SIR 2023 Annual Partnership Prospectus

Lock in your visibility and business opportunity with SIR members in our inaugural partnership package! This is our best value, saving you time and money. Individual event specific sponsorships and upgrades are still available. Our competitive pricing compared to similar industry events can't be beat and SIR members receive significant discounts.

If you have any questions, please email megan.dobberstein@sirnet.org.
 

View Annual Sponsorship Prospectus Here

Volunteer Coin Design Winner: Ron Zezza


                

In early 2022, the idea was brought forward of creating a coin with which to honor top SIR volunteers. One side featured SIR's logo, and the other was to be a member-submitted design. The winner of the design contest was Ron Zezza of Cigna! His idea was expanded into the design you see above. These coins were given by SIR President Mike Myers to outstanding volunteers at the 2022 Annual Conference. Thank you, Ron, for your design submission and all you do for SIR!

Becoming A Person of Influence: SIR Webinar Recap



On November 10, SIR hosted a webinar featuring Matthew Renz, a third-generation insurance professional who retired after 30 years with United Healthcare. Renz now spends his retirement years golfing and sharing his insights as a keynote speaker and leadership trainer as a member of the John Maxwell Team, the International Leadership Association, and the National Association of Health Underwriters.

During the webinar "Becoming a Person of Influence," Renz shared his thoughts on leadership as influence and the who, what, when, where and why of developing influence. According to Renz, the average person will influence some 10,000 people during a lifetime, and we have a choice to make whether the influence will be positive or negative. Renz focused on how to use influence to live with significance and leave a legacy.

Using personal anecdotes and quotes from a variety of leaders, from Dwight D. Eisenhower and Winston Churchill to Dale Carnegie and John Maxwell, Renz illustrated how power (e.g., manipulation, force or intimidation) is a fist whereas influence is a fingertip (e.g., persuasion, respect and trust). He shared practical tips for understanding how influence works, both in who you are influencing and who is influencing you. His Top 10 tips for developing influence ended with the idea that leaders ultimately produce leaders, citing 80% of leaders attract followers; 10% of leaders attract leaders; and only 5% of leaders reproduce leaders.

View the slides from this webinar below. SIR Members must be logged in to view.

View the Slides

2022 SIR Award Winners

Congratulations to our 2022 SIR Award Winners! Winners were honored during the SIR Conference in Las Vegas. Learn more about our winners and see pictures from the conference here. 

The Smith Mangum Award - Herb Sauer
President's Individual Award - David Kalinowski
President's Individual Award - Austin Tucker
President's Individual Award  - Chris Rzany
President's Individual Award - Jennifer Chase
Hopp/Budd Award - Pam Granzin
President's Organization Award - USAA 

Customer Research to Design a Robo-Advice Service
Blog Summary


     

It’s not often that a webinar shares theory, consumer research and practical implementation tips in less than one hour, but the August 4 webinar, Customer Research to Design a Robo-Advice Service, did just that. Aisling Bradfield, Head of Behavioral Science at SCOR, explained robo-advice, a platform that collects information from users and provides automatic advice based on the user’s requirements, and behavioral science theory and biases that impact the creation and adoption of robo-advice services.

Referencing a survey conducted by SCOR in partnership with Toluna in September 2021 with 463 U.S. consumers, Aisling explained the survey revealed that though more than 75% of survey respondents had never experienced robo-advisors in any online purchase, 20% to 30% would be willing to use it in the future. When thinking about life insurance specifically, 10% of respondents selected robo-advice as the channel they would most trust for future purchases.

A further 40% of respondents told us they preferred doing their own research, and Aisling explained the behavioral biases that might impact the preference for this self-searching approach and suggest that consumers need more support when searching online. She also discussed the key advantages of robo-advice as identified by survey respondents, namely ease of use, convenience and unbiased advice.

Aisling illustrated survey respondent segmentation, proposing the target market for robo-advice services would be under 55 years of age with at least some college education. Interestingly, there was no significant variation in attitude to robo-advice among respondents of different income levels. This contrasts the use of professional advice which is strongly skewed to higher income groups. Due to the wider appeal, robo-advice could be a potential remedy to reduce the protection gap.

Adam Taylor, Consulting Director, Strategic Relationships at Securian Financial then shared information about Securian’s robo-advice platform that has been successfully helping workplace benefits customers choose types and levels of their employee benefits for approximately four years. His presentation confirmed many of the biases that Aisling had introduced and explained how Securian has used customer feedback to enhance and expand the robo-advice service.

As a channel to promote products and services to potential customers or a way to engage and support existing customers, robo-advice seems to be something that customers are interested in. Key to the success of the platform is how it is integrated into existing processes to best support customers with personalized service whenever and wherever they want to engage.   

VIEW THE RECORDING

Filling the Gap: Raising Life Insurance Literacy in the U.S.
Blog Summary


 

A recent SIR webinar featured Hiroe Noonan, Manager, Market Research and Analytics at SCOR discussing the impact of the pandemic on life insurance sales and Allison Broglie Head of North America at ReMark, discussing what consumers know – or think they know -- about life insurance. Noonan noted the unprecedented 20% increase in life insurance sales during the first year of the pandemic could be attributed to the frequent, negative news about daily COVID-19 deaths and infection rates. Bombarded with the messages and perhaps personal experiences of being close to death due to personal health issues or having a family member or friend die during the pandemic brought the need for life insurance to the forefront.

After Noonan concluded her overview of the life insurance market post-COVID, Broglie demonstrated a dashboard developed by ReMark in conjunction with its 2021 annual Global Consumer Study (GCS) to illustrate consumer attitudes about life insurance, examining differences among generational groups. Filters on the dashboard also allow exploration of differences by gender, developed vs. emerging markets and by single or multiple countries.

While sales did increase in 2021 to nearly six million policies, it’s interesting to note that the number of people covered by life insurance did not increase as much as total premium rose. The pandemic actually did little to narrow the coverage gap in the U.S. Research from the International Insurance Society cited by Noonan listed four primary reasons why most Americans do not have coverage:  

1. Think it’s too expensive
2. Process is too slow
3. Don’t think they need it
4. Confused how to apply

Improving consumer literacy could overcome the first, third and fourth objections to purchasing life insurance and potentially extend the upward life insurance sales trend, Noonan said.

Given the increase in the sales of life insurance, Broglie said questions about life insurance literacy were added to the 2021 GCS to measure whether consumers are meeting their needs with the life insurance products they need. She used the dashboard to examine differences between consumer confidence in their life insurance literacy and their actual knowledge as measured by their responses to questions in the GCS survey as well as the users’ desire to improve their life insurance literacy. 

 

VIEW THE RECORDING      

Society of Insurance Research (SIR) Current State of Insurance Innovation

SIR’s Research Committee presented on its Innovation Research – one of the most popular sessions of the conference. The research found that 6 in 10 industry professionals feel customer experience is an area that could benefit from innovation, though many state it’s not included enough in current innovation processes.

VIEW THE SURVEY RESULTS NOW!  
 

Get the Most Out of Your Membership in 2023

As we start a new year, we want to make sure that you are aware of and taking advantage of your SIR member benefits! To start, make sure you have marked info@sirnet.org as a safe email sender.
  • Member Census: a great way we can learn about your interests and work background. Take a few minutes to review your profile and make sure everything is up to date. Information here allows our members to find and help one another!
  • Discounts on all SIR events, including the SIR Annual Conference and Research Workshops. Carrier Corporate memberships also include pre-paid registrations that can be used for the Annual Conference or Spring Workshop.
  • Access to Member Only sections of SIR website which includes research and past event and webinar presentations.
  • Access to the searchable SIR Directory, including a listing of your personal profile.
  • Quarterly Life & Health, P&C and Public Policy Roundtables and Journal Clubs.
  • Access to AskSIR Listserv to ask industry questions to other members.
  • SIR Professional Development tracking, to manage your education and event attendance. To view your individual report, log in to your SIR profile, click "Hi Name" and then you will see the SIR Professional Development Tab.

View Membership Highlights Here

Life & Health Roundtable Recap



On December 1, SIR hosted the quarterly Competitive Intelligence Life & Health Roundtable facilitated by Chris Rzany. Attendees discussed the competitive environment and market trends including the big layoffs at not only insurance and insurtech companies but also at the big tech firms. Discussion centered on whether this is an adjustment in the face of recession projections and the high cost of employee retention or an ongoing trend to be watched in 2023. 

A question about whether rising interest rates will lead to increased whole life sales sparked interesting conversation. The consensus of the group that it is unlikely that whole life sales will be triggered by rising interest rates for most consumers in most markets. Not only does while life cost more than term life, but consumers will have less discretionary income to spend on life insurance purchases. Bigger drivers of whle life sales include regulatory uncertainty and strategies by life carriers to enhance whole life products to meet consumers needs. 

Other topics in the hour-long discussion included direct-to-consumer distribution models, the BTBTC value chain, the rising use of embedded insurance and annual Medicare churn. To hear the full discussion, click the link below.

View the slides and recording of this roundtable below. SIR Members must be logged in to view.

View Slides and Recording

 

SIR 2022 Annual Conference Recaps

Learn more about different areas of the most recent Annual Conference from the minds of the track chairs involved in putting the whole event together.

A Word From the Chair 

Personal Lines Track Review    

Health Lines Track Review  

David Kalinowski Inducted into Council of Competitive Intelligence Fellows

 

SIR Board Member David Kalinowski was named a CI Fellow in October 2022. More information can be found in the press release sent out on October 27.

Read the full press release now!

SIR Webinar in the Press




Did you miss the recent webinar led by Marc Majers, Lead UX Researcher at Progressive? The program walked us all through the why’s and how’s of taking a different approach to generate a profitable outcome for our products. P&C Specialist released an article by Carl Winfield covering the program and Majers' philosophy of "Make Your Customers Dance." 

Read the Article Here  

SIR Roundtable Recaps

Did you miss the recent DEI and Life/Health Roundtables? These are great opportunities to connect and learn with your fellow members. Click the links for a short recap and then log in to the Research Resources page and watch the recording.

DEI Roundtable Recap 

 Life/Health Roundtable Recap   

 

SIR's New Membership Referral Program

Invite your network to join SIR! 

SIR is happy to announce our newest member benefit! Starting today, members can earn a chance to win a $100 gift card for referring new members to join SIR! This is a great opportunity to create a larger community to share best practices and insurance research. 
 

How It Works: 

• Reach out to your network and tell them what you like about SIR. If it sounds good to them, invite them to join. 

• New member must give credit to the referring member on the new member application.

• Each new individual membership earns the referring party one chance in the raffle. New company memberships (corporate carriers, solution provider exhibitor/non-exhibitor) earn 10 chances to win. Each individual in the drawing will receive an $10 gift card just for participating.  

• Raffles will be held on the last work day each month. There must be a minimum of 3 individuals participating or the raffle will be held the following month. 

The first drawing will be held at the end of January 2022!

Board and Membership Committee members are not eligible to win. 

Learn About Membership Plans & Benefits Here

SIR Recorded "How-To" Videos

SIR’s Education Committee is launching a new "how-to" video series to help our members learn and sharpen their skills. The first topic focuses on accurately presenting and communicating information through graphs. 

 View the Videos Here   

 

SIR 2021 Annual Conference Sees Largest Ever Attendance

After a board decision to switch the Annual Conference from a hybrid program to fully virtual, SIR found its 2021 conference to be a smashing success. October 18-19 saw 35 sessions on insurance-related topics as well as time dedicated to networking and a virtual exhibit hall. The business meeting on the final day allowed for the presentation of several awards to outstanding members and companies. More information can be found in the press release sent out on October 27.

Read the full press release now!

SIR Member Census 

SIR is excited to launch our first annual member census! The member census will help us understand our members much better. It contains three sections and takes approximately 10 minutes. 

- The first section will populate the member directory with your professional experiences. The second section asks for your personal demographics. Finally, the third section focuses on how you want to engage with SIR.
 
 The SIR is a community built to serve our collective needs. We need to know more about you and your desires to successfully meet your needs. Many thanks in advance and good luck in the prize drawing!

Take the Census Now!