’Tis impossible to be sure of any thing but Death and Taxes. (The Cobbler of Preston by Christopher Bullock, 1716)

Many of us are, no doubt, familiar with those two most famous examples of certainty. And the fact is, everything else is pretty much up for grabs. Flash back to the end of February 2020. How many of us imagined the ensuing year would transpire the way it did, would see a global pandemic, would change the ways in which we live, work, and socialize? We rest our case.

The abiding lesson from the past year, of course, is that we all need to be as well prepared as possible for the unexpected (short of clairvoyance). We need to be as resourceful as possible as we confront the unexpected, however it manifests (short of a planet-destroying galactic calamity). And we have to be as mindful as possible of the needs of those we serve (short of surveying them non-stop, which might be the only thing worse than a planet-destroying calamity).

What Happens Next?

We have no idea. If we did, we’d be in a completely different line of work; although, we’d probably shy away from phone psychic. Kidding aside, and even though we really don’t know what will happen next, some things seem fairly predictable:

• If you sell property/casualty insurance, you’ll have prospects and policyholders.
• If you have prospects, they’ll want to be able to evaluate and purchase policies, to understand coverage limits and exclusions, and to have flexible billing and payment options.
• If you have policyholders, they’ll want to be full informed at all times, to have digital access to their policy and claims information, and to have whatever level of self-service with which they might be comfortable.
• If you want to be as responsive to your prospects and policyholders as they expect you to be, you’ll need a processing suite with the functionality to provide that responsiveness and with the scalability to grow as your business grows.

If we go any farther than that, we’ll be tooting our own horn. And nobody needs that.

But we’re here to help when you’re ready to live with uncertainty.

And you won’t need a psychic hotline.

The January edition of Best’s Review contained an article entitled, “Turning a Corner”. The article was about so-called insurtechs (as if insurtechs are something other than the insurance technology we’ve known, loved, developed, and used for decades.) It said this, in part:

Through the Great Depression, there were as many as 300 U.S. auto manufacturers. But by the 1960s, the Big Three in Detroit controlled 90% of the market, after others died or were gobbled up by competitors. Similarly, it’s only been a few years since the word insurtech became part of the industry’s lexicon. Yet today … a current round of mergers and acquisitions in that space seems to follow a similar path as those earlier auto companies.

Well, yeah. “But what does this have to do with preparation?” we hear you ask. We’re glad you did.

Like Water

Everything evolves. Few things evolve as quickly as technology and its applications. As in nature, some of the things that evolve will survive. Some of them won’t. As with water, some of the things that survive will seep into usage, adopted by companies that recognize their value adapt to include them. The important question is not, “Which ones will survive and which ones will perish?” The important question is, “Which companies will be prepared to adopt and adapt to those that survive and constitute discernible value?”

In the insurance industry, we’ll all be keeping an eye on AI, on machine learning, on telematics, on personalized rating and pricing, on 5G, on the Internet of Things and the digitalization of everything. Again, the important question won’t be, “Which ones will stick?” The important question will be, “Which companies will be using core systems that will allow them to integrate the insurtechs that demonstrate discernible value?” Or to hone that question to two sharper ones: (1) Will you be ready?  (2) Do your core systems allow you to be?

Loaded

We’ll grant you those questions are loaded. But we can afford to ask them because we built the Finys Suite to enable that readiness. We just happened to think it was a good idea. Do you?

Are you prepared?

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Image by emerji.

No matter how you slice it, 2021 is going to be an extraordinary year, if for no other reason than it follows 2020. Need we say more?

Consequently, we thought it appropriate to come up with an equally extraordinary list of New Year’s resolutions and to share them here. So, as a public service, here they are:

1. We’re never going to utter or write the phrase, new normal. The fact is the entire world was arduously about the business of adapting to a new reality sometime around March or April of last year. It forced us to wonder about our very conceptions of normal, let alone a new normal. So, this year, normal is out the window. Rather, we’ll look ahead. And we’ll focus on accomplishing what we can in the effort to provide the best products and services to our customers that we can. As the actor, Sir Anthony Hopkins, once said, “Today is the tomorrow you were so worried about yesterday.” We’re going to spend the energy we might otherwise spend worrying about tomorrow to accomplish what we can today and every day.
2. We’re going to take more chances. We don’t mean we’re going to take foolish risks. We mean we’re going to set our sights just a little higher. Thomas Edison said, “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” Not us. We’re going to use the success we’ve already achieved as inspiration and as impetus to extend and expand that success even farther.
3. We’re going to have more fun. We got into this business because we love it. If 2020 taught us anything it’s that no work is worth doing if it’s not the work of your heart. And if you’re doing the work of your heart, you certainly deserve to enjoy it. We do. We will. We hope you do, too.
4. We’re going to cherish our relationships — all of them — and be more mindful of them. Especially with the specter of COVID-19 hanging over us, there are no guarantees of anything. Every relationship and every moment is valuable.
5. We’re not going to be preachy. Okay. We may not have done such a bang-up job on that score with our items 1-4 above. But we’ll try. We promise.

No matter what happens in 2021, we wish everyone who reads this post a healthy, happy, and rewarding New Year.

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Image created by BiZkettE1 – www.freepik.com.

There are many ways by which we come by our convictions:

1. Sometimes we see things that motivate us.
2. Sometimes we learn things that inspire us.
3. Sometimes we hear things that disturb us.
4. Sometimes we hear things that unsettle us to the point at which we realize we can’t let them be true.

Pertaining to #4, we once heard someone say, “Well, you know, sometimes good enough is good enough.” In a sense, Finys is dedicated to the proposition that good enough is not good enough.

Nothing’s Perfect

Some years ago, we saw Roy Firestone in interview Troy Aikman on his ESPN program, Up Close. At the time, Aikman was the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys, with whom he won three Super Bowls. On several occasions during the interview, Aikman made reference to playing a perfect game.

At one point, Firestone said, “You keep referring to the perfect game. Do you actually think it’s possible to play a perfect game?”

Aikman responded, “I don’t know. But if that’s not what we’re striving for, what’s the point?” Translation: Good enough is not good enough.

By the same token, we don’t know if it’s possible to make the perfect software. But if that’s not what we’re striving for, what’s the point?

What We Know

We do know it’s possible to make software that does what our customers need it to do. We do know we can make sure of that by asking them. That’s why our Innovation Advisory Board comprises members from all of our active customers who want to participate. We do know we will continue to modify and improve our software, enhancing it and adding functionality to it.

We also know we can limit it. We can’t be all things to all people. Neither can our software. So, we’ll make sure it fulfills the insurance-administration objectives of our customers. But it won’t ever contain functionality that doesn’t pointedly and efficiently fulfill those objectives.

Do we believe it’s possible to play the perfect game or to make the perfect software? We don’t know. But we do know Ralph Waldo Emerson was right when he said, “We aim above the mark to hit the mark.”

Good will always be good. But good enough will never be good enough.

We’re not sure we’ve stumbled on the proverbial new normal. But we’re positive we’ve found new life in the ninth month of the coronavirus pandemic.

Like everyone else on the planet, we slowed down for a while. We had to. Common sense dictates proceeding with caution through uncharted waters. But we started to find our way, to establish a productive heading, to discover like-minded companies that realized as long as the world’s still turning and the sun’s still coming up, there’s work to be done.

Over the last few weeks, we’ve begun to generate a considerable amount of new activity. Our phone and email communication has picked up significantly. We’ve gotten out to call on some prospects in person. And we have more travel booked into December and beyond. It’s definitely not the old normal. But we’re getting the distinct sense that if there’s going to be a new normal, we’re going to have to create it.

Finding Our Way

The poet, T.S. Eliot, once wrote, “If you aren’t in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?” We don’t mean to suggest we’ve gotten any taller. But it’s fair to suggest we were all in over our heads for a while. When the whole world is thrown into the deep end, words like daunting and disorienting qualify as world-class understatements. So, we all had to tread water, find some buoyancy, and find our own ways to stay afloat.

Now that we’re back on the surface, we’re determined to stay here. We’ve kept all our people aboard. We’ve taken care of our customers. We’ve maintained our connections. We’ve stayed in touch with our prospects. We’ve worked through our challenges. And we’ve been as fortunate as we are determined.

As we start to emerge from the pandemic — or as we learn to navigate its previously uncharted waters, at least — we hope you have the same good fortune we have.

You might not be seeing the light yet. But if you keep swimming, you’ll get to the surface.