Time Magazine recently released its 2013 list of the 25 Best Inventions – posing the question – “what makes an invention great?”  The list covers a number of innovations ranging from solving a problem you didn’t think could be solved to solving a problem you didn’t even know you had in the first place.  A classic case in point – the new found awareness that you need to eat a doughnut and croissant at the same time. Time also raises the debate on whether a brand new invention is more valuable than an incremental improvement to an existing innovation.

In this spirit, I wanted to highlight the efforts of one of our innovative partners, Security First Insurance, based in Ormond Beach, Florida. Insurance is traditionally and perhaps unjustly thought of as a laggard from an industry standpoint.  Accordingly, it’s especially ripe for usage of new technologies and practices to improve efficiencies and customer service.

Earlier this week, Security First Insurance became the first carrier in North America to utilize personalized and interactive videos to provide new Security First Insurance policyholders with information about the coverage in their policy while also addressing common misperceptions about coverage.  The clever animations are tailored to policyholders’ specific coverages and walk them through what has traditionally been a complex and legalese-filled document that gets stashed into a drawer until you have a loss.

Here’s a link to a sample policyholder video: http://welcome.securityfirstflorida.com/new/

The video technology is also smart enough to know if you’ve watched the video before and what time of day you’re viewing it.  Metrics on the back-end will enable the Security First Insurance’s marketing department to track viewing patterns  and refine the videos over time to improve the experience.   Pretty cool, huh?

I look forward to using this blog to highlight other innovative practices carriers are introducing to improve the customer experience.