The Nordic insurance market has distinctive characteristics and remains an attractive insurance market, with similar challenges and opportunities to other markets.
The methodology for this project combined two design processes, design research and speculative design, where needs analysis from ethnography and synthesis provided design prompts to be used as inspiration for the speculative design process. Thirty interviews were completed across the Nordics, focused on end-users but also including insurers, banks and utility company. Ethnography requires the deep understanding of people through in depth interviewing and observation to uncover latent needs. The key needs identified centred on control, security and connection – lower levels of Maslow’s pyramid, but in fact insurance addresses needs across all levels, as it protects one’s home and reaches aspects of self actualisation.
The speculative design of preferable scenarios for 2025 highlighted three areas: predictive safety, empowerment of users and happiness through empathy. These three scenarios relied heavily on new trends such as the internet of things, artificial intelligence and big data. Towards 2025 will be an opportunity for the insurance industry to create a closer and more meaningful relationship with consumers, enabled by new technology to place themselves at the centre of future lifestyles, where insurance is not there to just preserve and protect but also to empower and enable more fulfilling and ultimately happier lives.