Asinta 2015: brokers go digital

This year, the members of the Asinta network met in Paris on 18 and 19 June. Asinta is an international association bringing together around fifty specialised “employee benefits” brokers operating in 70 countries. On the menu for the 2015 event was: the new technologies and the client relationship.

Brokers and doctors in the same digital world

Uwe Diegel, CEO of iHealth, painted a challenging picture of how the medical and broking professions are interacting. The digital transformation of society is changing consumer behaviour. Internet and the social networks enable everyone to seek out and share information, and question the opinion of experts. Doctors, just like brokers, have not been left untouched by this revolution even if, naturally, confidence and human contact remain the basis for their contact with people. How to anticipate this trend, adapt and especially, how to combine human relations and the digital relationship? This was the topic of the debate that was triggered spontaneously with participants.

A fruitful sharing of experience among Asinta members

Internet users are impatient. Probably the biggest challenge is therefore to provide immediate access to information. Alliant, a US broker, has developed a web platform for its clients that enables them, independently, to quickly find information on their policies and other data. An excellent way to offer clients more services, more quickly without detracting from the time necessary for account executives to discuss higher added-value issues

The representative from Punter Southall, a UK firm of actuaries, put the emphasis more on the opportunities for innovation brought about by the new technologies. Punter Southall have promoted their own insurance product and offer a significant reduction in premiums for companies whose staff are equipped with a connected activity tracker showing they walk more than 10,000 steps a day.

An inter-cultural debate on health prevention

Asinta meetings are also events where members can take a step back, review their profession and discover the cultural and regulatory environment of other countries in more detail. The presentation of the GPS, employee assistance programme, was oriented towards the changes – ‘made in France’ – that have been applied to this tool, which is already widely used in the USA. The reticence of French employees to seek assistance and the absolute need for management to assess the system first has caused some surprise on the other side of the Atlantic. Everyone will be waiting for the next Asinta convention in New York in 2016 to see how Gerep’s new health prevention offer has fared after its first year.