Reviving and Uplifting an already Dead Insurance company

Like any individual or products, an insurance organization has its own life cycle. The insurance organization is created, it starts to grow and on the long run gets matured and then death/decline gradually sets in. However, it is those insurance organizations which are not adequately or properly managed that dies at an early stage, even before they become matured enough compared to a properly managed insurance organization.
This is because of factors like low or no sales of insurance products, lack of finance, low or non existence market share, lack of innovation to keep up with trends, lack of skilled employees, non-payment of claims e.t.c. In a situation where the insurance organization is going into a comatose stage or even dead, the hiring of a creative consultant expert can help its management resuscitate the insurance company by designing various strategies that will suit the condition of the insurance company. As a creative consultant recruited to design strategies that will uplift the structure and revive the insurance company’s status, I will advise the following strategy:

i.                    RE-EVALUATION STRATEGY: As the saying goes, to treat an ailment, one will have to diagnose the patient effectively and efficiently. The insurance company will have to be re-evaluated and also re-assessed to determine the present state of the insurance organization, and what is the actual cause of the present situation of the company. It is when a problem has been identified that solution can be proffered. To adequately re-evaluate the insurance company, the consultant will have to look at  certain key aspect such as:

-          Business Strategy: This is what determines the day to day activities if the insurance company. However, most insurance companies don’t have an efficient business strategy that can help them achieve their business aims and objective. It is a different case to have a business strategy and it is another thing for the strategy to be in line with ones aims and objective.

-          Workforce (Staff): Incompetent or unskilled staff can kill an insurance organization. Staffs are considered the heart of an organization, and once the heart malfunctions or stops, the body dies. The consultant will have to know if the staffs of the insurance company are competent enough, try to know if they are been adequately motivated, if they know their functions, or maybe the company has not been able to provide a conducive operating environment for its staff.

-          Products/services and Distribution: If customers are not satisfied with an insurance company’s products/services and they don’t deliver on time (claims payment), insured might tend to look for an alternative which is much closer and which will satisfy them. The consultant will have to look at the quality of insurance products, the price (premium) if it is reasonable, determine if the organization is being innovative with their products, if the company operate a multi-channel distribution mode, and know if the insurance product is being developed for the various classes of segment in the market or a specific segment.

-          Finance: The consultant in this area should be able to determine if finances of the insurance company are being adequately managed or if they are been mismanaged. The insurance company might be indebted to certain financier thereby not having enough funds to run its organization efficiently after settling part of its debt. This will have to be seriously considered.

ii.                  ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGY (RE-DEFINED): Once the consultant has been able to evaluate the insurance company adequately, and he has been able to identify the various problems that lead the insurance organization into being in comatose state, the next step is for the consultant to help the company re-define their organizational strategy. The consultant will have to define a new strategy that will help resuscitate the insurance company as well as help achieve their already set aims and objective. The re-defined organizational strategy will serve as pointers for the insurance company. However, the strategy will have to bother around the various factors mentioned earlier; Staff, finance, insurance products and process, business strategy.

iii.                STAFF TRAINING: When an organization succeeds or fails, it bothers around the staff of that organization. Since an insurance organization cannot function on its own, it is the capacity of the employees that will determine its success or failure. It is imperative that the consultant introduce the re-training of the staff if they will be using the old staffs, but if they will be using new staff, it is advisable that they employ staffs with adequate academic and professional insurance qualification and still train them in line with the insurance organization’s aims and objectives.

iv.                PRODUCT RE-INNOVATION AND REBRANDING: Once the staffs of the insurance organization have been trained in line with the organizational objectives, the consultant will have to introduce a insurance product re-innovation and re-branding. Consumers sometimes might have a change in needs and wants; as such the organization has to be flexible enough for changes and economic situation. An insurance organization that refuses to adapt to changes might end up losing its insured’s to another insurance company with cutting edge technology. Re-branding the insurance company’s image might also not be a bad idea for a proper re-introduction into the market, and this can be done by making the insurance company’s staff, friends, family stimulate good word of mouth about the insurance product the organization wants to offer, re-package the product in a different way by using new slogan or catch phrase for the product.

v.                  RE-FINANCE: The death or survival of an organization depends on the amount of finance available in that organization. Saying a dying, comatose or even a dead insurance organization doesn’t need finance for resuscitation will be a blatant lie. The management of the insurance company will have to be advised to inject a lot of finance into the organization. The finance can be gotten from various sources, banks inclusive. After the money have been injected into the company, it is a necessity that the consultant advise the management to effectively monitor the finance disbursement by making sure that monies are used for what they are really meant for. Claims most especially must be paid to all insured’s who are being owed and new claims paid almost immediately. This alone will attract various customers for the insurance company.

vi.                STRATEGY EXECUTION AND MONITORING: After all the above have been done by the consultant, the last step is the execution of the strategy put together by the consultant. This is a very critical stage as any hiccup in this phase can destabilize the probability of success of the insurance organization. It is a thing to work and it is another thing to make sure you align your work with the strategic goals of the organization. Only by aligning the insurance company’s work with the strategic goals of the organization can the business be saved from comatose. There must be division of labor, each and every unit must understand its job functions, and each unit must have a coordinator and must have a goal or key indicators to monitor performances.

A consultant trying to bring back an insurance company from comatose stage will expend a lot of energy, time and finance. But if all the above mentioned points are adequately followed, the insurance organization will enjoy a very dignified welcome back, gain lots of customer and make a very impressive profit thereby making the shareholders of the insurance company happy. Although it is easier said than done!