By FINTECH Books Contributor, Harry Williams Follow: @_harrywilliams There’s a risk increasing investment in technology that will only add more complexity to the industry. There’s a risk technology will be used for the sake of it. And there’s a risk of overwhelming uniformity. The answer? Design. There’s an issue with trust in the insurance industry. This stems from consumers not knowing what they’re covered for. This is caused by long and complex policy documents that are hard to understand. One way to overcome this is by using design to simplify how you communicate to your customer what they’re covered for. By following some common principles of design and relentlessly striving for simplification, you can build trust with consumers, by designing your service in a way consumers can understand what you’re saying. Fundamentally design is about people. It’s about starting with the end user and getting to know their needs, desires and pains before you start creating anything. Only when you know this should you start thinking about what service you’re going to create. Investing in technology without exploring your customer’s real needs is a great way to end up with something that nobody wants. So cut through the InsurTech hype. Start with your users. We live in a world of abundance. With the cost of technology decreasing and technology becoming easier to work with, the barriers to entry for creating your own service are declining. We’re seeing this in the InsurTech industry. And the dynamics of competition and differentiation are changing as a result. It’s not enough to create a reasonably priced product that’s adequately functional. In an age of abundance, appealing only to rational and functional needs is extremely insufficient. One of the best ways for businesses to differentiate their services is to make their offering beautiful and emotionally compelling. Design to simplify. Design to operate. Design to differentiate.