Chubb to target HNWIs with enhanced digital experience
Chubb plans to roll out tools for its HNW customers in the coming months in an effort to enable customers to interact with the insurer, buying and managing cover digitally. The move follows its $29.5bn merger with ACE, which saw the two firms HNW businesses combined. After the merger, Chubb updated its technology developing state-of-the-art foundational technology around underwriting and claims, said Evan Greenberg the firm's CEO.

Chubb CEO Evan Greenberg said the insurer plans to enhance its high-net-worth customers’ digital experience in the coming months, underscoring the growing importance of InsurTech improvements as part of the property/casualty insurance competitive landscape.

Speaking during the insurer’s Q3 investor call on Oct. 26, Greenberg declined to predict precisely when this would occur. But he disclosed Chubb is “rolling out a digital experience around our high-net-worth business, where customers will be able to interact with us and procure service, and actually manage coverage in a more digital way.”

“We are in the middle of making investments and executing on actions on what will ultimately come out,” Greenberg explained.

Today’s Chubb is the result of a massive $29.5 billion merger between ACE Ltd. and the old Chubb, which closed earlier this year. Both companies’ high-net-worth businesses are blended together, and Chubb is working hard to grow the combined operation, which has also generated new competition from W.R. Berkley Corp. and others.

Greenberg said during the call that he and his team knew they’d face competition, echoing comments he’s made previously. He asserted that the new Chubb is a much stronger rival in the space.

“We expected that with the merger, there would be others that would naturally come into this space. It makes sense. It doesn’t disturb us. But the ability to become a true high-net-worth player requires a lot of investment [and] a lot of patience,” Greenberg said.

He added that competitors also need “a greater balance sheet and greater appetite” for risk, in part because “high-net-worth behaves like a commercial account.”

In terms of technology, the post-merger Chubb has identified the need and opportunity to modernize its technological capabilities in its broader operations, Greenberg said.

There “is a need to make a large investment, and update, and be state-of-the-art in our foundational technology around underwriting and claims,” Greenberg said. “Claims are already done. [In] underwriting, plans are afoot to do that.”

Larger carriers such as Chubb are confronting ever-increasing investment in InsurTech startups, whose mandates typically are to help consumers have a quicker, easier and tech-savvy insurance purchasing or claims experience. VC-based InsurTech investments hit the $1 billion mark in 47 deals in the 2016 first half, according to an August report published by KPMG International and CB Insights. That compared to $2.5 billion of investments in 74 deals for all of 2015.