Aviva: Pioneering Sustainability Innovation in the Insurance Industry

Take a moment to think of an innovative company. What’s the first one that comes to mind?

You might be thinking of one of the massive Silicon Valley tech firms.

You might, instead, be thinking of a tiny start-up. Someone changing the world from a bedroom in a semi-detached.

It’s likely that you’re not thinking about an insurer, though. That’s understandable. We don’t have a reputation for being the most exciting industry.

But Aviva can trace its origins back more than 325 years, and with time comes change. We've been adapting, evolving and innovating to meet our customers’ changing needs since the 1600s.

“I mean, I think I'd describe us as ‘experienced’ as opposed to 325 years old,” said Owen Morris, Managing Director of Personal Lines Insurance, UKGI, at Aviva. 

“But it's a nice way to think about it. I think it shows we're doing something right. You don't survive that long without innovating.”

Owen Morris, Managing Director, Personal Lines Insurance

The invention of the car, for example, was a huge innovation. It has, quite literally, reshaped our world. For better and for worse. It also meant insurers had to innovate to keep up.

That, or be overtaken by others.

Seeing down the road.
Thankfully, as insurers, anticipating the unexpected is second nature to us. It’s why we have our innovation team at Aviva, led by our Chief Innovation Officer, Ben Luckett.

Ben Luckett - what is the Chief Innovation Officer role, and what does the innovation team do?

“The Chief Innovation Officer role is accountable for helping and supporting the organisation deliver competitive advantage and meet customer needs by delivering new ideas and new technologies.

“We split that into three things.

“We invest in start-ups through our venture capital fund. 

“We build new businesses through our venture studio.

“We create new products and services through something called rapid proposition development.”

While innovation isn’t strictly one of our ‘four strategic priorities’ (customer, growth, efficiency, and sustainability) Ben explained that it underpins each of them.

“If we want to better serve customer needs, we need to understand them and innovate.

“If we want to grow, we need new products and services. 

“If we want to deliver efficiency, often new technology is really, really helpful for that.

“And from a sustainability perspective, I think if we're going to meet some of our targets, investing in some of the technology, particularly around climate change, that's going to drive a difference is really important.”

The biggest threat facing our planet.
We know that tackling climate change is the best thing we can do for our customers, business, shareholders and future. Just one of the many ways we’re acting is in the products we offer.

Aviva Zero stands out as a major example of this. 

It's our carbon-conscious car insurance. For a limited time only, for an entire year after buying a policy, we're offsetting 100% of the carbon emissions that Aviva Zero customers create when driving or charging their car.

We work out their emissions based on the car they drive and their annual mileage, which they tell us about when they buy Aviva Zero car insurance. We also factor in real-world driving conditions that affect fuel use, like weather conditions and car maintenance.

If you're interested in how it all works, you can find out more and read the terms and conditions on the Aviva Zero website.

It's an innovative product that's supporting carbon offsetting projects that benefit people and their communities. It's also a great example of how we're driving our sustainability agenda forward through product design.

The innovation team, led by Ben, helped Owen and the Personal Lines part of our business bring Aviva Zero to life.

Starting from zero.

“I distinctly remember being on the phone one snowy February morning," Ben told us. "For some reason, I was in my garden walking around, taking a phone call. I think that's what we did in lockdown. I was talking to Owen, and we were thinking about the concept of the 'carbon-conscious insurer'.

“The genesis of the idea came from that phone call. That was the beginning of Aviva Zero.”

Owen elaborated on where the journey began for him, and the reasoning behind that phone call. 

“It was one of the first things I did when I got this job. I wrote to our Group CEO and said, 'I think we need to make some substantial moves in terms of improving what we're doing in motor insurance'.

“We've got electric vehicles. We've got more data coming from vehicles. We’re going to need to be able to insure electric vehicles for our customers.

“And the thing that triggered it, and hence where the 'zero' came from, and it's really, really important... it's sustainability.

“How do we create a proposition that has sustainability at its core, and we can build out from over time?”

That’s a good question. It’s one we posed to Ben. How do we build a proposition like this? What was the process like?

“The process was taking that idea and making sure that it was something customers wanted and would buy into, and iterating that with customer feedback, building the technology, securing the funding, building a team and getting them into a space where they could operate at pace.”

Keeping our customers at the front of our mind.

“One of the things that we try and do is really understand our customers and understand their needs and design things around those rather than starting with our own internal ideas or with our products.

“And there's a methodology that we use to do that, and that starts with what we call desirability. Understanding if it's something that a customer will want or buy. And then moving through into feasibility and viability.

“Traditionally, businesses have started the other way round. They said, is this something that we can build? Whereas we start with saying, is this something the customer will want?”

Owen told us a bit more about that journey to launch. It was quick, he says. Incredibly quick. It went from the first lines of code on a screen to the launch of the product in just a handful of months.

After all the work that went into over those months, taking it from code to customer, the launch must have been a big moment for the people who had been involved from the start.

“The excitement is palpable when you first start to see those first customers." Owen shared.

“But I'm actually more excited by a milestone we got last week. We've sold over 30,000 policies now already."

We spoke to Owen in November, so we've hit a few more milestones since then. By the end of January this had increased to 65,000 policies.

“So, what I like about innovation at a large corporate like Aviva is it's not just affecting a few people or a bit of a niche. We can impact and have a positive benefit for millions of people, and that's what we want to do with Aviva Zero.

“I'm really proud of the product.

“I think one of the reasons Aviva Zero worked, is we put the full weight of Aviva behind it.”  

“It wasn't ‘Oh, we just let some people get on with it over here'. We’ve got a brilliant team. We work with the best technology outfits. And we've created something that's going great guns.”

What's next?

As for Ben, his team is already working on the next big idea.

“The role of the innovation team is to accelerate new ideas, to test, to learn. And then as we collaborate with the business units, they then take these things over to scale. And we're kind of in that process now, of scaling with Aviva Zero, so the innovation team's role is declining.

“I'm personally still quite involved, but a lot of the team have moved on to look at new and different projects.”

While Aviva Zero is 'going great guns,' history shows that innovations aren’t always a success. That’s part of the process, and a consequence of taking a road less travelled.

“It doesn't always have to be successful, though." Owen said. "I think some of the innovations I've tried over the years haven’t been, frankly.

"That's okay. What you’ve got to do is learn from them and build from them. And actually, if you never try anything, you'll never find that out."

We ended our conversation with Ben by asking him what he sees coming down the road – or at least what he thinks might be.

“There are a few areas that I think are really exciting.

“I mentioned earlier about technology driving greater efficiency. And I think we'll continue to see a lot of innovation in automation and artificial intelligence, making things both better for the customer and more efficient.

“I also talked about sustainability, which is a really, really exciting, growing area, and I think we'll continue to see innovation there in terms of some of the technologies that can support the decarbonisation agenda and also the ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) reporting agenda.

“And then finally, I think insurance is becoming much more customer-centric. A lot of the technologies that we've seen over the last few years are focused on much better customer experience. Making things easier. Frictionless.

“I think we'll continue to see innovation in that space and that's really exciting.”

Think of an innovative company. What’s the first one that pops into your mind?

Hopefully, with the work that Ben and the innovation team are doing, and products like Aviva Zero, it’s a bit more likely to be Aviva.