{"id":67989,"date":"2022-07-07T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-07T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.majesco.com\/?p=67989"},"modified":"2026-02-18T14:09:41","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T19:09:41","slug":"getting-to-the-prize-a-primer-on-insurance-channel-options","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.majesco.com\/?p=67989","title":{"rendered":"Getting to the Prize: A Primer on Insurance Channel Options"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Trivia question.<\/strong> Which well-known brand managed to place its name into a popular song that is sung by hundreds of thousands of people across the country, nearly every day, except in the winter? Keep reading!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 1908, during every seventh-inning stretch at every MLB ballpark, fans scream out the words \u201cTake Me Out to the Ballgame,\u201d and they ask someone to buy them some peanuts and Cracker Jack. This is product marketing placed conspicuously within a common everyday event. You can\u2019t sing the song without singing the Cracker Jack brand. How fitting it is that it\u2019s Cracker Jack, the product that for 104 years included a free prize, \u201cembedded\u201d in every box! That is ingenious marketing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a bit of marketing ingenuity in insurers as well. We have a history of innovative marketing. Gerber Life\u2019s start with ties to healthy baby food, MetLife and the Peanuts characters, and Geico\u2019s gecko are just a few of the standouts. Yet the most profitable innovations in marketing were also tied to marketing channel expansion, such as Homesite, Progressive, and Esurance\u2019s first-mover status with B2B, B2C, and partnership channels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s insurers, however, are faced with a puzzle. How do they market their products to become well-known, trusted, and valued best-sellers, yet, at the same time, place some products where they can be purchased through other partners or channels, even if they are unknown?<\/strong> This kind of brainstorming and network building is part of insurance\u2019s new methods for innovation. Partnerships are forming within and outside the insurance industry. Insurers are selling each other\u2019s products, leveraging new marketplaces to expand reach, and strengthening the traditional agent\/broker channel with new digital capabilities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A powerful, new distribution ecosystem places insurance directly in the path of a customer\u2019s life journey event, where insurance is relevant and needed. Ecosystems provide a greater impact on sales because they are an \u201coutside\u201d customer approach instead of an \u201cinside\u201d product\/process approach. This is the shift from selling to buying that is so crucial to today\u2019s insurer growth. It\u2019s an approach that naturally reduces infrastructure, operational, and capital expenditures while at the same time bringing in more business. It\u2019s a \u201chigh touch\u201d for the customer and often a \u201clow touch\u201d for the insurer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Majesco and PIMA will soon release a jointly authored report based on primary research with PIMA members, Expanding Channels for Insurance: A Spectrum from Traditional to Affinity and Embedded<\/strong>. In it, you will find a comprehensive look at today\u2019s insurance channel options, and you will see how these channels are developing. It is excellent conversation material for your next strategy meeting. The results are eye-opening and valuable because the channel spectrum is wider than you think and there are great \u201cwhite space\u201d opportunities for growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In today\u2019s blog, we provide a short review of insurance\u2019s channel spectrum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Channel Spectrum<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Distribution options fall across a spectrum of channels, including direct to the customer (B2C and B2B), agent\/broker, other insurers, other financial entities, marketplace exchange or platform, and embedded as depicted in Figure 1 below. Embedded insurance is among the newest options and expands the traditional affinity model by leveraging technology and an ecosystem of new partnerships. Numerous interesting examples of partnerships between insurers and other industries are popping up on this end of the spectrum, including GM, Ford, Tesla, SoFi, Petco, Airbnb, Uber, Intuit, and more. Embedded insurance is offered through three different modes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n