IDENTITY VERIFICATION: GEOLOCATION Insurance has, for many years, been viewed as a necessary, though largely unwelcome, commodity that consumers only interact with when they absolutely have to – a reality that resulted in considerable complacency among providers. However, trends are converging to change that, and not least among them are demands from an increasingly savvy, and progressively younger, customer base. That’s coupled with a challenging economic marketplace, following a global pandemic that has forced businesses of all types to improve efficiency and get better at acquiring and retaining users, and offering an overall better experience to them. On top of that is the need to manage the growing threat of fraud. Here, Barley Laing, MD at global identity and data verification service provider Melissa’s London office, describes how its pioneering development of geocoding technology is supporting this cultural shift. Founded in 1985, Melissa now serves 30,000 customers worldwide, including heavyweights like Bank of America, Citi, Aviva and Volvo Financial Services. It provides a range of tools and services that offer alternative solutions to the
Geocoding technology is helping improve customer service, reduce risk and improve efficiency for insurers. Barley Laing, MD at global ID and data verification provider Melissa’s London office, explains how challenges of anti-money laundering (AML), fraud protection and the identification of politically-exposed persons, among other enterprise-wide risks. It does this through age verification, national ID services and contact data validation. However, it’s Melissa’s cutting-edge development of geocoding technology that offers a potentially exciting new solution to a number of longstanding conundrums in insurance. THE INSURTECH MAGAZINE: Can you describe Melissa’s geocoding technology and why you’re so excited about it? BARLEY LAING: It’s the process of appending geocodes, or longitude and latitude, rooftop geo-coordinates to a
verified postal address. Anywhere in the world that has a verified postal address can be geocoded. Address is part of the fundamental background data for insurers, and geocodes enable them to plot exactly where a property is and, in doing so, helps them assess the different types of risk that might apply to contents or valuables kept there. They can then come up with a very precise premium that suits the location. Taking the UK as an example, there are different geographical factors, such as flooding, cliff erosion for coastal properties, or high-crime-rate areas. Using our very specific co-ordinates, insurers can precisely judge those risks. As a global operation, we can also apply geocodes to things like volcanic eruption, which we’ve seen in the past few years in Italy and Iceland, for instance. Or to places experiencing excessively high winds, even to areas where there is armed conflict. Large-scale, global insurers might run geocoding quite frequently, to establish the changing nature of risk and adjust their insurance policies and premium profiles accordingly. Industries like insurance used to apply a one-size-fits-all approach to premiums.
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TheInsurtechMagazine | Issue 6
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