Digital ‘Microtargeting’ Part Of The Long-Range Plan At Ameritas

BALTIMORE -- By all accounts, the life insurance industry has been excruciatingly slow to adapt to new technology.

So slow that opportunities are slipping away and interlopers are challenging traditional life insurance methods and models. Change and technological adaptation is no longer a choice, but a must, industry observers say.

Ameritas Life began the change about three years ago. Brent Korte came aboard to oversee efforts on the marketing side and he said it is definitely a journey. He will lead a general session today titled "Transformation Starts at Home" during the LIMRA Marketing Conference.

"We build products that are meant to last decades and decades and oftentimes change is hard in industries where you really have a long-term view," said Korte, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Ameritas. "The culture kind of reflects that paradigm that we’ve built for ourselves within the industry."

The global insurance analytics market is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 10 to 15 percent over the next five years, according to various data surveys. Rapid adoption of data-driven decision-making processes and advanced analytics techniques is driving the market.

Lack of integration with legacy systems and varying structure of regulation policies could limit the growth of the insurance analytics market. The Ameritas marketing team is busy trying to learn as much as possible about its potential customers and how to better "microtarget" them, Korte explained.

'Another Step Further'

That means experimenting with something new on every new product rollout, he added. For example, an upcoming product rollout will include a virtual reality element.

"We’re taking it another step further to try to keep our advisors, our agents and our producers really engaged and rise above the noise," Korte said. "It’s a test. We’ll get data back from it and recognize what we need to tweak, do again, do different, or not do at all."

But even before the innovations get to the testing stage, they need to be created by a team that is fully committed to the change. Otherwise, a life insurance company can simply hire consultants to experiment with big data applications and technology add-ons, Korte said.

"If your associates don’t get behind it, if they’re not willing to make that cultural shift in that transformation and embrace it, in the end, it’s going to be very difficult to succeed," he said. "And if we don’t as an industry and an organization embrace change and learn to go more quickly, we will start to lose relevance. I think that’s a big concern."

InsuranceNewsNet Senior Editor John Hilton has covered business and other beats in more than 20 years of daily journalism. John may be reached at john.hilton@innfeedback.com. Follow him on Twitter @INNJohnH.

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