MIC Global CEO Crystal sees tech, new products as key to closing protection gap

By James Thaler

June 25 - (The Insurer) - Technology and new products that address “basic human needs” are vital to closing the protection gap, MIC Global CEO Jamie Crystal said, while emphasising the importance of reaching underserved subsegments,

Crystal co-founded the microinsurer, which operates as a Lloyd’s coverholder and offers income protection products in 12 countries, in 2020 after his family sold their retail brokerage to Alliant in 2018.

He acknowledged that the P&C industry has largely been set up to serve larger commercial clients and individuals, but after working in the market his entire career, said more must be done to bring societal benefits in an economically effective way.

“It bothered me genuinely that we talk as an industry a lot about closing the insurance protection gap,” Crystal said in an interview with The Insurer TV at this month’s Insurer Insights USA event in New York City.

“We talk about expanding the market, yet why are we not focusing on creating new products? Our focus, which we've lasered in on, is income protection, which is a very basic human need,” Crystal argued.

MIC Global conducted a survey that found 46% of respondents are interested in buying an income protection product.

“Unfortunately, so many people in our society are living paycheck to paycheck," Crystal said, adding: "The basic principle of microinsurance is just to catch people when they fall, provide a safety net so instead of spiraling on down to the bottom, you can recover and then continue on with your life.”

TECHNOLOGY KEY

Crystal said the “key” to selling a product is having strong technology, noting there is now a much greater propensity among customers to make purchases on their phone without going through an agent.

“All that helps reduce the costs of providing the product, which means we can make it a lot more affordable,” Crystal said, using the ability to pay for food, a mortgage or rent as examples of the essential costs the product covers.

“The bigger challenge was designing a product that's both simple and relevant,” he said, outlining the importance of a product that can be underwritten by asking a limited number of questions and that pays claims with ease.

“So, if someone buys $1,000 of coverage and the event happens, they collect $1,000 and that makes the whole customer experience much easier for the customer: they get what they paid for,” he said.

MIC Global has found an embedded distribution strategy most effective at delivering its products.

“So, traditional ones (distribution channels) are banks and telecom, and we broadened that out to the gig economy, sharing economy, digital lenders: all the people on the internet who are engaged in financial transactions with their customers,” Crystal said.

“And by operating with larger, more established platforms, we know they're already successful, and we're not having to create a product for a startup, just to find the startup didn't scale, and then we've not benefited from there,” he added.

“We still support new companies and startups. So, we want to do that, but we have to balance that out more of a ballast with larger, more established platform providers,” Crystal said.

Watch the full interview with MIC Global founder and CEO Jamie Crystal to hear more on:

• The importance of technology and creating new products to close the protection gap

• MIC’s strategy providing an embedded income protection to address “human need”

• Simplicity in product design to provide coverage to lower end customer subsegments

• How MIC has evolved since launching in 2020

• And more…