‘Games’ have been a way of our life since thousands of centuries ago. Today, they find a unique purpose-games are being used to improve non-game “business”. This article discusses how games could play an important role in Insurance’s profitable business growth with go-to-market strategy.
Introduction:
Did you know? Games share certain characteristics with insurance, business and our lives!. Significant common characteristics include uncertainty, challenge, chance, choices, goal, relevance, reward, rules and terms of agreement. Would you like to try a game for fun? Find out these simple words in the word search table. Caution: no one completed this before 3 minutes!
Research and surveys prove that games are not just played for fun and leisure. In fact, around 50% of the people in the age group of 18-55 play to overcome stress as well.
Games have been a way of our life since thousands of centuries ago and have been growing alongside human civilization.
Today, games are being used to improve non-game business. In recent times, a group of scientists devised an online puzzle game called Fold it to understand the structure of protein. The game had 240,000 registered players to configure the structure of an enzyme associated with the AIDS virus online. Tracking their competing scores through shared leaderboards, players solved a problem in three weeks that had stumped scientists for 15 years.
This article discusses a few areas in which games could play an important role in an insurance carrier’s profitable business growth.
Gamification in Insurance
Wiki defines Gamification as “use of game thinking and game mechanics in non-game contexts to engage users in solving problems. Gamification is used in applications and processes to improve user engagement, return on investment, data quality, timeliness, and learning.”
Oxford Dictionaries defines Gamification as “the application of typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity, typically as an online marketing technique to encourage engagement with a product or service: gamification is exciting because it promises to make the hard stuff in life fun”.
Some key points on gamification business:
Gamification is definitely not to turn everything into a game, but to identify the areas which could be enhanced through games.
Games can be classified in to 3 types based on its primary objectives:
(a) FUN Games: Games meant for fun (additional benefits of sharpening mind focus are possible)
(b) KNOWLEDGE Games: Games with the primary objective to improve knowledge
(c) PHYSICAL/EXERCISE games: Game with primary objective to improve physical activity and knowledge
Games can be sub-classified into digital (video/media games) and non-digital games (e.g., board games) in each of the types. Credit points/rewards can be added to motivate or provide satisfaction to inculcate competitiveness. Some companies/institutions sponsor gifts to promote their products if the player crosses certain points.
This article “Gamification in Insurance “has 2 objectives to cover:
(a) To define a simple Go-to-Market strategy covering (1) WHOM to Target? (2) WHAT GAMES TO target? (3) HOW to target?
(b) To identify areas in the insurance business to incorporate a game-driven approach with an objective to enhance the intrinsic value of insurance organization.
(1) WHOM to Target?
A few driving facts or data points to define target are:
~57% of the uninsured world population is in age group 18 – 44; ~61% of this age group plays games & ~65% uses their hand held to play the games.
So it is obvious choice for us to target consumers for gamification between the ages of 18 to 45 years
Gender is another good factor but let’s keep that a side for the moment. Target includes not only the consumers but also insurer’s employees/agents to improve productivity and motivate.
(2) WHAT to target?
The gaming strategy/ideas should focus any one (1) Increase brand awareness, (2) Improve business, (3) reduce risk occurrence (4) improve capital
Let us go through 7 significant insurance lines of businesses (LOB) / product types individually and find out some ideas/strategies under each LOB:
1. Workers compensation (group business)
2.Auto insurance
3. Home owners
4. Health Insurance
5. Travel Insurance
6. Agriculture Insurance
7. Life /Annuity & Wealth Insurance
LOB 1: Workers compensation insurance
Not many see workers compensation as an opportune area to focus for gamification. In fact, this is one of the few mandatory insurance policies across the world, making it perfect to target the age group of 18-45 years for gamification. So let us kick start with how gamification in Workers comps. (a) Can help to reduce combined ratio and (b) can help insurance carrier’s sales force team (employees and agents) to take the right decisions and help to close business deals faster.
Reduction of Combined Ratio: Preventing risk of accident occurrence using gamification:
As industry professionals we might know the combined ratio in workers compensation has remained high, more than 100% for many years. Did you know in which industries the fatality is very high, thereby significantly impacting the combined ratio?
In terms of number of fatalities it is the construction industry and in terms of fatality rates it is fishing/forestry.
So let us take these two industries as examples to see how gaming could reduce claims rate by engaging with insured workers.
Construction worker fatalities prevention ideas:
Some of the key reasons for fatalities among construction workers have been found to be “fall from height”, “improper usage of ladder” or “over-weighing items carried”. Research also says that imparting knowledge in practicing precautionary measures has significantly reduced the number of fatalities. Considering the worker’s ability to grasp knowledge faster and time availability, games can be one of the best ways of socializing precautionary measures amongst this target group.
Games as below could be introduced to impart knowledge for the workers:
1) Digital game: Simulation-driven with more precise realistic information like weight of object to be lifted and ladder capability in which players are asked to choose the right weight objects (out of many objects with differing weights) using a virtual ladder.
2) Knowledge driven: Question to be answered objectively with the help of clues to create long-standing memory and faster awareness.
Workers who play these games can be rewarded or credited with specific points. Competitiveness can be improved through leaderboard techniques.
This type of simple gamification would not only motivate the workers, help to prevent risk occurrence and decrease claims ratio. Insurers could provide discounts for these certified workers and their families in the subsequent season as well. Insurers can identify these certified workers and up-sell opportunities.
Insurers can plan campaigns for these games along with government authorities and or contractor society groups or with employers themselves. These will not only improve existing relationships with their customers but also will improve loyalty among workers to avoid false claims.
Fishing worker fatalities prevention ideas:
Commercial fishing is one of the most dangerous occupations in the United States. Many commercial fishing operations are characterized by hazardous working conditions, strenuous labor, long work hours and harsh weather. The East Coast had the most fatalities followed by Alaska, the Gulf of Mexico, and the West Coast. The Commercial Fishing Safety Research Program identified Alaska as a dangerous zone during the 1990s and the goal was to reduce the fatality due to fleet specific hazards.
In 5-7 years, training on specific topics such as the usage of personal floatation devices and monthly drills were conducted. Amazing results were observed with 94% confirming that the training was the reason for surviving the harsh environment.
The research concluded that imparting education was the one of the best ways to reduce fatalities. Sufficient information was not available whether gamification was part of their strategy.
However, fishing worker compensation insurers can take this as one of the sweet spots for introducing gamification along with employer and research program teams.
Virtual simulation games in fishing and objective questions models are suggested, as these skilled workers may not be highly educated or find class room training is ideal.
As in construction, insurers can use the leader board concept to motivate and increase competitiveness. This will help them achieve their primary objective-to control the claims rate and accelerate profitability. Secondary objectives are improving brand awareness.
The above industry-specific examples are to explore opportunities for gamification. Much more thoughts and ideas for gamification may exist or can be implemented in other industries as well. This could improve profitable growth and enhance customer experience.
Improve Selling of Group Business (Workers’ comp.,) through gamification:
Selling worker compensation insurance requires sharper negotiable skill sets to handle different scenarios. Let us go through some thoughts/game models to help better pricing for different scenarios where gamification can be introduced. Three major scenarios in selling are (1) renewal of business (2) new business competing with incumbent (3) new business opportunity in a competitive environment. Let us take each scenario and match the game models.
Scenario 1: Renewal of business
Renewals primarily involve the customer and insurer/agent alone. Customers may want to bargain certain rates and can expect discounts while insurers tend to increase rates based on claims ratio. As negotiations may become complex, gaming models can help to resolve this problem faster and can help to determine the right strategy for the insurer.
Dominant Equilibrium Game Model could help in this scenario. In this model, the game is played simultaneously by each player who can choose an action that is the best response against any action the other might take. For example, customers may have different options (with add-on covers, adding additional worker segments or locations). For each option customer may re-collect their measures to prevent claims with probability of risk occurrence to arrive at benefits (pay-offs). Insurers can have different sets of options (with their proposed add-on covers) and benefits/profitability (pay-offs).
Dominant equilibrium game model can be used to create a matrix to match customer options to insurer option with each cell representing customer payoff and insurer payoff. In a perfect situation, where both insurer and consumer maximize their pay off/benefits in their respective dominant option, the deal could be ideally closed.
Sales Agent/insurer sales person can play the role of insurer and customer engagement/business manager (who knows the customer well) or the system (if it is a digital game) can play the customer.
The complexity of the game is to dynamically calculate the benefits and payoff in different situations and combinations. It is important to note that the players should have good knowledge and statistical ability to calculate benefits faster, and should not be biased on their roles and become rigid. With these requirements to operationalize games in this process of selling, digital games are the best choice. This will provide enough chances for the player to simulate various scenarios any time and store these for future reference.
This game can provide the best offered price beneficial for both customer and insurer. A month before renewal, this game can be played to sharpen propositions and support proactive preparation for negotiations.
Some may argue the necessity for gamification when simulation tools or spread sheets are available. Tools-based simulation offers one-way communication and does not play the customer and scenarios. Games are interactive and can bring in a sufficiently competitive environment virtually. The player can store these simulations and re-use as required.
Scenario 2: Competing against an incumbent, the customer is interested in the value of services and pricing.
In this scenario, the assumption is that the insurer will have very little knowledge about the competition and relies on industry average pricing for similar perils. 2 gaming models could be used in combination – Cour not-Nash Model and Stackelberg Model.
Cournot-Nash Model: Irrespective of the opponent’s strategy, the insurer takes its individual decision based on accepted underwriting risk.
The Stackelberg Model is based on a leader-follower approach, where the competing insurer may make a strategic decision based on the incumbent’s position. If a player does not depend on the move of the other player and moves on his own, then it is Cournot. If the player moves positions based on the other player’s movement, then it is the Stackelberg Model.
Chess games are one of the best examples, which combine both models. One salesperson can play competitor and another can be an insurer. In the case of digital games, the system can play the role of the incumbent.
Scenario 3: Competition is very high, price is the only point of winning the deal.
If the coverage and services are all agreed and the final best price offered is the deal clincher, playing a game based on the Bertrand Model could get best results. In this model, each firm will want to undercut the rival to avoid losing all sales. The limit of the game is each firm will price with profit of zero.
Gamification can help insurance business teams give the right discounts and pricing for large and fast deal closure. It can also be used to train sales teams on the product by using scenario based technique and objective methods of questioning. This could help decrease the time taken to build competency to be an effective salesperson by 10% to 30%.
LOB 2: Agriculture Insurance
Gamification in agriculture insurance includes educating farmers to tap uninsured markets. Insurers in remote places of South America and Africa are already leveraging games to acquire new customers for their business growth.
The game is simple; each player will be given some hectares of land and with some virtual funds as loan to invest. Each player will be given a chance to pick coins representing average yield (external environment). For example, black coins (very low yield), white (normal yield), and green (very high yield). Also another set of colored chips represent individual luck: purple (for bad luck), white (for normal luck), and yellow (for good luck). The number of times they pick the yield and luck represents the number of seasons. The aim of the game is to evaluate how an individual invests the given funds in different situations. Each time the person could not pay back the loan, the virtual land would be snatched. The finding results were amazing, since farmers switched to indexed insurance options whenever the yields were good and moderate, which helped them to use during bad seasons.
According to the survey, insurers not only imparted knowledge and benefits of indexed insurance, but were also able to design products collaboratively, motivate with real-time experience and increase their business substantially.
This just goes to show that gamification is improving business and reducing the risk.
Digitalization or Technology driven board games (tablet type) can make this as more interesting and as real as possible. For instance, a player could be given a digital map to choose the land which they can virtually own to make them more attached and provide much more experience and brand recall.
Articles for further reading: “Explaining index insurance through financial education games” released by USAID, Michael Charter and “Evidence of Demand for Index Insurance: Ethiopia” released by International Research Institute for climate and society, Columbia university.
LOB 3: Auto Insurance
Technology usage in the auto-insurance business is very high compared to other insurance business lines. Following are a few technology usages and related gamification:
1) Telematics – this is one of the technology master-pieces, gamification is still to be introduced (some suggestions are mentioned in this section)
2) Smart driving – in this real-time implemented gamification, people can take classroom courses or online training, conducted by a non-profit organization. Usersscoring high points get a discount from any registered insurer while buying insurance.
3) One of the Top 5 auto insurers in the US was looking to provide discounts for players of brain-trainer games as an independent survey indicated that the players of these games could avoid tough car accidents due to their high presence of mind and were able to take the right decisions in a fraction of seconds. Those who did not play these games were considered prone to accidents in similar situations.
4) One of the insurers in Australia provided a discount in premiums for a young age group which played a parking simulator game and got high scores. This is to motivate new drivers while parking.
Car driving simulation (not racing games) games are most common in the market; insurer may consider providing discounts for gamers (legal age limit applies) who can overcome or avoid simulated accidents.
With telematics becoming popular in the US and other countries, insurers can collaborate with technology partners to introduce gamification by publishing statistics of driving behavior information like approximate savings of fuel (approximate mileage) or number of times the brakes were applied or other similar parameters gathered within same route in similar traffic situations to help drivers improve their driving behavior. Using this data, insurers can provide additional points and give discounts during renewals. This will greatly enhance business profitability!
LOB 4: Home Insurance
Simulation of homes could be very interesting for game developers. Especially, if they have to develop software across the world in situations demanding houses of different sizes and items. One of the leading IT companies has developed an innovative gamification for home insurance. In this game, a virtual agent takes you through a simulated house with living room, kitchen, bedroom, kids’ room, wardrobe etc. Each room is fully furnished in high detail. The user can choose which room the agent has to move in and pick the item for insurance. When the item is picked it gives voice and text information on maintenance tips. Once the items are selected, it gives the quote instantly and also helps to get a discount if the player chooses to take up a simple game on the maintenance tips and answers correctly! This game will create a wonderful experience for the whole family.
AUS-based leading insurer has come out with a similar simulated home, in which items can be moved from one room to another and use these items for insurance.
LOB 5: Health Insurance:
Gamification is the most discussed topic among health insurers around the world. A few years ago, one of the insurers provided a pedometer that counted steps and time taken to every runner who ran a marathon sponsored by them. After the marathon, runners were allowed to take these meters with them. Some of the new runners, fascinated by the steps counter, started using them on a daily basis and inculcated a habit of regular jogging. Insurers give discounts on premium for those who could show those readings.
With recent development in the gaming industry, most of the new game consoles have gesture enabled gaming with tracking and communication mechanisms. Insurers can get the information through technology partners and provide rewards or premium discounts for regular players. Some game consoles can identify the player through eye or finger recognitions, which can help to track the right person.
Gaming solutions are being used to support the treatment of chronic diseases such as Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) or Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). The gamification approach is said to have the effect of decreasing the span of treatment thereby reducing the overall need for medication. The approach also reduces the amount of time caregivers must dedicate to patients.
One of the IT companies has come out with a very innovative solution covering end-to-end services through a hosting model, focusing on ADHD patients, care givers, physicians and pharmaceutical companies. Advanced statistics are being incorporated for fine-tuning the game from time-to-time based on patient behavior patterns. This type of innovative solutions justifies the use of the gamification in insurance and helps the society.
Tracking measures of individual health conditions through leaderboard using brain teaser games, physical exercise games through consoles, yoga games and all present an ideal way of exploring additional benefits to the insured to retain and gain additional insurers. If the whole family plays these health games, they could motivate each other and reduce health risks. Insurers can leverage this immediately through their technology partners, if they haven’t done so earlier.
In summary, gamification in health insurance is beneficial as it helps insurers (1) motivate and retain customers (2) reduce claims % and (3) create brand awareness.
LOB 6: Travel Insurance:
The number of hours a person spends in air travel is more or less equal to the number of hours spent in travel related activities (like time in the airport, preparation for travel, etc.,). Travel insurers can cleverly use this opportunity by sponsoring games during in flight or media or in mobile to increase brand awareness and improve loyalty of flight travelers.
One interesting area to explore is how to use travel time to impart sufficient knowledge on the locations which the traveler is destined to visit (unless it is the home country). For such, knowledge games are best to target for gamification by insurers. Travel insurers mostly have the travel itinerary of the traveler; a knowledge game application could be made handy for the traveler to play a game that gives essential information on the destination.
For example, questions on must visit places, famous people, essential words of the local language to help in communications, statistics on recent thefts, procedures followed during panic situations, common type of articles/valuables lost by travelers and their comments could all help the travelers to be more secured as well as help insurer to reduce claims. Interactive games will create much affiliation among the consumers.
LOB 7: Life & Annuities, Wealth Insurance
Financial planner simulation is the obvious gamification choice for life & annuity, wealth insurers. As these simulators are available in the market from banking and fund managers, consumers are well aware of these games. These simulators are integrated with real-time financial data and give choices to simulate different scenarios. A very few provide statistics of similar people (of the same age group, income and occupation) and their choices. Insurers can integrate these ideas in their applications to create gamification.
One idea for life and wealth insurers is that they can consider enabling consumers/players for a game (strictly for a game) to set target profits/quote of the basket of portfolio of their choice (whether they have invested in a portfolio or not) for a defined future date.
Publishing the actual results on the date with differences in leader board will improve consumer confidence and can motivate the consumer and increase the probability of them actually investing in those funds with the insurer. This could be repeated by consumers multiple times.
If the consumer get sufficient confidence in these portfolios, can get help from a wealth insurance advisor to customize a product to purchase.
Many more interesting and innovative things in gamification can be expected in the near future. Findings from surveys indicate that this will be prime time for insurers to focus on gamification in their targeted areas or line of business. Insurers can engage the right technology partners to create the right strategy for gamification for selected line of business to capitalize on the novelty factor and acquire new customers.
How to operationalize gamification targeting customers:
a) Focus Area 1: Creating brand awareness
Sponsoring rewards for accumulated points to the gamer can help increase brand recall and improve awareness. Sponsoring games in social media for encouraging the habit of savings among younger age groups can help them to be attached to the brand while they grow.
There are cases where an insurer focused on sponsoring games with an advertisement while launching the game. This was targeted at the age group 8-16 (Gen Z) with intention to build the Gen Z segment affiliation through brand recall.
Insurance carriers need to be careful and avoid sponsoring games that have a negative impact on society or portray controversial subjects as this will increase risk of life or damage.
b) Focus Area 2: Improve business
Converting accumulated credit points for discounts in premium can improve insurers’ business. This could be implemented either in consumer business or group business through knowledge games like brain teasers or exercise games.
Leader boards publishing relevant statistics either on real-time data or game score data with seasonal discounts targeting specific segments of customers will improve the respective line of business. More examples have been covered in each line of business discussed earlier.
c) Focus Area 3: Reducing risk
Creating separate web pages/applications dedicated for online games related to line of business will encourage consumers to visit regularly. Sharing scores/results of people within the same age group in the leader board can make the consumer aware of how the games are helping deliver real benefits.
Regular feedback mechanisms through collaborative tools will help consumers to share their experience and improve their knowledge faster. Insurers can have internal analytics to track activities to improvise the knowledge quotient of consumers and also can reward consumers based on scores to create loyalty.
This can create a niche segment to target for future promotions and create a collaborative environment through gamification to avoid risks by imparting knowledge proactively.
Insurers need sufficient time to evaluate and select the right type of gamification suitable for their business context, considering market, product, people, age group, income, requirements and availability of device, etc. and also determine delivery mode-digital or non-digital.
Digital will require enough evaluation of games and impact, on whether it will emotionally connect with the customer and bring results. Non-digital will require sufficient knowledge, training and equipment to organize with localness.
How to deliver gamification to the market?
Gamification is difficult to execute unless insurers identify the right technology partner with the following criteria:
1) Thought leadership in delivering business and technology solutions.
2) Sufficient knowledge, skill and experience in developing gaming strategy and implementation through innovation.
3) Domain-specific technology solutions: Understanding of different industry verticals to address different set of industry will help Insurers to leverage multi-industry expertise to their diversified target industry segments. This will help insurer and technology partners to jointly create end-to-end service delivery.
4) Global presence with deep understanding of regional and local markets.
5) Strong product partnerships to support require upgrades of gaming based on time-to-time feedback.
6) Best-class in services backed by investments in gamification and center of excellence to leverage for building quick proof of concept.
Before we conclude, here are some Dos and Don’ts in gamification to be considered by insurers:
3 Do’s
(1) Identify the right Global IT Partner (not game companies), having thought leadership in insurance, games and help to create right strategy
(2) Gradually invest in gamification, as this market will give you goodwill returns. Investing early can provide the insurer the privilege of being an early innovator. In a group business, insurers should socialize thoughts
with employer for joint investments to provide
the ethical and best way of reducing the rate of claims. This will increase loyalty to gain good business opportunities.
(3) Focus on segmentation based on products, monitor risks with quantitative measures like KPIs for reducing combined ratio in a set of consumers/workers who are trained and measure the results through survey for improvements, replicate to other segments and modify strategy.
3 Don’ts:
(1) Don’t spend much time and energy to create the gamification strategy on your own.
(2) Don’t expect immediate results from gamification; results will come gradually and may also take around 3 years or more
(3) Don’t choose wrong games for gamification – ask for relevance and how it can improve business benefits.
Conclusion:
We have seen many different thoughts for gamification in insurance starting from covering pricing, expenses reduction, business improvements, and awareness creation. But this is just a starter-gamification in Insurance demands sufficient focus from insurers across globe and requires people with the right skills to bring insurance, gaming and technology together as integrated solution.
For this, insurance carriers have to choose the right next generation technology service provider, to enhance intrinsic value and increase leadership positions.
