels and in all domains in our organization. The team of which I’m part puts a lot of effort into our Telematics project, where we believe engaging our customers with appealing features is the key to both business objectives and encouraging safe driving behaviour. Here as well, working with our quality partner Amodo is key.
Where would you identify future problems that insurance companies might face with proceeding digitalization?
DD: Customer expectations are changing rapidly and the complexity for an insurer is managing the digitization of all parts of the value chain at the same time. Our competition is not standing still of course. Moreover, new entrants are targeting our growth potential, from both small-scale start-ups to large market players with skills and data sets with which we’ll need to compete.
SE: In my position, I’m in contact with many of the new scale-ups in our industry and beyond. Not only do they bring unique skills, but they usually bring in the newest technologies without the legacy and regulatory burden. Onboarding these players in the digitization of your organization is a major opportunity for any insurer.
A lot is being written about the state of the industry; sometimes it’s difficult to know where to find accurate, insightful discourse. Which blogs or news sources do you use to keep yourself abreast of industry developments?
SE: Obviously, there are many! The Digital Insurance Agenda conference is a great venue to get a quick overview of the state of the industry. There are also many newsletters and reports by a lot of organizations. For the P&V group, we also gain a lot of insights from our Euresa-partners, a knowledge exchange network of European cooperative insurers. Lastly, it’s important to also visit and exchange with other industries than insurance: they may bring new viewpoints on projects or can show you how insurance will evolve.
DD: This is true… but let’s not forget all the market, technology and customer knowledge that is available within the organisation and our sales channels. The key is collecting and activating this expertise into our organizational strategy and processes.
We’re seeing a lot of buzzwords at the moment; it’s impossible to get through a meeting without hearing “IoT”, “Blockchain”, or “AI” and let’s not forget the “big data” evergreen. Do you think that they will live up to the hype? Which one do you think will make the biggest difference in the next 10 years? Or will it be something else entirely?
DD: As a cooperative insurer we are especially attentive to the effects that Big Data will have on the hyper-segmentation of our customer risk profiles and the effect this may have on insurance premiums for the less fortunate social groups.
SE: Fully agree. And these buzzwords are not separate but related subjects in which P&V Group has already taken major steps. Telematics IoT-Big Data is analysed anonymously with advanced AI-methods by our actuaries and analysts to not only segment drivers, but also to find tools to engage customers and to encourage them to drive safer.
DD: Yes, we are proud of the capabilities P&V Group has built-in all these domains.
Getting board-approval for new products and services is never an easy feat. Which three pieces of advice would you give to someone who is trying?
SE: From experience, onboarding different stakeholders in involved departments at all levels early on is key to build credibility for a specific project. Moreover, these discussions help finetune a project story that meets the needs and expectations of these different stakeholders.
DD: In the end, you want to bring a project to the Board that has identified a clear problem, an analysis of the different options and a proposed solution that brings clear value to the organisation. This is, of course, the difficult part. Once you have this, you are ready for the challenge of inserting the project within the Board’s many priorities.
Innovation is inarguably crucial in the insurance landscape right now. In which direction do you see it leading the industry?
DD: Traditional insurance will exist for quite some time, but new customer interfaces and new players will enter the field and increase competition. Of course, we think that being present in the ecosystems of tomorrow is important.
SE: I’ll just add to that within those ecosystems insurance will become more invisible and will be part of a larger package of services. Indeed, the private fleet model or the car-sharing model are concrete examples of this.
With so many promising insurtechs offering interesting new approaches, are there any relevant to the Belgian market that has impressed you as of late?
DD: Yes, we are in active contact with many of them. DEECIDE is a good example.
SE: We also work together with tech scale-ups that have no immediate connection to insurance, improving processes across our Value Chain. P&V Group encourages all business units to immerse themselves in these new worlds.
Thanks for your time. One final question, where do you see the industry in five-years-time?
SE: I’ve been in the industry for 6 years now. Much has changed, but some evolutions are much slower than I expected 5 years ago. There are many barriers to entry in this industry. Major societal trends also have an impact: will Corona lead to more digital insurance purchases? Time will tell.
DD: Digitization of core systems and processes is more than ever a major priority for the industry over the next five years. What we are experiencing now with the COVID-19 virus will for sure create a “new normal” in which digitization will be key. This will further increase pressure on all insurers’ business models over the next five years: that remains constant. We’ll need to evolve, and we count on partners such as KASKO to help us in this challenging but rewarding journey.
Any other questions or statements that you would like to add?
DD: Thank you for the interview, it was a pleasure to talk about these subjects.
SE: And it has been a pleasure working with you, thanks again.
This interview was conducted by Nikolaus Sühr, CEO & Co-Founder of KASKO with David Destappes and Steven Eliaerts of P & V Group. To stay tuned to our “Not Your Average Interview” series, you can sign up to our newsletter at the bottom of this page.
