A quick-fire interview with Ben Bolton, MD of Gracechurch about our sister company Insurindex – what it is, what it does and why it's making waves through the industry.
So, what is Insurindex?
Insurindex was set up to showcase the positive performance of insurance businesses based on empirical evidence from the independent Gracechurch surveys and other curated sources.
Insurindex educates and improves understanding of the sector (which is sorely needed) through explaining the role and strengths of the leading brands and providing curated insight on industry trends.
We also compare Brand performance with financial performance helping to clarify the role that brand strength plays in growth and profitability and the most valuable brands.
What are the measures that you use to determine the brand indexes?
We apply a range of classic questions that we have deployed on all our trend surveys, now going back over 20 years, and these include, top of mind awareness, brand familiarity, favourability, personality and the widely used performance measure Net Promoter Score or NPS.
The index is based on a blended score of these different metrics indexed against the competition.
In all of these there is a strong focus on customer experience because we believe that is the industry’s blind-spot.
Who is Insurindex aimed at?
Anyone and everyone in the commercial insurance industry or who is interested in it (including new talent) so that includes insurance, reinsurance, brokers, TPAs, law firms, MGAs and underwriting & broking teams, consultants and the whole range of other suppliers in the vast insurance ecosystem.
How do you commercialise Insurindex?
Think of Insurindex as a specialist publishing channel for high quality proof-of-performance (think: 8 out of ten cats prefer…): quality third-party evidence is increasingly valuable to insurers in a competitive market where they have to prove why they should be chosen. The creatively packaged evidence can be used in campaigns and for sales support material when developing business. The fact it sits in a curated, independent accessible channel makes it more valuable than if say and insurer just puts something on their website.
We are working on a partner model basis (like a club) where we provide Insurindex partners with a menu of options including Spotlight areas where they can show themselves at their best with our supporting commentary and metrics. They can also sponsor relevant indexes – for example the upcoming broker talent rankings.
We have different partner models to suit different types of business and development stages including: Powerbrand partners, Mission partners and Innovation partners.
We will be offering marketing benchmarking reports to Partners and regular workshops for marketing and BD teams to see and understand the latest techniques – especially the ones that will give them the edge over the competition.
Partners will have access to a suite of Insurindex 360 tools where we can analyse their performance across all relevant digital channels to help them execute successfully targeted digital campaigns – for example implementing a social media uplift campaign when they achieve something special.
And of course we will be helping and talking with partners all the time, keeping them abreast of the latest developments.
So it’s actually about hard commercials with a sprinkle of creativity.
What are your overall goals?
Insurindex was born out of frustration - Julian Steedman of Brandex my business partner and I knew just how important brand is and its commercial value to a business that’s based on trust – but we felt that too often this was not being leveraged sufficiently or even understood by ‘macho’ leaders who see it as fluffy. The result is that too many insurers are me-too in brand terms and deadly dull in terms of their marketing which is just a turn-off for everyone – and most important to attracting the diverse talent the market desperately needs to thrive.
So, our goal is to create a better insurance industry through educating the market about the power of brand and raising the service performance bar across the sector – if people understand that brand is ‘a promise kept’ they’re less likely to trash hard-won reputations for short term financial gain.
Want to learn more? Head over to the Insurindex website. or email Nick Grazier, Head of Commercial for Insurindex.