Advisers need to embrace technology or face dying out, according to Lourdes Peters, president and CEO of independent benefit advisory insurance brokers World of America.
According to Peters, who was addressing delegates at the Health Compass Transforming the Transaction in the International Private Medical Insurance Market event, while Covid has driven technological advancements of products over the past year, the health and protection sector needs to design products tailored to a new generation.
She explained that products need to be adapted to generation Z and millennials and that these generations are not interested in the type of cover their parents would have signed up to.
“As brokers, if we don’t use technology, we’re going to die. We’re going to die,” she said.
“That’s sped up whatever we used to do because we have to reach a different audience now in a much different way and that’s what I’m trying to do with the companies – come up with products that deal with those type of generations because we don’t want to lose them.”
But Amy MacKay, sales director at Cigna Europe, added she did not think technology could replace the role of the broker.
“We’re living in a world of robotic, artificial intelligence, automation – it’s not going to go away. It’s going to continue to grow in importance but I don’t think it can ever replace a relationship or a partnership,” she said.
“I still really do believe that that is key, working with those intermediary partners to offer the right level of support, the right level of service to ensure they can then provide that to their customers is absolutely key.”
