Return on Millennials – The Number One Metric Carriers Need To Measure For Market Dominance

There is a hundred-year storm brewing, and it’s sitting offshore, just a few miles from where you are. Its impact will be imminent and direct.

Sadly few will survive it. But those who do will also thrive, primarily because of two things.

ONE, they read this blog post 🙂

TWO, they re-read this blog post, took action,  and shared it with their colleagues in the industry.

Here’s the problem…

Millennials are indifferent to all-things insurance.

In insurance, you often hear the term thrown around, “a hundred year storm”, referring to an adverse event that statistically only happens every 100 years or so.

This may sound like an apocalyptic view of the issue, but insurance is among the industries with the lowest appeal among millennials today.

That should scare the crap out of people in our industry!

The adjuster shortfall experienced after the recent storms pales in comparison to the perfect storm of adjuster deficit that’s slowly brewing and approaching the daily claims handling process in the next two decades.

The statistics are scary:

• Average age of an insurance pro in the US is about 60 years old.
• The number of insurance pros over 55 has increased by 74% between 2002–2012 compared to 45% in overall workforce (McKinsey & Company Building a Talent Magnet)
• There’s 80 million Boomers, 60 million Xers, and 80 million Millennials. That 25% difference with so few Xers is a huge deal
• 88% of CPCU members are over 40 years old.
• Only 41% of millennials expect to be at their current job in 2 years.
• Insurance companies expect 25% of retirements in the next 4 years.
• Only 2% of recent grads express interest in the insurance industry (Accenture — The Insurance Workforce of the Future).
• 66% of Millennials plan to be at a different company in 3 years (2016 Deloitte Millennial Survey).
• By 2014 Millennials were already largest generation in the US (Council of Economic Advisers)
• By 2025, 3 out of 4 workers will be Millennials (https://www.bdcnetwork.com/workplace-design-trends-make-way-millennials).
• Only 4% of Millennials are interested in working in Insurance (The Hartford — A Generation of Leaders).

But now that we’ve had the foresight to identify the problem, we need to fix it.

Here are a few ideas we are implementing at TelaClaims.

Let’s start by asking the right questions.

 

Why are millennials turned off by insurance?

It is well documented that insurance has an image of being stiff, boring, greedy, and exclusive.

Not exactly the kind of profession you’d have lots of fun on a regular Thursday.

These are exactly the sorts of characteristics  millennials tend to avoid in a workplace.

They want to work around arts & entertainment, education, technology, and healthcare.

They want work/life balance. They want to enjoy their work environment.

A cubicle is not a desirable environment for them.

Again, it presents as a rigid, formal environment, millennials don’t want ANY part of IT for ANY period of time.

The previous generations, such as baby boomers such as myself, we had a different perspective.

We figured that as long as the job supports your family and you did your job, you are a successful person.

It doesn’t matter if you are a businessman or a janitor — your paycheck justifies the fact that you spend much of your time doing something that you are not emotionally drawn to or even invested in some cases.

Millennials, on the other hand, don’t see it that way.

Boomers like me have always been willing to exchange time for money. Millennials, on the other hand, want a job that is fulfilling in and of itself.

Millennials need meaning from their work, more than almost anything else.

Insurance as an industry, has failed to give meaning to purpose, even if the work done is important and needed by many all too often, especially after a loss.

It is our role to change that cultural perception.

The claims process needs to be treated like an urgent care.

You first come in and you get triaged, stop the bleeding, and then get stitched up. Adjusting is not very different at all.

You had a terrible plumbing break in a wall, upstairs and a serious leak, the water is still flowing and your belongings and family possessions are being ruined. You call your insurance carrier.

A claims professional will need to assess the situation (triage) and stop the water (mitigate), send in mitigation experts (stitches), get the home dry and cleaned up (stabilize) to the then see how we can fix it using the terms and benefits contained within your policy for the home (recovery and follow up).

Millennials’ interactions with insurance are relatively brief and, if something does come up, it’s usually bad (newspaper articles about shady agents, horror stories from friends, etc.)

They also tend to pay higher premiums when they’re younger, so they’re likely to have an unfavorable impression from the onset.

We need to start to re-frame the narrative. We need to re-focus on what insurance really does. And we need to deploy lots of empathy, especially when dealing with a group we don’t understand very well.

Focus on what insurance does for communities and families.

Insurance already has a huge impact, they just don’t know it.

We need to draw more attention to that by giving detailed descriptions of how people were helped.

I don’t mean it in a salesy way, because Millennials can smell a sales pitch from miles away.

But by providing human interest stories that showcase the impact on quality on life for families and policyholders. 

Encourage employees to be vocal about why they like their job/Give them a sense of purpose.

Provide employees a Twitter hashtag, encourage them to submit stories to be featured on the company website, and also share these with other employees in the company.

At TelaClaims, we encourage all employees, millennials, GenZs, Genexers, and Boomers to share their experiences on social media.

I can’t wait to hand things over to them in a few years knowing full well that I in a small way helped to pave the road for that much needed change.

If you would like to know how our innovative claim process can help you make effective real time decisions, maximize control and minimize costs relating to your claims. Click here to schedule a brief chat with me or David!

Would love to know your take on the topic, if you’d like to chat, once again you can set up a time right here.