(VIRTUAL) LESSONS LEARNT FROM COVID-19: ENHANCING RESILIENCE IN THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY

The Covid-19 pandemic is affecting the health of millions of individuals and businesses around  the world.

The insurance industry is being disproportionally affected: claims have spiked in areas such as  travel insurance, event cancellation and mortality. Volatile financial markets have made it  almost impossible to steer the investment portfolio, and lockdown measures have kept staff at  home while still struggling to cope with surging call and claim volumes. Meanwhile, there are  pressures to be “flexible”, where “flexible” is shorthand for dishing out large amounts of money  for claims which may or may not be covered. 

The insurance industry has nevertheless managed to continue with a semblance of business as-usual (BAU), while also taking on the challenging task of rethinking certain products which  have proven to be unsuitable, unsatisfactory or unsustainable – travel and auto insurance being  only two cases in point.  

How has the industry coped? 

We at Crescendo Advisors thought there would be value in  pooling and sharing the wider industry experience.

We  conducted 24 structured interviews with a selection of risk  professionals from insurance firms. Our aim was to understand the impact Covid-19 has had  on their firms and to assess how they responded, what they did well, what lessons they learned,  and what changes they anticipate as a result of the pandemic experience.