Triple threat: A person, especially a performer or athlete, who is proficient in three important skills within their particular field. This generally makes them highly successful.

Within cricket for example, there are 14 batsmen with international hundreds in all three formats from Ireland, West Indian, two New Zealanders, three Indians, a couple of Sri Lankans, a pair of Aussies, a Bangladeshi, a South African, a Pakistani… and no Englishmen. Kevin O’Brien (Ireland); Chris Gayle (West Indies) ; Martin Guptill and Brendon McCullum (New Zealand) ; KL Rahul, Suresh Raina, and Rohit Sharma (India) ; Mahela Jayawardene and Tillakaratne Dilshan (Sri Lanka) ; Shane Watson and Glenn Maxwell (Australia) ; Tamim Iqbal (Bangladesh) ; Faf du Plessis (South Africa) ; Ahmed Shehzad (Pakistan) .

Triple threat for movie field would be a person who is a writer, producer and director. For example you can look to James Cameron, Christopher Nolan, Peter Jackson and George Lucas and they have all delivered movies on a global scale with huge box office results.

How can this be considered in business too. What is a triple threat insurance company? What are the three factors you need to make a highly successful insurance company? Technology – Capacity – Distribution

When you look at the new insurtech players like Lemonade or BIMA or ByMiles or Bought by Many we see one or two of the three elements in their armoury but not 3.

Lemonade and ByMiles have the tech and but rely on their partners for Capacity plus they are fighting in the distribution arena ny going direct. BIMA may have distribution, but again capacity is via a partner. All these are weak in 1 or 2 areas. They are relying on partners for capacity and what if this changes? They need money for marketing and what if this starts to become harder to get? They have tech but can they sustain its growth as they scale?

I am not saying we have all the answers however we believe we are a triple threat in insurance to our competition and this gives us the edge.

Technology – we have our own tech team. This is being built in the markets where we develop and sell our products. This means the tech is both for our customers and managed with them in mind. We have a depth of talents, traditional insurtech together with AI and Machine Learning capabilities.

Capacity – we are a licenses P&C and Life carrier. This means we can write a wide range of products from property through to life covers. This means we can put a customer at the centre and support their needs. Life. Property. Work. What ever they want we can support them. We don’t have to rely on other companies to moderate our ambition.

Distribution – this is where the insurance industry normally hands over to aggregators or brokers. We don’t. We have built up partners that allow us to embed our products in to systems that are direct to customers. The sales friction is reduced and the customer journey is greatly improved.

We match our key capabilities with our people. Our people are experts in insurance and sales. Our triple threat capabilities empower our people to deliver the best products and service that we can. Our people have these three core capabilities at their fingertips and this powers our company forward.

What is the saying? “To have a finger in every pie”. Someone who has a finger in every pie is involved in a lot of different activities or knows about a lot of different things. This idiom can be used positively, to show that someone is energetic and has varied skills and interests. However, in a different context, it can be used in a more critical way, to say that someone is too involved in activities that should not concern them.

As a start-up – well we are a mature start up in that we have recently merged several companies with pedigree going back over 16 years – we are always being pushed to focus by industry specialists and gurus and we do indeed focus. However, when I look around successful insurance companies and insurance agencies always see diversity in their business, indeed spreading risk across a multitude of areas is all part of insurance success. I see companies with fingers in many pies.

Having a diverse and spread book of business is an essential part of our success and strength.

I have been accused of having fingers in many pies and when I have presented alongside other start-ups we are the only company that has a diverse book of business. Lemonade has only just added a second line of business in pets, by miles is only about cars, and we see this single focus all the time. And yet the successful insurance companies – many that back these insurtechs – have a very wide cross section of business and so they should – it spreads the risk. Successful insurance players know that you need a wide portfolio to have long term success.

We are a digital insurance company. Our goal is to server the unserved globally, these are individuals and businesses, all people who cannot readily find a relevant insurance product to serve their needs. By definition, this is a diverse and large cross section of risks. We are committed to serving our community and building services and products to reduce the risks for them and be the safety net when things happen.

When people look at our company we will not fit in the normal insurtech box and we more accurately fit into the digital insurance company box. This is a box with very few companies in it.

Incumbents are on the edge of this box in that they have digital initiatives and goals and we see them moving slowly into the circle.

Insurtechs are also on the periphery and many are digital but again few are taking the risk, they are effectively part of the MunichRe train or other insurance investors in this space.

So the upshot of the accusation of fingers in pies is that we will continue to grow our business and focus on building a diverse book of business to protect our community. Without a strong company, you cannot do all the things that you want to do. If you want to help the unserved, as we do, then you need a strong and wide platform to leap from.

Social Impact, what is it and can we do it?

What is it? A significant, positive change that addresses a pressing social challenge.

Can we do it? Creating social impact is the result of a deliberate set of activities with a goal matching definition above.

The point about the social part of the phrase is that the impact has to be focused on creating change and supporting what we can all agree on to benefit human on the planet. By definition it’s an impact on something we care about.

Today many people want to work for companies create social impact. I get that. On our web site we have (had) a page on social impact and when I put this page up I believed that part of what we did was good things and I wanted to shout about them. Show we had a heart and wasn’t like other insurance companies.

However over the last few months I have been reviewing our efforts about social impact and I got to thinking….

We are an insurance company. Surely everything we do as an industry has a social impact? A conscious insurance company fully focus on its social impact and responsibility, is this the definition of social impact? Isn’t insurance the ultimate social impact service?

Is this true today? Much of the ‘western’ focused insurance effort is fully focused on addressing companies and people that MUST buy insurance to fulfil a contract obligation or to spread risk from their balance sheet or to mitigate risk in buying something. Their audience focus is top earning people or companies. Globally this represents the top 3%, companies in the top 30,000 out of the 100 million or so companies and top 200,000,000 people out of the general population of over 7 billion. This audience represents where a majority of insurance is sold globally by value. If there is social impact it is totally focused on the few not the masses. It’s where the top brokers and insurers are focused. Therefore, they is very little social impact generated by the general insurance industry.

What about the rest of the planet’s people and businesses? They are looking for social impact but they buy very little insurance, this I believe is the opportunity. The opportunity to discover why they don’t buy and then to deliver service and products to them to make insurance relevant and easy for them to participate in and to release the benefits of insurance to them and their community.

This is why I have taken our ‘social impact’ page down. We are social impact. Our message is that our services and products help you and your community in your time of need. We help the community recover quickly when things happen. This is our social impact. Providing a safety net to allow people to recover quickly is our way of providing social impact. Delivering social impact is through the core of our business and buried in our DNA.

MIC Global provides its social impact most visibly through the payment of claims; however, the purchase of the policy is equally important as this is where the community is built. When people take out a policy, they are supporting themselves and the community in equal measure. The act of buying a policy enables the customer to do things with the risk covered for themselves, their business and their family. This could be going on a long trip or taking a loan out to grow or protecting their property. The policy covers the risk and allows progress of the person, business, family and their community. The act of buying the policy builds up a premium pot in MIC, this allows us to pay claims when unfortunate things happen to our customers.

The payment of claims is especially important to us and we try to pay claims very quickly. The way we do this is to make it clear what is needed when the policy is taken out and then we track claims activity every day. On some our programs we even contact customers to make sure they are making claims if we think they should be. Creating social impact is what drives our company – the bigger the impact we make the more successful our products are. The result is positive economic activity and protection of that activity when things happen. The result is that a community grows in wealth and security over time.

“In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing.”

Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest.

The play is full of contradiction as the characters say one thing and then instantly reverse their stance to say the opposite thing.

This quote seems to sum up the play. Perhaps it sums up many businesses? Say one thing but do another.

Here at MIC Global we endeavour to say and act in the same. We are on a path to affect and look after the lives of many people through insurance.

This may seem an odd path to tread and the Oscar Wilde quote could sit quite nicely on top on the insurance industry – sell a policy and fight the claim. Style and Sincerity.

Integrity in important to us. We know we are the safety net. Our customers are not buying a policy because they expect to use it immediately, they are buying it to support them when the unexpected happens. We need to be there when this happens. We need to deliver in their time of need.

We are simplifying the insurance process though user friendly technology, simplified policies and quick claims processes. A digital insurance company that is connected start to finish.

What is microinsurance? Traditionally this is insurance for the developing world and generally term life, linked to a Micro Loan or a form of Accidental Death. We at MIC Global are extending this vision of microinsurance.

Our vision is insurance for the globe, across a range of products including term life and property and casualty for micro and small businesses and for people and families who have an annual income of less than $30,000 a year.

Micro and Small Businesses range from 1 person up to 50 people. These businesses could be an Uber driver, a small stall holder, a farm and up through to a start-up tech company and on to an established small manufacturing company. Community businesses, family businesses, your business.

Globally our target income bracket for customers will vary country by country. The aim is to always have products that are affordable and relevant to the person or business in that community.

We keep hearing about the how the insurance industry is being disrupted through Insurtech tech and other players entering or threatening to enter the market, Google again raising their head in the UK. When I hear this news for other industries – say Netflix/Amazon for TV/film – it is all about growth, new channels, targeting and increased efficiency. However, these stories just do not seem to be part of the conversation in the general insurance arena, except for China that is.

The Insurtech market in China isn’t led by the small start-ups one might expect. There is large digitally savvy incumbents—or large internet companies—commanding the emerging and still-growing market. Certainly, big Chinese insurers such as Ping An Insurance, Taikang Insurance Group, and Sunshine Insurance Group do partner with small innovative companies, but they also aggressively take the lead and drive innovation internally. This is not the western model.

Maybe western insurers think there is enough insurance – the global figures point to that – not much growth – certainly not stellar growth pushing penetration across the world.

The global economy (2018) is circa $90 trillion GDP. Insurance (non-health) is around $3,900 billion or around 4-5% of the economy, with P&C coming in at $1,500 Billion.

These are BIG numbers, but should the industry be proud of them? I think not.

These numbers leave many businesses and people all throughout the world grossly underinsured, particularly in developing countries, these communities need an efficient risk transfer mechanism that is effective and focused on the small enterprise.

Is there any growth?

The overall growth for the past decade (2008 – 2018) was +3.0 % – which for ANY industry in the modern age is very low! Remember we have had the internet for over 20 years, we have had mobile computing for 10 years plus, we have had Insurtech growth for 5 years. This is a low growth rate especially when the vast number of people in the world are simply not insured or under insured. To put this in perspective, and with a focus on the $1,500 billion P&C insurance sector, a majority of this insurance premium, around 40%, is emanating from the US property sector.

What are the reasons for low growth?

In 2016, the weakness of the European market was to blame for poor growth, while in 2017 it was that of the US market. 2018’s dismal performance is due to the -3.4% contraction of the Chinese life insurance market, which has a global market share of 12%.

The effects of this poor growth in the global insurance is that the penetration (gross written premiums as a percentage of GDP) rate has followed a downward trajectory in the past decade, from 6.3 in 2008 to an estimated 5.4 in 2018.

This is odd. On the one hand, global risks are constantly increasing – just think of climate change, demography, cyberattacks or geopolitical shifts. But on the other hand, people and companies worldwide are spending an ever smaller proportion of their incomes on insurance. The result is an ever-widening protection gap, be it with respect to natural catastrophes, cyber risks, healthcare or pension savings.

Does this mean the world is under insured?

Is the main reason for this in an inability of the insurance market to develop, market and and sell products to its customers? I think it is. This is the opportunity for a digital insurance company.

The opportunity is to develop insurance solutions, with straight through processing, which people not only need but that they want at a point-in-time and value because it enables what they are doing in the moment. Do this, and the company would own a space that is woefully underserved today. To develop the ‘iPOD’ of insurance – $1,000 dollars of insurance in your pocket! Do this and you would be working in a space that does not have competition.

MIC Global will be that digital insurance company.

Our vision fully supports our clients’ growth ambitions by limiting the impact of our services on their processes, whilst delivering essential insurance cover for their customers.

At MIC Global we are focused on changing the way business insurance is developed and processed. We are insurance with AI built in with API’s. We are in the forefront of that change; developing policies by the season, job, by the hour, by the day and by the Km, thus fitting our model to that of the platforms and the way small and micro businesses see risk. We are unbundling business policies so that the cover offered fits with peoples and business needs or the actual job or process being undertaken. Making Business Insurance transactional.