Cheaper, quicker, better the demands of an increasingly price-sensitive customer base are growing every year. Insurance products must be affordable, easy to purchase and offer value beyond simple protection if they are to attract the modern customer, but how can carriers achieve this whilst maintaining profitability?

To answer this question, Reuters Events put together a quick 10-minute read on what's hot in product design and the implications for North America's carriers.

Download the free whitepaper now: Five Priorities for Optimum Insurance Product Strategy & Profitable Growth

Featuring perspectives from industry thought-leaders:

• David Essary, President, Allstate Benefits & Health Solutions
• Paul Montanari, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer, Allstate Benefits & Health Solutions
• Rob Schaffer, Vice President, Product Solutions, Individual Life Insurance, Prudential Financial, Inc.
• Loi Stoddard-Graham, Vice President, Business Growth and Retention, MetLife Legal Plans
• Ryan Vigus, Executive Vice President of Personal Lines Product Management, CSAA

Covering top tips on how to create a watertight product strategy:

• Prioritize Adaptability: Products must be flexible to meet customer needs and evolving risk and design a strategy that utilizes innovation labs and customer feedback to ensure your products continually align with the changing ecosystem.
• Invest in Innovation: Foster a culture where outside-the-box thinking is encouraged, and new, productivity-boosting products can be quickly introduced to remain competitive in a commoditized market.
• Balance Human & Machine: Many customers want to purchase and manage their policies digitally, simply, and quickly. Focus on embedded and digital-first products to better resonate whilst retaining the balance of human support where needed.

Access the free whitepaper now and have it sent straight to your inbox

Despite a challenging economic environment, the 2022 holiday shopping season exceeded projections, according to eCommerce intelligence from ACI Worldwide, a leading global provider of real-time digital payments solutions, which analyzes millions of eCommerce transactions on an annual basis to assess year-over-year growth. From October through December 2022, eCommerce transactions saw a 21% increase, beating estimates by 6%. 
 
Consumers spent more on gaming and travel, as both sectors saw a significant uptick in transaction volumes during Cyber Weekend 2022. The gaming sector experienced a 153% increase in transaction value, and the travel sector experienced a 57% increase. Meanwhile, the retail sector experienced a 4% increase in volume over Cyber Weekend, driven by general retail, which saw a 14% increase, and sports and athletic sales, which experienced a 13% increase in transaction volume. 

“Consumers upped their spending this holiday season despite increasing economic pressures,” explained Basant Singh, head of merchant segment, ACI Worldwide. “While inflation accounted for much of the year-over-year rise in holiday spending, our data shows a steady uptick in transactions, with many consumers buying goods and services via mobile devices, and in many cases using digital wallets as a preferred payment method. We expect to see these trends continue in 2023.” 

Mobile shopping surged on Black Friday
 
Consumers used their smartphones to make key purchases as deals dropped over Cyber Weekend. In total, mobile devices drove a 17% increase in transaction volume throughout the course of the weekend. 36% of all transactions were processed via mobile devices during Black Friday. Cyber Monday played an equally significant role in driving the uptick in mobile usage, with transaction volumes over smartphone devices soaring by 43% in comparison to last year.
 
eCommerce shopping is becoming more secure 

Fraud attempts decreased by 0.5% during the Q4 holiday shopping season. Mobile fraud attempts saw a decline of 0.6%, and eWallets saw fraud attempts declining by 0.8%. Merchants are increasingly investing in better fraud management and prevention capabilities, as many now look at fraud prevention as a revenue generator. As a result of added security measures by eWallet providers (i.e., biometric authentication, encryption, etc.), this category saw the biggest decline in fraud attempts.  
 
Venturing in-store to save costs
 
Data from ACI finds that shoppers actively sought out Buy Online, Pick-Up In-Store (BOPIS) options as a cheaper alternative to shipping and waiting for products to deliver. Transaction values for BOPIS increased by 18%, with the average ticket value (ATV) increasing by 26%, or $26. 
 
Buy now, pay later options continue to lure holiday shoppers 

The go-to payment method for Black Friday — BNPL — rose by 87%, with the ATV increasing by 42%, or $57. 
 
For high-value products, credit and debit cards were the top choices. Transactions for credit and debit cards experienced an 8% increase, with the ATV climbing by 43%, or $49. eWallets saw a comparable increase in transaction volumes, rising by 32%.  

“Use of digital wallets during the last holiday season signals a broader trend that we expect to play out in the year ahead,” added Singh. “Consumers, especially younger shoppers, are embracing digital wallets as a mainstream payment method. More than half of consumers (52.7%) used a digital wallet in 2021, according to our data. This represents a 33% increase over the last five years.” 

To meet this demand, ACI recently launched its ACI Wallet Hub, an integrated network that gives merchants in 70+ countries the ability to connect to a single hub offering 200+ global and regional digital wallets. The wallet hub is part of ACI’s payments orchestration platform for global eCommerce.

Sygnia, a leading cyber technology and services company which provides high-end consulting and incident response support for organizations worldwide, today announced that it has expanded its incident response and proactive security services to include a managed extended detection and response (MXDR) service. Sygnia’s MXDR is technology-agnostic and a 24/7 fully managed security operations service that includes monitoring, threat detection, forensic analysis, accelerated investigation, and a rapid transition to incident response when needed.

The service is operated by Sygnia’s elite teams with extensive nation-state-level cyber warfare knowledge, advanced offensive and defensive capabilities, and decades of experience detecting, containing and defeating cyber-attacks for the world’s most prominent enterprises, including Fortune 500 companies. 

“The service leverages our proprietary XDR, a vendor-agnostic platform for security detection and response that was developed by Sygnia for Sygnia incident responders and has been battle-tested defending thousands of engagements,” said Yanir Laubshtein, Sygnia’s Vice President of MXDR. “Our XDR is designed for rapid deployment, with hundreds of out-of-the-box integrations and a proprietary, light-weight and non-intrusive agent for faster deployment and maximum visibility of the enterprise going forward.”

Sygnia’s MXDR overcomes one of the key industry challenges facing MXDR clients: successful integration of the service. Sygnia takes a tailored approach to MXDR, to ensure precise service alignment with the organization’s cyber fabric, personnel, and policies.

Key benefits of Sygnia’s MXDR service include:

• Accelerated threat detection driven by the latest field intelligence from Sygnia’s IR team into threat actor tactics, techniques and procedures
• Enhanced investigation with complete remote forensics capabilities
• Faster containment and eradication of attackers with a seamless transition from monitoring to response
• Operated by highly experienced A-teams with extensive cyber warfare and enterprise security experience

“Over the past several years, Sygnia has seen the threat landscape evolve to become more dynamic and dangerous,” said Ram Elboim, Sygnia’s CEO.  “With our MXDR, we can support organizations with a holistic solution that transitions from preparation and proactive security services to detection and response across their entire enterprise.”

Register for the webinar: “Achieving MXDR Success: The Power of an IR-Driven Approach” on Thursday, 16 February 2023 at 10:00 am EST | 4:00 pm CET with Sygnia and featuring a guest speaker from Forrester. For additional information, visit Sygnia.co.

Around 85 per cent of crypto-asset firms who applied to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) were unable to demonstrate they met the minimum standards required for registration under its anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing regime.

The Treasury Committee report states that the FCA found that key personnel lacked the appropriate knowledge, skills and experience to carry out their roles and control risks effectively. In a small number of cases, the financial regulator actually identified likely financial crime or direct links to organised crime and referred the firms to law enforcement agencies.

Commenting on the statistic, Martin Cheek, managing director of leading anti-money laundering software platform SmartSearch, said: “This worrying statistic shows why the FCA must continue to take a robust stance on crypto-asset firms and exchanges that look to operate within the UK.

“The cryptocurrency industry must meet the compliance requirements of the 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive by integrating digital compliance solutions with their own technology. As well as meeting the FCA’s requirements, this would certainly give crypto investors greater peace of mind.

“Cryptocurrency can provide a vehicle for money laundering and a front for some of the world’s worst crimes – people trafficking, tax dodging, sanctions evasion, and international corruption and its victims are often the poorest and most vulnerable in society.

“Keeping the user safe from financial crimes is paramount. By adopting cutting-edge electronic verification (EV), a crypto exchange or wallet provider can check the identity of a user, safeguard assets, and enforce accountability.

“Common practices such as requesting an ID document are no longer sufficient. Not only do they not meet KYC and AML standards, but they can also leave the door open for the exploitation of identity theft.

“EV is a technology advancement that the digital asset industry cannot ignore to manage their compliance responsibilities moving forward.”

Salford-based Cerberus Receivables Management (CRM) has promoted Theresa Divers to the role of Receivables Executive after a hugely successful two-year apprenticeship with the firm.

CRM is a leading UK debt collection and ledger management business which helps businesses, lenders and restructuring specialists to recover debt in both trading and distressed situations. 

The announcement comes on the eve of National Apprenticeship Week 2023 which aims to show how apprenticeships can help individuals to develop the skills required for a rewarding career and help businesses to develop a talented workforce for the future.

Theresa becomes part of a highly respected and experienced team at CRM which looks after sales ledger review and evaluation, credit management and control services, debt verification and collection, audit investigation, specialist legal recoveries and reporting. Her promotion will see her taking on more responsibility, including offsite work on clients’ premises.  

Theresa completed her Business Administration apprenticeship with The Growth Company one of the largest providers of work-based learning for young people and adults. 

She passed her course with distinction in all 3 parts – knowledge test, presentation and interview. Alongside this, she also completed the UK Finance IFABL foundation course with an impressive score of 86%. 

She commented:  “Starting at CRM as an apprentice administrative assistant helped me build a good foundation and an excellent understanding of the processes and procedures of a case from beginning to end. This allowed me to make a smooth transition to my new role.” 

For other would-be apprentices, she had this advice: “Don’t be afraid to ask questions and make mistakes -  as that is how you will learn - and be confident in yourself.”

Katie Pomfret, Head of Lender Services at CRM, said: “It has been great to watch Theresa grow throughout her apprenticeship and now start to excel in the role of Receivables Executive. “She is an asset to the team and we look forward to helping develop her skills and knowledge in the future. Well done Theresa on your continued hard work.”