Sigortacı Kafası: digital insurance, experience and trust

Summary

On Sigortacı Kafası we talked through the concepts of digital insurance and the transformation the industry is going through. I introduced myself as an insurance broker and an insurance-technology entrepreneur at the same time: tamamlayicisaglik.com, which I founded eleven years ago, Gensure Tech, which builds the technology behind it, and my new venture Tour Covers, which builds insurance solutions for health tourism. I put my core idea in a picture: the customer has moved from one island to a digital island; if you as a company are still on the old island, you are watching the customer from a distance. This is the story of every industry, not just insurance, because the customer's expectations have become fluid and they want the same experience in every product.

When I started in 2007, the customer at a brokerage was a file sorted from A to Z. Today the customer has stopped being a file and become a digital risk profile: beyond age and demographics, which hospital they use, how they spend on health, what car they drive, where they get it repaired. I drew the line between customer and user; the passive policy buyer we touched once or twice a year is gone, replaced by a user who researches, compares and looks for an experience. Young people who order food from an app ask why they can't buy insurance just as easily. What decides is no longer only price but experience; the customer wants to understand as much as to buy, and wants instant access to an expert when they need one.

I framed technology's role with examples. Lemonade built a purchase in a few questions and a fast, AI-driven claims experience; Ping An scores health, lifestyle and spending with big data and prices per person; Cover Genius embeds travel and cancellation cover inside the purchase flows of platforms like Booking and Ryanair. A two-hundred-year-old Paris insurer setting its brand aside and refocusing entirely on embedded insurance as Wakam shows that incumbents can transform too. John Hancock rewards an active life with smartwatch data, Zelros suggests the right product to the agent during the call. The conclusion is clear: the point is not to sell insurance but to integrate it into other experiences; the winner is not the company that uses technology but the one that turns it into a business model.

I underlined one point in particular: insurance is still a business of trust, but trust now begins behind the screen rather than at the advisor's desk. Someone who has never met you shares their card details, their health data, the value of their car; you cannot protect that trust with sincerity alone. The single-channel era is over; the customer arrives from a blog, from social media, from WhatsApp. At tamamlayicisaglik.com we built a hybrid structure: quotes are prepared through APIs, the customer moves on alone if they want or step by step with an advisor if they prefer. That gives a sense of control, which is worth as much as trust. The intermediary does not disappear; it changes form. The essence of personalisation is not giving the customer a special product but making the customer feel special. In closing I advised young people to understand the system rather than learn to code, to explain the solution rather than the product, and I said I believe Turkey will become a country that exports insurance technology.

In this talk

• The island picture: the customer has moved to a digital island and the company has to follow; every industry's shared story
• The customer has stopped being a file and become a digital risk profile; the line between customer and user
• What decides is experience, not only price; the customer wants to understand and to reach an expert instantly when needed
• AI, APIs and embedded insurance are not buzzwords but ways to communicate efficiently with the new customer
• Examples: Lemonade's experience design, Ping An's data-driven pricing, Cover Genius's embedded model, Wakam's repositioning
• Personalisation examples: John Hancock's smartwatch data, Zelros's product suggestions to agents; even the tone of communication personalised
• Not selling insurance but integrating it into other experiences; the winner turns technology into a business model
• The single-channel era is over: omnichannel sales and the hybrid structure at tamamlayicisaglik.com, a sense of control
• Trust is being rebuilt digitally; systems that know you, give correct information and are reachable in the hard moment
• The intermediary does not disappear, it changes form: a new-generation role that builds the right platform and runs the right algorithm
• Advice to young people: coding is not a must, understand the system; explain the solution, not the product; Turkey will export insurance technology

Customers now say: don't sell me insurance, be my solution partner. The winners of the future won't be those who use technology, but those who build business models that build trust together with it.