Unum is spending £20m a year on developing its group risk proposition, CEO Mark Till revealed.
Speaking at the Insurance Innovators Summit, Till added that successful acquisitions focus on providing continuity, clarity and improvement for customers.
In May, Generali announced it was exiting the UK group risk market with Unum securing the renewal rights for the insurer’s UK employee benefits business across its group risk product range.
In addition, Unum also joined the global Generali Employee Benefits (GEB) Network immediately to jointly provide UK employee benefits solutions to global employers.
Earlier this year, Till spoke to Health & Protection about the insurer’s deal and the changes across the year, and expanded on some of those subjects further.
Three key areas
Till told delegates that when companies hit the acquisition trail, customers need three things – continuity, clarity and improvement.
“Continuity is about continuity of supply, but also people that you deal with,” Till explained.
“I think we underestimate how skilled the people who work in these sectors are and therefore when General’s business came across to us, we were very keen to bring in the Generali workforce.
“It gave continuity to the brokers, but it also allowed us to provide continuity to the product recipients – the end customers.”
What it means for customers
Clarity focusing on explaining to customers what is happening and what it means for them is the second key area of focus, Till added.
The final area is investment in product and proposition development, which Till suggested may have been the key reason for Generali moving their business to Unum.
“Generali recognised it was increasingly hard to invest the amounts of money required to keep propositions current and fresh,” Till continued.
“Unum is spending £20m just on improving group risk products each year, so they came to us because we had the highest customer satisfaction in our market, we have new innovations like our Help@hand digital app and a new employer portal.
“Getting that message to customers so they see they are changing their provider, but the provider has got a stronger proposition that will help them more with the needs they are trying to protect.”