Insurance coverage isn’t horny. In case you ask Zurich’s Chief Buyer Officer Conny Kalcher, she’ll let you know in any other case. However it didn’t begin that manner for her.
Kalcher joined the corporate after a 33-year profession on the toy big Lego. The industries are like chalk and cheese—and their clients, too.
But Kalcher noticed a possibility for Zurich to teach Gen Z about all issues funds. It was the corporate’s probability to show insurance coverage’s chilly and distant strategy into one thing extra accessible.
“I did think it would be men in suits, being very formal and doing things in a particular way. But that’s not at all the case,” Kalcher instructed Fortune in an interview.
The Swiss firm has been round for 150 years, beginning as a humble marine insurer in 1872. It has weathered a number of wars, pure disasters, pandemics, and extra, making it the insurance coverage behemoth it’s at this time. However beneath Kalcher, who joined Zurich 5 years in the past, the insurer has been reworking for the fashionable world—one that’s threatened by local weather change, cyber-attacks, and an getting older inhabitants.
Classes from Lego
Lego’s fame as a high toymaker precedes it. However Kalcher was on the firm when issues appeared totally different.
“Lego is a very rich brand. If you dig into the Lego’s history, it’s filled with strong narrative traditions, brand understanding [and] customer understanding.. it wasn’t always like that,” she stated.
Via Kalcher’s three-decade profession main advertising and shopper expertise efforts at Lego, there have been low factors for the corporate when it was verging on chapter—one thing that feels unthinkable at this time given the Danish firm is outperforming the worldwide toy trade.
A part of the explanation Lego was in a position to flip its enterprise round, Kalcher stated, was as a result of it prioritized consumers and tried to go after what they wished. In that sense, she doesn’t see insurance coverage as very totally different.
“Of course, the two industries are super different,” Kalcher stated. “However, customers are customers, and customers often want the same [thing].”
Courtesy Of Conny Kalcher, Group Chief Buyer Officer, Zurich Insurance coverage, 2024
Individuals need to really feel catered to in a manner that matches their wants and life. However usually, that will get misplaced in insurers’ sea of technical jargon.
In Zurich’s case, though the corporate had seen outstanding world development by way of its 100-plus-year historical past, it was nonetheless struggling to redefine itself. Roughly 70% of the corporate’s retail enterprise comes from Europe, the Center East, and Africa. It’s a aggressive panorama the place loyalty is tough to return by as pricing lures clients extra.
“When I joined, the purpose was ‘we’re here to protect you.’ Guess what? Every insurance company in the whole world is there to protect you. That doesn’t make you stand out,” Kalcher stated. And that’s the place she noticed her position develop into key: making the corporate extra relatable and undoing the “bad narrative” insurance coverage had earned over time.
Altering the way it’s completed
Kalcher’s imaginative and prescient for the Swiss firm is to make it the “Apple of Insurance.” Why? To set itself a excessive bar in the way it reaches individuals and makes them really feel cared for.
It’s no secret that Apple is nice at understanding what its clients want—and certainly one of its secrets and techniques is consistency. That’s in all probability why the corporate’s devices are probably the most extensively used world over, from children to the aged. Zurich desires to construct the same relationship with its base, too.
Take Gen Z, for instance. The group, born between 1997 and 2012, is starting to enter the workforce in droves yearly and, with time, will overtake their millennial counterparts. They’re a digitally savvy era that has solely ever identified the world by way of know-how.
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They’re additionally not as financially conscious, opening new doorways for Zurich, Kalcher stated. Nonetheless, that additionally signifies that the insurer wants to vary its methods and make insurance coverage extra interesting to its youthful viewers.
“We use TikTok in some countries to talk with that generation, and that works very well. Instagram as well,” Kalcher stated. The purpose is to be enjoyable, partaking and dependable for Gen Z and past.
Zurich’s quick movies on TikTok and Instagram, a few of which have gained over 10 million views, talk about varied matters, from defending oneself financially whereas on trip to busting myths about automobile insurance coverage. Since 2021, when Zurich launched its Instagram deal with, it stated it’s seen a 96% development in its follower rely. In the meantime, for the reason that launch of its TikTok the next 12 months, it’s seen a 430% development.
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Kalcher’s considering is easy: “It’s about starting to become relevant by showing up in the places where these customers are. Then, it’s about having the right offers for these customers as well.”
The corporate can also be simplifying the way it communicates with individuals utilizing AI, making it simpler to search out data and making the data simpler to grasp.
In the end, Kalcher desires individuals to see Zurich as a novel firm that’s altering for its clients.
“I would like our customers to start talking about us as different, as really being there for them,” she stated. “That would be the ultimate accolade for us.”
