Over a year ago at our Customer Advisory Meeting 2020 I asked our insurance clients to partner with us on what was effectively an adventure really, an exploration with data. At that time we began a series of many meetings where we asked clients in partnership with us to put all of their data needs on the table for discussion. We wanted to take a view on what the industry needs, to look at the data that we have, and see if we can bring those parts together and find ways to bring more value to the industry.

I want to thank those clients who took part in those conversations with us and it turned out to be very timely, coming just before the general disruption of the pandemic and now with a wave of new regulation. Now is a good time to reflect about what resulted from those conversations and for me it was also the start of my personal journey, since taking over to lead the UK insurance business and being able to have those deep and meaningful conversations with clients.

Since coming over to the UK in summer 2019 to lead the UK & Ireland business, and now Europe, I have been able to immerse myself in the culture. At the time of our annual customer event in 2020, I was explaining how after six months on the job I really hadn’t had much opportunity to experience much of what the UK and Ireland had to offer. And I was expecting and hoping in 2020, to get out and visit the regions, meet the people and see the countryside. Unfortunately, that was not possible due to the stay-at-home order, so I did the next best thing I learned by watching television!

But seriously, the last 12 months has been a learning experience for me, everything from the way insurance is delivered, the data gaps, the challenges and opportunities, which in many ways are similar but also different from the US. Here’s what I have learned over the last year and how those client-centric conversations are resulting in meaningful data-led products.

In some instances, we just sat down with our client teams and our team, and we talked about information. We brought some data to the table and clients brought some data to the table and we just looked. There was no predetermined outcome in mind. We just wanted to understand what we could learn. And we learned in general, three different things.

Firstly, sometimes the data didn’t tell us anything. So we know we don’t need to worry about that information and we set that aside. Secondly, in some cases the data just reconfirmed what you already knew or had suspected. So getting confirmation from a third party was very helpful to us. And the third area of opportunity really came about when we found opportunity for synergies, and with clients we were able to create solutions to benefit a specific business.

So for us at LexisNexis Risk Solutions this was about coming together, without any preconceived notion, just looking at data and trying to be better at what we do. It was a great learning for all sides.

We also took the time to work with some clients to build new products. That was the exciting part of the business as well for us last year. The first part of that was the Know Your Customer solution LexID® for Insurance, where we took information that we know about consumers, identities, and we delivered it in a batch mode starting out, that was phase one. And in phase two, we will now be delivering this at point of quote.

The idea with LexID® for Insurance is to use our linking and matching technology to help clients understand more about their customers, prospects and overall business. LexID® can help them gain a single customer view at new business, again at renewal and across their claims management systems, and in any other part of their business where the bridging of information becomes important.

The second product we launched was the result of an acquisition at the level of LexisNexis Risk Solutions Group. We acquired a company called Emailage® and we were able to take that fraud detection solution that had been so important in stopping fraud in the financial services section and deliver it as a score at the point of quote for the insurance market, as LexisNexis® Emailage Rapid. I want to thank those clients who partnered with us to help make these new solutions possible.

2021 came around and I thought I would be visiting clients. Well for the first part of the year that was a dream not a reality, but it gave us time to think more about our assets and about how we could leverage what we have, to make our clients’ business a little bit better.

From that process came our new solution for the personal lines broker market, where we took several different pieces of data that we know to deliver valuable insights.

We pulled them together to create our Broker Intelligence solution, that we are now delivering to the broker community to help streamline the application process and improve the accuracy of pricing. I’m thankful to the first brokers who worked with us in this area as well as our distribution partners and software houses.

Our final initiative of 2021 will be one of our biggest to date, and it involves building visibility of claims data across the insurance continuum: building across markets (home, motor and commercial), an all claims database. It’s important to break the logic of that down a little bit.

To optimise the industry benefit and the consumer benefit, all of the claims from those three markets will eventually reside in one contributory database, all in one place. The benefit of doing that for an insurance provider is so that when the time comes to understand a risk, whether it’s an individual or a property or a vehicle, you can understand any and all prior losses on any current or historic policy at any point in the customer lifecycle. So for an insurance provider, imagine being able to use motor claims information in your home business, or commercial van in your personal motor business, and then vice versa.

The possibilities are huge. But without industry cooperation and our capability in bringing those pieces of information together through advanced data linking, the industry will not have access to this next level of insight.

Again, I would like to thank the early adopters and the pioneering clients work with us on LexisNexis® Precision Claims for Home right now. The early adopters benefit from first mover advantage and it’s their input that we hear when it comes to shaping the solution, and supporting the market-driven innovation. As we move into 2022 and beyond we will be looking at doing the same for motor claims and we invite clients to step up early and participate in that.

Our customers can improve profitability by making better decisions faster, gaining a competitive advantage and protecting privacy and security, with unique insights from the contributory data solutions that we manage. We know that breaking down data silos in claims is going to generate a lot of increased efficiency, consistency and benefits for our clients and in turn their clients.

Follow the link to the LexisNexis Risk Solutions website to find out more about how we support insurance providers.