#Insurers look at ways to embrace #socialnetworking as it goes mobile. Social networking enables easier, faster distribution of #customcontent to "friends and neighbors."

1. BEST’S REVIEW
Technology Insight
Technology July 2008
t echnology is about solving not only is there an emerging market of
By business problems and help- social networking sites (research esti-
Gates Ouimette ing to increase efficiencies mates $3 billion in size by 2012), but
and/or effectiveness with verifiable Gartner predicts power will increas-
return on investments. so, how’s an ingly shift to the consumer. iBM’s Mar-
insurer going to get ahead of the social keting 2.0: How Web 2.0 is Changing
networking curve as it goes mobile? Marketing Forever found web 2.0 mar-
there are few real-life examples in keting efforts must be “real, relevant
insurance to provide a valid perspec- and responsive.” with $1.4 billion to be
tive on how to monetize, or receive spent on mobile advertising in 2008,
other business benefits from mobile there’s much at stake for insurance
social networking. However, as with the marketers to understand and embrace
internet and resultant benefits to those this concept.
companies who embraced it, similar while insurance is perceived to be
an older consumer product, the roles
New Horizons
mobile social networking can play in
serving the needs of existing insurance
customers over age 35 and increasing
the adoption of insurance products by
younger adults include:
Insurers look at ways to benefits can be achieved by those who • Marketing and target advertising:
support a learn-by-doing approach. the mass market of one now is becom-
embrace social networking Mobile social networking is an ing reality via mobile social networking.
as it goes mobile. extension of social networking—a insurers should understand the role of
subset of social computing. social com- mobile social networking elements as
puting is a group of application families part of a marketing mix. For example,
that leverage the next generation of the 40% of Myspace users tend to be over
world wide web—web 2.0—to enable 35. sites such as norwich union’s Zuz-
user-generated content. in a recent zid can be used to gather customer
iBM presentation, an example of the feedback from these “silver surfers.”
magnitude of this shift to user-generated • product development: Humana
content is highlighted by an increase created www.ChangeNow4Health
from a few hundred thousand web sites .com, which includes an innovation
to tens of millions of sites. with the ease xChange where the ultimate consumer
in creating and viewing web sites, sud- can help write a book,“tomorrow’s
denly there are millions of companies Health Care.” what better way for an
and individuals publishing, distributing insurer to solicit product development
and sharing content. input and guidance?
Social networking enables with all this content now available, • Claims processing: the benefits
easier, faster distribution social computing tools such as blogs, to “in-field” claims processing from
of custom content to search engines, wikis and standards (for mobile social networking should be
example, XMl, Rss), enable easier access evident, especially in times of natural
“friends and neighbors.” to information and its consolidation to disasters, terrorist acts, etc.
produce custom content. social network- • employee recruiting: the insurity-
ing sites, such as Myspace and linkedin, Microsoft Millennials in Insurance
then enable easier, faster distribution Survey 2008 found that technology
of that custom content to “friends and appears to be a recruitment driver for
neighbors” and to anyone with a web the insurance industry. insurers should
browser. Add distribution of, and access understand the role of social network-
to, this custom content via cell phone ing initiatives such as yahoo’s y! Kick-
and you have mobile social networking. start initiative on employee recruiting.
why is this important to insurers? while the above list covers much
ground, the potential impact of mobile
social networking is even more broad.
Gates Ouimette is a Best’s Review col-
while insurance may not be sexy, social
umnist from Massachusetts. He can be
reached at gateso@yahoo.com. networking sites can change that. BR
100 Best’s Review • July 2008 • RepRint
Copyright © 2008 by A.M. Best Company, inc. All Rights Reserved. Reprinted with permission.