Catch up now: Digital Innovation in Risk Management

Mark Colegate:

To discuss the growing use of technology in risk management, I'm joined here in the studio by Sarah Woodrow. She is prevention solutions leader at Aviva. Well, Sarah, first of all, tell us a little bit about the role.

 

Sarah Woodrow:

Absolutely. So, I oversee our prevention solutions for Aviva risk management. So essentially, I'm constantly looking at ways to essentially develop new solutions for our commercial customers. The primary objective of hopefully preventing those losses from happening in the first place.

 

And the best way I sort of look at those, solutions is by firstly looking at what we call our in house, services. So essentially, this is developing technologies that our risk consultants can add to their toolkit. And they can utilise those added value services whilst out on site.

 

We also have some digital innovations, too, and that includes things like our risk management website. And I also, look, after evolving our specialist partner network. We've got just over 40 specialist partners, at the moment in that network, and they can also offer our commercial customers with prevention solutions, at preferential rates and terms.

 

Mark Colegate:

And coming back to the introduction to this piece. How are you using that technology to, enhance risk management, particularly to support brokers and their clients?

 

Sarah Woodrow:

So, you know, investing in technology, you know, within risk management for us is really important for our customers and brokers. So we invest a lot in technology to support our in house services. So a great couple of examples to bring that to life includes things like thermal imaging cameras from property perspective.

 

 So all our property risk consultants now have,  those cameras when they're out on site, they'll be identifying hotspots. So trying to prevent, electrical fires and cold spots. That's looking at more from a leak detection perspective.

 

And then we've also got our liability risk consultants who have slip testing tools. And this enables them to undertake slip testing if it's appropriate to do so on, liability surveys. And that's all around preventing slips, trips and falls. So by investing in technology, it enables us to produce a whole raft of solutions, to our customers and all sorts of different mediums. It enables us to be more efficient, and hopefully get out to more of our commercial customers, too, by use slides in that data and insights, it also enables us to be more efficient and provide more tailored risk management guidance and support to both our customers and our brokers.

 

Mark Colegate:

So is this part of the general trend to make greater use of data and and, as importantly, a greater efficiency of data?

 

Sarah Woodrow:

Absolutely. So efficiency, you know, is one of the aspects, for us we want to be more efficient and make sure that we're, you know, picking up that pertinent risk information to make sure that we're giving the right sort of tailored risk management support to our customers and brokers.

 

Mark Colegate:

And you're talking quite broad terms about some of the areas you're looking at. But could you give us some specific examples of of how you're using this technology?

 

Sarah Woodrow:

So I mean, digital innovation is at the forefront of our minds all the time when we're developing our digital proposition.

 

We look at it from a sort of self serve, and in terms of increasing our accessibility, we've developed our risk management website, and that enables our, brokers and customers to access things like our loss prevention standards. So that's our technical guidance, access to  our partner solutions and also things like our latest news and insights.

 

So our risk consultants will develop blogs and articles around hot topics for example. We have also embedded our virtual management proposition in the digital space. So essentially, this is video technology, and it enables our risk consultants rather than physically attending sites.

 

If we've got, you know, a client that needs, you know, a more specific just a quick risk management query, we can actually remotely connect to that customer's premises, and that customer can then do a tour with a video around their risk, we can take pictures remotely and then provide a dedicated sort of tailored output report at the back end of that for the customer. We're also developing, and continuing to enhance our Aviva self-assess.

 

So essentially, this is like a digital survey, and essentially, that's something that we're continuing to evolve. We've actually just launched a care home self-assess, and that enables our customers to answer, some questions upload some documentation, and the risk consultant can then review that themselves, and provide tailored risk improvements at the back end and dedicated loss prevention standards in that space.

 

So continuing to evolve that and digital engagements for us, I'd say over the last 12 months, we've done just over 3,500 of those engagements. We're also looking at things like drone technology. So that's one that we're looking to evolve at the moment.

We've been focusing on the roofs of our commercial properties. So we're looking at things like, machinery and plants, PV panels, that sort of stuff.  So we're looking at it from a maintenance perspective. So we found things like blocked gutters, overgrown vegetation, but also from a sort of thermography perspective, too. So identifying sort of hot spots and cold spots So it could be again trying to prevent overheating of plant and machinery, which could lead to electrical fires. I mean, even from a PV perspective, you know, we could see inefficiencies and PV, solar panels, and that can lead to energy inefficiencies, those sorts of things, too.

 

Mark Colegate:

Can you tell us a bit more detail? Some of the things you're doing around using this data to provide insights.

 

Sarah Woodrow:

We're utilising artificial intelligence at the moment to enable us to, automatically read,  risk insight data and that essentially, will,  risk quality benchmark a clients locations across their portfolio. And that enables us to, you know, pick up pertinent risk information. And we can then utilise that and support our customers and brokers to provide them with,  you know, help them to prioritise their risk management needs.

 

From a drone perspective, We're also looking at data and insights as I touched upon earlier. So we've actually now trained, a few of our risk consultants so they can now commercially fly those, those drones over commercial property routes.  And we have sort of three offerings in that space at the moment. So we look at it from an enhanced imagery perspective. That's the maintenance aspect. They can also produce 3D models, of a client's risk. And they can also look at it from a thermography perspective, too. And we're constantly looking at how we can evolve that in terms of utilising that data and insight.

So we're looking at areas like, sustainability, renewables, as well as a growing area for us, too. And that very much also feeds into our wider, group sustainability ambition of becoming net zero as an organisation by 2040.

 

Mark Colegate:

I guess piloting drone sounds pretty state of the art. But what are you looking at next?

 

Sarah Woodrow:

Well, we've actually just launched a, under insurance tool.  So this enables us, in the moment, our property risk consultants to provide accurate sums insured to our commercial customers and also give them an indication of whether their property might be over or potentially underinsured, and subject the output of that, they can then offer solutions from our specialist partners. But they can also offer us, that we can offer sort of loss prevention standards, too.  At the moment, we're sort of looking at innovation as well. So sensors and the Internet of Things, pilots tests and learns they're really important, too. We obviously always are looking at testing out new ideas. And if they're successful, we then look at how do we embed those as standard as part of the risk management proposition.

 

So a great example of that for us has been the virtual risk management. The video technology proposition, where we started out with 15 risk consultants at the outset and that pilot, we then increased that to 45 during the pandemic. And that was a real success story. I mean, we had some great, case study examples.

 

But things like supporting the risk management needs of the Nightingale Hospitals, for example, and then that essentially, has now become embedded. So all of risk management has access to that video technology.

 

We're also developing our specialist partner network, so that's a really dynamic space for us. We're sort of, at the moment looking at new emerging risks. So things like sustainability, cyber, renewables. So lots of stuff going on in that area. Customer and broker feedback is really important for us, too. You know, we are constantly, picking up feedback on a day to day basis. But each year we also have developed a risk insights report, So essentially we go out more formally to ask for that feedback, to understand what's keeping them awake at night, and that makes sure we're then focusing on the right areas and making sure we can offer them solutions in those areas too.

 

And then finally, I think data and insight and AI, we talked about that, too. That's a big focus area for us moving into next year. We know there's a future there, and it will help us become more efficient and also provide our customers with sort of more targeted risk management advice supporting them in this ever evolving landscape that we're in today.

 

Mark Colegate:

We have to leave it there Sarah Woodrow. Thank you.

 

Sarah Woodrow:

Thank you.