Award Applications

BACKGROUND & CHALLENGE:
The digital age has changed the way we communicate and consume. Consumers are now well connected online and demand speedy and bespoke products and services, making it important for insurers to provide simple, transparent and personalized experiences. As a trusted advisor for our customers, we need to fully integrate technology with the insurance experience – not only to provide what customers expect and to deepen our engagement with them, but also to equip our sales representatives and transform them into digitally-enabled agents.

TARGET AUDIENCE:
Our target audience for our innovative digital tool, MetLife Discovery, was a younger population:
1) For consumer engagement, it was energetic, tech-savvy consumers. Empowered by technology, they decide what they watch, see, and listen to.
2) For recruitment, it was talent aged 30-40 with little or even no insurance experience. They are in a life stage where freedom via time and money is paramount.

STRATEGY:
To engage our target audience, we set out to disrupt the insurance industry by leading digital transformation. With advanced technologies, MetLife Hong Kong is not just providing another channel to buy insurance, but providing a new insurance experience.

Guided by the insight that Hong Kong consumers do not want to be sold to, but instead expect to be empowered to discover for themselves what they need and what is available, we launched MetLife Discovery. This interactive digital platform is powered by local data and analytics, which ensures our agents start relationships through meaningful conversations built on simplicity, speed and transparency.

AN INNOVATIVE SOLUTION:
MetLife Discovery: Empowering You to Discover a Better Future
Because we are a trusted advisor for our customers, we created MetLife Discovery, an engaging tool that revolutionizes the financial planning process.

• SIMPLICITY - Leveraging data analytics and gamification, MetLife Discovery helps consumers quickly and easily explore and visualize their insurance needs dynamically. It is simple, easy to “play”, and available anywhere, anytime via any device – including desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones.

1) Data Analytics
With the ability to capture smarter data, the platform provides coverage mapping that reflects local market statistics to get the conversation started. Because most consumers are not comfortable sharing too much personal data, MetLife Discovery offers consumers helpful information such as what other people (with similar profiles) need – and MetLife Discovery does this by asking only a few questions.

We do not even ask about income. Instead, leveraging government statistics, the platform estimates income range according to the consumer’s occupation. Consumers get a holistic view of insurance needs across life, critical illness, hospital & medical benefits, accident protection and savings – all without disclosing their contact information.

2) Gamification
Unlike most needs exploration applications, MetLife Discovery, the first-of-its-kind tool in Hong Kong, gamifies the process to allow consumers to quickly and easily “play” with different protection options, coverage types and budgets. The simple, intuitive interface is easy to navigate. Consumers can visualize their insurance needs before intelligently and dynamically allocating resources, and even “mix-and-match” coverages.

• SPEED - MetLife Discovery allows anyone to discover what insurance people like themselves are considering by answering a few simple questions through a single screen – which takes less than 30 seconds and does not require their contact information. The front screen of MetLife Discovery is designed to save time as it can prefill some of the fields based on just a few initial replies. If customers enter their age and profession, it suggests an income level based on Hong Kong data.

1) Digitalization
Agents and customers are relieved from paperwork and time spent travelling, ridding the perception that purchasing insurance is a long, tedious process. MetLife Discovery not only streamlines the communication between agents and customers, but also digitalizes financial planning to enhance speed and efficiency. It allows agents to generate illustrations and quotations online instantaneously based on product recommendations after electronic financial needs analysis (“eFNA”).

2) Straight-through Processing
We also employ straight-through processing to optimize the speed we process insurance applications. Allowing information to be transmitted electronically eliminates the needs for hands-on reentry of data. MetLife Discovery, along with this new digital application process, enables payment and administrative approval on the spot, allowing for same day issue of insurance policies.

• TRANSPARENCY - Products are explained in simple sentences and short bullet points, summarizing the main features. The “Helpful Resources” section has a knowledge library that will be constantly updated with easy-to-understand videos, surveys, articles and real-time calculations.

1) Effective Content Strategy
We understand one of the biggest pain points for customers is understanding the insurance contracts they are buying, which are often complicated. If people do not understand our products or benefits, they will probably not buy them.

MetLife Discovery is here to ease the customer’s journey. We embedded useful information to engage and educate our customers and talent in short micro-chunks focused on and relevant to their needs.

2) Social-media Sharing
We equipped MetLife Discovery with a forwarding function to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other messaging tools like WhatsApp and WeChat. This enables users to share interesting and useful content immediately with friends, and also encourages our agents to bond with customers, friends, and one another in a timely manner.

RESULTS:
The results are very encouraging.

MetLife Discovery has created positive word of mouth. Media coverage was overwhelming positive, and we generated around 140 pieces of media coverage globally including earned media value of US$23million — 7x the value of our advertising expenditure for MetLife Discovery.

We have successfully recruited young, energetic and tech-savvy agents. 70% of our agents are of the 80s and 90s generation, and their average age is now 34, against the 45 – 50 typical of Hong Kong’s insurance industry.

Responses from existing agents are positive too – as new agents can learn better and faster with the seamless training and resources of MetLife Discovery. In turn, they can grow more confidently. And with straight-through processing, agents’ productivity is also enhanced as the entire sales journey can be finished in one go.