Lessons Learned In Innovation And Product Development

Innovation and product development are fundamental to ensuring a company remains successful and relevant in its respective industry. Insurance is no different, but being innovative is much easier said than done. It requires support at every level of the organization to reap its benefits. As Senior Manager of Underwriting at BCAA, I’ve been at the forefront of creating our new Small Business Insurance product, but as prepared as you may be, there will always be challenges that arise along the way.

My career focus has been underwriting commercial property and casualty insurance, and I've held roles at insurers, reinsurers and wholesale brokerages. I came across the opportunity at BCAA to help design a brand new digital- first insurance product and lead a team of advisors and underwriters, and I couldn’t resist taking on this new challenge. Designing a commercial product from the ground up would be a unique experience, including establishing a risk appetite, underwriting framework, wordings and pricing, all while ensuring that a customer unfamiliar with insurance would feel comfortable navigating an online experience with confidence. Working on a small team of four individuals, we had the lofty goal of pushing this product into the market within one year. I was the only team member with an insurance background, while the others were experts in product development, user interface (UI) design, marketing and data analytics, which were all completely unfamiliar areas to me. Needless to say, we were all able to learn from one another on a daily basis, and three years later, when reflecting on the experience, there are a few key learnings that have remained with me:

1. Core Concepts: Have a set of fundamental concepts you want your product to provide to govern your decision-making and elaboration sessions. These concepts should be clear and simple; for example, they should keep the customer journey simple. If a decision leads you in opposition to a core concept, then it’ll be evident that it’s time to go back to the drawing board to find another solution.

2. Diverse Team: Have a small core team with different areas of expertise and backgrounds. Although this will create some mutual knowledge gaps and require trusting the appropriate subject matter expert, leveraging everyone's unique skill sets will produce innovative solutions and, ultimately, a superior final product.

Build a culture where you obtain feedback not only from customers but also your team to see if any other ideas could help add value

 3. Achievable Timeline: Create a project timeline and incorporate buffers between sprints in the likelihood that deliverables are impacted by unforeseen circumstances, which may happen more often than expected. Having a dedicated project manager who has experience with similar project launches helps the team stick to its timeline while reducing the chance that deliverables get missed.

4. Minimum Product Specifications: From the start, agree to the required specifications that will achieve a minimum viable product in order to launch. Future iterations of the product will be required after its initial launch to integrate the non-critical features that would have caused delays. Plus, gathering feedback on the initial version of the product can provide useful insight into what matters to the customer. Beware of scope drift, as this could also cause significant delays.

5. Expect a Challenge: Knowing it won’t be a linear approach to launch a product, be prepared for setbacks. Unforeseen complications can force you to take a few steps back, but don't get discouraged; learn from these scenarios and think of them as opportunities to implement an even better solution than the one that was originally planned. Plus, you’ll always have the opportunity to create a future enhancement to address any betterment that may come up.

The work doesn’t stop at launch either. It’s vital to ensure you have the resources to support the operations of the product as well as obtain customer feedback, plan sprint sessions for future enhancements, fix defects, and eventually expand beyond the initial product. Build a culture where you obtain feedback not only from customers but also from your team to see if any other ideas could help add value. Promoting an innovative culture will contribute to the overall success of the product and can create a sense of empowerment if the team feels like they’re involved in both the daily operations and the creative process. I am very lucky to have been part of launching Small Business Insurance at BCAA, and I am constantly impressed by how far the product and team have come since launch. This achievement would not have been possible without the support of the dedicated individuals at all levels of the organization. Although I’m proud of the product today, I’m looking forward to its continuous growth and evolution in the future.