More than insurance - Transformation dilemmas

Photo has been made between 2 lockdowns.

A blog post that I wrote in 2018 popped up in my social media feed recently. When I saw it, I have decided to restart my blog, but with a slight twist. As a start, I have changed the name from “Insurance2.0” to “More than insurance – Transformation dilemmas”. (I also kept the old posts since it might be interesting to read them in 2-3 years again.)

The reason is simple: writing a blog has two benefits. Therapy for the writer :) and hopefully something interesting to delve into for the reader.

In the last years, quite a lot has happened around us. We are in the COVID pandemic, middle of our industry’s transformation, one of the most traditional and most regulated ones. We do our best to take the leading part in redesigning insurances with UNIQA and CHERRISK. A big part of that challenge is to motivate individuals who make those changes happen.

Especially in situations like the first Covid lockdown, when we not only moved to MS Teams but also launched CHERRISK in Germany. How were we able to keep the guys seen below on board to write insurance wordings and conditions at 5:00 AM? Luckily, we’ve managed it, since without their commitment, CHERRISK would not have been able to launch in Germany on the next day.

 Credit to:Rita, Petra, Viki (and Janesz, who took the picture :)) 

Another interesting question is: how can we make those hard, strategic calls against our instincts and previous experiences and learnings? Many things have changed, and what worked in the past, cannot work anymore the same way.

Due to this, in the last years we had many successes, but we have made quite a few mistakes as well. We all like to talk and give presentations about the former, but failures are just as valuable. They are learning opportunities, which help us do better.

So, what did we achieve lately? We have transformed the loss-maker UNIQA Biztosító into a trendsetter profit contributor company in the last five years. 

In three years we have also built CHERRISK from the ground up into an ecosystem that is not only present in Hungary but has thousands of users in Germany too.

It all came down to shared vision, tests, replanning, and strict execution. We have learned a lot, and we are still learning every day. The last months will also help us to move on as a stronger company into the future.

Important note/disclaimer: for most of these blogs, I will invite someone who has been witnessing our journey and help us on the way. With this, I will try to bring another, fresh voice into the storytelling. :)

I also tend to torture myself (and my teams) with impossible deadlines, SO on 1^st of April the first “new” blog, not just as an April joke, will have a look into:

“Innovation is the COVID (or the vaccination) of the traditional industries...”

It will be about:

• How our transformation was started in Hungary in 2016?
• Is it already decided if innovation is the cure or the disease for the insurance industry?
• Why I forgot to put HR in the EXECOM? :)

So let’s start on the 1^st of April! Till then have a look into the old posts below if you like!