The concept of a "meta-universe" is pervasive. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg took the metasverse craze to a new high by changing the name of Facebook to Meta. Then Microsoft announced its $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which it saw as its first forway into the meta-universe.
Beyond social, gaming, and AI devices, the metasurses are also making their mark, infiltrating all sorts of domains and taking on different forms. Driven by the need for innovative ideas in the insurance industry, it is no surprise that the force of the metasomes has also infiltrated the insurance industry, combining it with products, concepts and ideas.
Although the metasomes are still hot, it remains to be seen whether the industry is an opportunity or a bubble and whether it can truly develop. Of course, it is uncertain whether the concept will really add value to the industry as it is integrated into it. The same is true for the insurance industry.
The shape of the metaverse in the insurance industry
After the concept of the metasomes came out, some different forms were derived in the insurance industry. From at home and abroad will be yuan universe into insurance proposals and ideas, as you can see, the domestic several companies to enter the meta universe, but the bigger picture is that yuan discuss level + insurance is more exists in the universe, the personage inside course of study wants to use the yuan to the universe for the current existing insurance business can assign, by yuan universe education insurance clients. In contrast, foreign countries are more diversified, developing digital collections, marketing, and see opportunities to develop new types of insurance from the development of the meta-universe.
Domestic: the form of meta-universe + insurance
From the domestic situation, insurance companies launched NFT digital collections. In the second "Treasure Festival" held by China Life Insurance Company in December last year, the online treasure festival of China Life Insurance Company opened the door of the universe, and launched the digital commemorative collection of the 15th anniversary and digital family two digital plates.
Similarly, in January this year, Taikang online released its own IP TKer as the prototype of NFT digital collection -- "Fuhu Kaitai", which is the first NFT art published online by Taikang. Also released at the same time is a meta-universe concept video, Taikang online hopes that through the meta-universe will be invisible insurance products into tangible experience, so that users personally feel the value of insurance. Taikang online believes that from the perspective of the insurance industry, the meta-universe is a port for insurance to seek a breakthrough from the Internet era to the Internet of Things era.
In addition to the two companies that launched digital collections, the discussion of the domestic insurance industry on the universe + insurance is to empower the existing insurance business, that is, to use the pure virtual interaction of the universe to empower insurance sales, marketing, user education and other links, so as to promote business development.
Have the industry spending, in the sales link, the insurance industry participants can use yuan universe interact, utilizing all kinds of technological capabilities in the insurance sales of each link, item by item, deciphering the insurance sales pain points, realize non-contact, pure online, don't use offline acquaintances social trust insurance sales whole process experience.
On the other hand, insurance companies can leverage virtual elements in the metasexes to provide timely solutions that effectively improve interactions with insurance customers, thereby enhancing the experience. For example, one proposal for the metasomes is that virtual employees in the metasomes are instant solutions that will more closely resemble real employees in terms of verbal intelligence and temperature, resulting in more low-cost, replicable model employees that can effectively improve customer relationships externally. Virtual digital people can also replace internal trainers of insurance companies, and can complete internal training courses with a consistent image, which can improve training efficiency.
Abroad: meta-cosmic insurance, digital collection and marketing parallel
In contrast, foreign exploration of insurance and meta-universe is more diversified. It not only covers meta-universe insurance, but also issues digital collections and uses meta-universe for marketing.
Metaverse insurance products
At present, a common idea in the foreign insurance industry is to provide insurance products for virtual assets in the metasomes. Some large insurance companies and intermediaries have arranged metasomes insurance or planned to do so, such as Liberty Mutual, State Farm and Sompo Japan.
Sompo Japan, for example, recently announced an agreement with ANA NEO, a virtual digital life and mobile gaming platform, to expand its meta-cosmic partnership. The two parties will conduct a proof-of-concept to develop products and services that meet ANA NEO's Meta-universe services and Sompo Japan's expertise in insurance product development. It is also the first foray by a Japanese insurance company into the virtual world.
Through the collaboration, Sompo Japan will participate in ANA NEO's Metaverse project to validate various business cases centered on insurance and risk management, This includes verifying the marketability and commercial viability of insurance product development, verifying the risks associated with trading and compatibility of insurance products and related businesses, and analyzing and verifying the usefulness and applicability of various data in the ANA NEO meta-universe.
It is understood that ANA NEO, a Japanese metaverse company, plans to release metaverse products starting with travel and actively expand its services to cover all aspects of lifestyle. At present, from the company's official website, we can only find sporadic information related to virtual tourism, there is no systematic product and related introduction.
Starting from the existing insurance products and frameworks, some practical viewpoints have been put forward abroad. For example, one viewpoint extends from network security insurance to meta-cosmic insurance.
From the point of view of the target of protection, network security insurance and the target of the meta-universe have the same attribute, that is, not entity but can cause a huge loss. In fact, the meta-universe itself is a unique derivative of Internet and social media activities, so the general damage and liability from both can include hacking, business disruption, privacy breaches and ransomware attacks.
Therefore, Bloomberg law firm points out that cyber security insurance may become a source of protection against business risks in the universe. Although the network security risk policy form each are not identical, but usually cover data/network security and privacy event related various third party liability and the first party losses, including unauthorized collection or disclose private information consumers liability claims, the government investigation and supervision procedures, business interruption, data recovery and extortion software attack.
But if meta-cosmic risks are to be protected, cyber policies should be more detailed and explicit in terms of insurance provisions. For example, one definition commonly covered in cybersecurity insurance policies is "computer system," which may cover third-party claims and first-party losses for computer systems owned or controlled by the user as well as for contracted cloud providers, but not for servers that are not owned or controlled by the user or the user's direct provider.
Market demand is behind insuring the metasverse. By contrast, the need for insurance is obvious as the metasexes are awash with digital assets, creating many scams. According to the data, as of 2021, metasurverse faces 80 percent more robot attacks and 40 percent more human attacks than any other enterprise.
From the perspective of the participants, the reason for this idea is simple: to be the "water seller" in the context of a hyperheated, but uncertain, meta-universe. Hylink's US managing director says that in an environment where significant investment is taking place and there is little consumer protection, the next part of the metasomes will be insurance.
Fuwei Insurance launches digital NFT collection
Instead of launching a meta-universe insurance product, Fuwei has taken a different approach, launching its NFT collection of robot-themed artwork co-created by its leadership team. The collection consists of nine robot artworks, each designed by fuwei staff. Each robot exhibits different leadership attributes. NFT is available on the OpenSea platform and is not for sale.
The launch of the NFT collection is an important milestone for Fuwei Insurance, marking the company's first foray into the metaverse.
From a more practical point of view, the NFT collection is another part of Fuwei's efforts to enhance the customer experience by providing a new way for users to interact with each other through various activities in the metacosmic community.
As for the purposes of user education and training mentioned above, fuwei's digital collection does not seem to be so utilitarian. Its so-called "improving user experience" actually provides a brand new way to meet users. Through this encounter, users can perceive the brand power of Fuwei Insurance, and further experience fuwei's efforts in embracing new technologies.
State Farm: Marketing in the metaverse
State Farm has made more inroads into the metasverse than any other company.
In September 2021, State Farm's "mascot" Jake made his debut in the virtual game NBA 2K22.
Jake appears as an NPC in the game's city mode, and users can interact with him in the in-game NGHBR GOODS storefront, unlock their character's Jack-inspired skin, and purchase in-game branded clothing, such as the mascot's khaki pants and red shirt.
One thing to note here is that Jake has become the iconic mascot of State Farm, gaining popularity since his first appearance in a 2011 AD. The character was played by a State Farm man named Jake Stone and later taken over by someone else.
Revelation to us, for this is the yuan role must be embedded in the universe has to represent the company's iconic role or mascot, such ability can achieve the purpose of using the brand and users meet, and if the RMB to the universe and to create a virtual character, or the role itself does not form a strong cognitive in the customer base, may be the wasted effort.
To celebrate its 100th anniversary, State Farm recently partnered with podcasting network iHeartMedia to launch iHeartLand on Roblox. State Farm will have exclusive naming rights to one of the arenas in iHeart's virtual world.
IHeartLand aims to break down barriers between artists, creators, brands and fans in new ways. Players will have an interactive experience with iHeartLand.
The meta-universe and the possibility of insurance: the future is still too far away
From the perspective of combining insurance and meta-universe, there are totally different ways at home and abroad.
For China, Taikang Online and China Life Insurance have launched digital collections. In addition to this discussion, insurance industry insiders want to use the metasomes to improve user education, marketing and other links. In essence, they want to take advantage of the metasomes to improve the existing process.
However, from the perspective of foreign ideas, they are more diversified. They not only use the metasomes for marketing and improving user experience, but also foresee risks from the development of the metasomes and are determined to provide protection for such risks.
At this stage, both approaches have limitations. China wants to use the meta-universe to empower the existing insurance business, improve the insurance process, carry out marketing, and achieve the purpose of user education. However, from the perspective of realistic development, there may be several problems, including whether the meta-universe can achieve the function of improving the insurance process, the communication surface covered by marketing in the meta-universe, and the matching degree between users in the meta-universe and insurance users.
First, the metasomes are essentially the ultimate form of the Internet, so improving the insurance process through the metasomes is nothing more than enabling the insurance business by taking advantage of various new Internet technologies. This point has been applied in the current stage of the Internet, for example, the realization of insurance procedures online. But it has to be said that these processes can be implemented only with current technology, and there is not much that can be improved in the metaverse.
Moreover, the concept of using the meta-universe to educate customers is impractical. In the context of the early development of the metasverse, the number of customers in the metasverse is unknown, and the current group is still a small part of the total population. Therefore, using the metasverse to educate users in this case is not effective. Moreover, from the wider perspective of the Internet, when insurance was moving from offline to online, there were also suggestions that insurance could use the Internet to achieve user education. Regardless of the effect, the insurance industry may not need so many gimmicks in terms of user education alone.
Foreign approaches to guarantee the risks in the meta-universe are also confronted with various challenges such as pricing difficulties and uncertain risks. Companies currently planning to launch metasurverse insurance are either in the proof-of-concept stage or are still proposing ideas but not getting into the actual insurance product design and bringing them to market, so there is still a long way to go.
From the domestic and foreign exploration of metasomes and insurance, metasomes and insurance still belong to the concept first and lack of substantive content at present. Therefore, it can be said that the future of the meta-universe and insurance is still far away, and some current approaches, especially some domestic proposals, are actually not very meaningful, and may just be a carnival in the face of the pressure of traditional insurance business.