Growthsurance: Facilitating change

What is Growthsurance?

We trademarked the term Growthsurance three years ago and it describes a new way in which we approach our clients.It can be applied to almost any industry where the insured is interested in protecting their earnings in an area where insurance has traditionally not played a role. These are exposures that the risk manager and C-suite is aware of and aware they have an exposure to - such as non-physical damage business interruption (NDBI) for instance - but they did not think there would be an insurance solution available to transfer that risk.

Why should risk managers be paying attention?

Growthsurance is all about putting corporate insurance and risk management in a place that helps the company to grow and demonstrate they are not just part of an organisation’s procurement. It’s a new approach for the risk manager because it’s no longer just about protecting the assets and the balance sheet, it’s about driving growth and retaining customers.

Sometimes it’s about turning an existing product into something that adds more customer value, such as taking machinery breakdown cover, for instance, and repackaging it so that it becomes an extended warranty product. At other times it is about developing something completely new, such as a parametric index-based solution, to offer cover for a loyalty scheme or business interruption where there is not physical damage.

Growthsurance solutions, such as extended warranties, customer loyalty solutions or coverage for NDBI, allow the risk manager to demonstrate they are helping to drive growth in the company. Such solutions can even free the company up to do something else or focus on actually selling the end product, because - for instance - there is a value adding extended warranty or loyalty scheme that sits behind it.

We typically start the conversation with the risk manager and they will then approach with their heads of supply chain, manufacture, marketing, production and customer acquisition - depending on the challenge they have and solution required. It’s about broadening the scope of the conversation because often the budget for a growthsurance product does not come from the risk or the insurance manager.

That’s maybe what makes growthsurance ideas a bit more challenging. Risk and insurance managers need to be comfortable in their own organisation and have the credibility to approach other people within the business to look at how insurance solutions can work more strategically within the organisation, providing risk transfer where previously cover was not thought to be available, or repackaging an existing product to add value to customers.