Responding to a Carrier Management call for executive viewpoints, industry leaders told us how the pandemic has changed them. In addition, they shared ideas about how the industry should plan for the future.

Scott Gunter, CEO, AXA XL: Insurance plays a pivotal role in society’s resilience.

We’ve helped our clients adjust their operations so that they could pivot their operations to help out with what was needed: a coat manufacturer switching it up to make hospital gowns; a distillery shifting their operations to make hand sanitizer. And now, we’re helping clients adjust to their “new norm” of operating. Our risk consulting team has performed more than 600 remote consultations to help clients adjust for social distancing and other changes.

In these situations, our clients, just like us, need to be able to mobilize quickly and operate differently. Businesses that have an entrepreneurial spirit or approach are ready to adjust to current conditions. We’ve seen technology companies that saw opportunities to pivot their technology solutions to adjust to the current work environment. Sensor solutions, for instance, that could be adjusted to help with social distancing requirements. We need to help our clients think this way.

Dan Malloy, CEO, Third Point Re: The pandemic is forcing us to re-evaluate our attitude toward bigger issues such as globalization and climate change. We have all seen the real reductions in pollution that have come with lockdown. Many in big cities are saying they hear the birds sing again.We have shown that the world can function without so many flights and so much pollution. However, current unemployment will become a priority over benefits to reductions and emissions. The Federal Reserve is estimating U.S. unemployment could peak at 25 percent and there will be untold millions of jobs lost around the world. I suspect there will be a rush to get as many of these people back to work as soon as possible without really thinking through whether we want to do so in a way that preserves some of the real benefits we have seen, such as cleaner air. I hope leaders will remember.

Guy Goldstein, CEO, Next Insurance: The industry, in fact all industries, should understand the value of being 100 percent online and the advantage of providing digital services.

Additionally, the government, together with insurance companies, should come up with a plan on how to handle future pandemics or any unforeseen future catastrophic events that can bankrupt an entire industry. We want to support our customers, but it would be helpful to have some guiding rules of how to enable it together with the government.

Tony Kuczinski, President and CEO, Munich Re US Holding: America’s insurers are not the solution to financial losses incurred as a result of the pandemic. We have seen a global discussion of whether insurers are liable for the pandemic-related costs of businesses and private individuals, even if these are not covered or have been explicitly excluded in their policies. The broad exclusion of systemic risks such as pandemics is virtually imperative in responsible risk policy, ensuring that going forward, we will always be able to uphold our financial commitments to millions of clients and not endanger this by overstretching ourselves financially. Retroactively rewriting contracts would have dramatic repercussions for the broader economy and supply chain.

Today, insurance companies are deploying multiple solutions to ensure that level of claim processing is not slowed down during the pandemic. Hurricanes and wildfires and earthquakes are continual threats.

We will be there to provide options for businesses and individuals to protect themselves as they rebuild. Our industry is poised to play an enormous role in leading as the world moves forward. This is a fundamental value—as disaster strikes, our industry seeks to move people, businesses and communities from harmed to whole as quickly as possible.

Craig Welsh, Chief Distribution Officer, Westfield: Those agencies now under stress because they didn’t have a digital footprint or the ability to switch to crisis mode will need to change. They can fight or accept that.

Those that already had made critical investments in technology and whose digital operations were already highly efficient have flourished during the pandemic thanks to their strong value proposition. Those agents looked confidently at the crisis as an opportunity and amplified their platforms. A handful reported that March and April were near-record sales months. That’s impressive.

Here’s an example of new opportunity: Suddenly customers who never took a phone call were eager to spend 30 minutes discussing risk concerns.

The independent agency system needs to double down on its value proposition. Who better to ask a business owner, “What would you do if you couldn’t operate for some period of time? What’s your saving plan? What is your continuity plan?” Asking those important questions aligns with an agent’s value proposition, even if they don’t sell a product to cover the issue they’re probing.

Will customers value agents’ advice more highly after the crisis?

In a world facing more uncertainty, I’ve got my money on independent agents.

Arun Balakrishnan, CEO, Xceedance: This global pandemic experience will have deep impacts in the insurance industry and likely every industry. Much like modern terrorism coverage changed after the events of 9/11, we could well see new insurance products appearing or others morphing, growing or getting bundled in creative ways.

Time will tell if the current era of pandemic lockdown becomes a market hardening event for commercial and personal lines insurers. There might also be a wave of bankruptcies, restructuring or consolidation across insurance organizations, as well as businesses serving the property/casualty insurance industry. On the one hand, that’s presumably going to take some capacity and competitive choice out of insurance markets. On the other hand, potential industry consolidations may lead to a “flight to quality” condition, with an emergence of classes of companies and solution and service providers that are stronger from an operational, market share, financial and partner ecosystem perspective.

One positive impact to the industry could well be that the pandemic business experience becomes a catalyst for deep, systemic digital transformation for many more industry constituents. Insurers were already beginning to heavily prioritize digital transformation projects—at least as a partial response to policyholder requirements and expectations, not to mention the desire to leverage intelligent technologies and a driver for data-driven decision-making. In this respect, and to the extent that the integration of cognitive technologies is inherent in digital transformation, the insurance industry may be able to shed its traditional moniker of being a laggard in the arena of digital enablement within operations and for policyholder services.

Another area of innovation and transformation could well be the design and formulation of business continuity planning, including anytime/anywhere, secure and reliable connectivity to a range of stakeholders. This can be an especially strategic initiative for an industry and an increasingly global ecosystem with a core focus on risk mitigation.