Greg Levine: Why now is time to take insurance to the next level

To grow the market and better meet the needs and expectations of today’s consumer, we must embrace innovation and rethink the role of insurance in the 21st century, writes Vitality Deputy CEO Greg Levine.

There’s a painting hanging in the National Gallery, just around the corner from Vitality’s London office. Many of you will have seen it – it’s printed on the £20 banknote.

J. M. W Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire – voted the nation’s favourite painting in 2005 - depicts a sail warship being towed up the Thames by a steam tug to be broken up for scrap. In the backdrop, the sun is setting as a silver moon rises.

Completed in 1838, at the height of the industrial revolution, the painting is replete with artistic symbolism.

And it’s not hard to draw parallels with our current age and the tremendous change we are all living through. The steam ship of Turner’s painting is today’s smartphone or A.I models, rendering those before it obsolete.

A shifting insurance landscape

But what does all this have to do with us? In truth, the health and protection insurance landscape is also shifting – or at least it needs to.

Rapid advances in science and technology are having a profound impact both on the ways we live and work, as well as consumer attitudes, values and expectations.

We are also witnessing a revolution in the sophistication of data and artificial intelligence. Harnessing these new technologies is now critical for companies to move forward and stay ahead in the 21st century.

At the same time, we are also experiencing far greater economic and health volatility. Globally, healthcare systems are under immense pressure as population health and wellbeing is increasingly in retreat, placing a strain on both the NHS and private healthcare sector.

And while the cost-of-living crisis has eased, households continued to struggle within a challenging economic environment.

Consumers expect more

In this context, traditional models of insurance risk becoming outmoded, as the pace of change and shift in people’s expectations calls for new and innovative ways of meeting consumer needs in 2025.

Consumers now rightly place a higher emphasis on seeing tangible value and are also much less loyal to brands than in the past. The growing demand for personalisation of products is also shaping how brands engage with consumers and deliver meaningful experiences, tailored to their individual needs.

All of this has meant that people now expect far more even for financial services. And, for many years now, it has no longer been enough for an insurer to just pay claims when things go wrong.

And yet, as an industry, we still overwhelmingly fall back on old arguments around offering peace of mind. To borrow Albert Einstein’s famously misquote: we are doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same results. We assume people to immediately see the value in insurance that only offers the intangible promise of a payout in the event of some unforeseen future event.

This despite the fact we know people’s inherent psychological biases act as a powerful barrier when considering insurance. We either don’t think it will happen to us or place an overwhelming emphasis on upfront reward over potential longer-term gain. This is especially relevant with our Gen Z’s as they have a very different approach to buying and viewing insurance….but that’s an article for another time.

The best bit of all is that by encouraging members to not just engage in the Vitality Programme, but actively improve their lifestyle habits, we can also help them to live longer and in better health – reducing the chances of a claim arising and allowing us to return yet more value to them through rewards and partners.

And with our latest enhancements, unveiled at our recent Launch 2025 event, we are taking this to the next level. By making the Vitality Programme even more rewarding and enhancing the member experience, we can drive even higher levels of engagement and unlock better value.

In short be customer led, stay relevant, stay current and don’t be the next “Fighting Temeraire”.