Five takeaways from webinar on using data to improve customer loyalty

In a recent webinar hosted by Insurance Post in association with Hyland, industry leaders shared strategies for using data to improve customer insight, retention and cross-selling.

With customer expectations shifting toward more personalised, seamless digital experiences, and competition in the market intensifying — particularly through price comparison websites — insurers are under growing pressure to retain customers and expand their lifetime value.

A recent webinar hosted by Insurance Post, in association with Hyland, brought together leaders from across the industry to discuss the transformative role of data in enhancing customer insights, retention and cross-selling. This article delves into the key insights shared during the webinar.

Cross-selling as a customer-centric outcome

Cross-selling, as several panellists emphasised, should not be viewed as a tactic but as a natural result of understanding customer needs more deeply.

Nick Turner, CEO of NFU Mutual, described it simply: “You can call it cross-selling if you want, but really, it’s just about knowing your customers well enough to help them manage their risk better.”

At NFU Mutual, where customers can’t even buy a policy online, this relationship-led approach has delivered a retention rate of 95%.

For digital-first insurers like Esure, cross-selling takes on a different role. In a market dominated by switching and price sensitivity, offering additional products helps create what chief architect Rob Stanton called “stickiness.” He argued that “If price is all you’ve got to keep your customer, you won’t keep them long.”

Cross-selling becomes a means of delivering more convenience, particularly when embedded into seamless user journeys inspired by experiences in other sectors, such as digital banking.

Mark Phillips, regional VP – analytics at Guidewire, brought a strategic lens to the conversation. He suggested that a successful cross-sell is not a standalone campaign but an outcome of broader investment in data and analytics maturity.

“It’s a symptom of knowing your customer properly — and having the systems in place to act on that knowledge,” he said.

The strategic role of data infrastructure

A major theme across all speakers was that high-quality, unified data is the foundation for effective cross-selling and retention. Yet many insurers are still working to overcome fragmented systems and legacy constraints, and the panellists acknowledged the challenge of creating a “single customer view.”

Oliver Holden, CIO at RSA, explained that RSA’s integration into the Intact Group has helped accelerate their transformation. With a clear target architecture and proven roadmap from their Canadian colleagues, RSA now has a direction of travel. But progress isn’t instant.

“Anything worth doing takes time,” he said. “We’re rebuilding for the long term, not for short-term wins.”

Jonathan Davis, head of data science at Zurich, highlighted the practical challenge of ingesting and structuring data from multiple sources.

“We get risk location data from customers in emails, phone calls, PDFs — none of it is structured,” he noted. AI, however, is changing the game: “With the latest tools, we don’t need standard formats anymore — we can parse and structure almost anything.”

Phillips described a clear roadmap for data maturity. First, unify and clean your internal data. Then, enrich it with third-party inputs. Next, build predictive models — whether for retention, churn or purchasing behaviour. Finally, make sure those insights can be deployed directly into decision systems.

Tom Davis, Hyland’s director of sales for the Content Innovation Cloud™, added that even the best-designed data architecture will fail to get buy-in if it lacks a clear business case.

“If you just say, ‘I’m going to build a data strategy,’ you’ll get blank stares,” he said. “But if you say, ‘I’m going to improve customer retention,’ then suddenly you’ve got buy-in.”

It’s not enough to build a model; the challenge is actually operationalising it — embedding it into workflows and systems.

Personalisation and journey orchestration

For cross-selling to feel natural and effective, it must be timely and relevant. This is where real-time capability comes into play.

Stanton said Esure captures every interaction in real time and uses orchestration tools to personalise messaging.

“Every quote, every click, every claim — it’s all captured on an event stream,” he explained. Combined with rules-based triggers and machine learning-driven propensity scores, this allows Esure to act in the right moment and on the right device.

The company also tracks customers throughout the life cycle to better anticipate timing and intent, adjusting communications based on where they are in their journey.

Zurich’s Davis added that the challenge isn’t just digitising data, but appreciating that digital and human processes are often intertwined.

“Even a simple thing like an address is rooted in human systems like postal services,” he said. “We need to remember that and design systems that work with people — not just data.”

Davis of Hyland reinforced that technical capability means little without execution.

“It’s not enough to build a model; the challenge is actually operationalising it — embedding it into workflows and systems,” he said.

People and governance

Technology may offer the tools, but it’s people and culture that determine whether transformation sticks.

Holden stressed that governance — though often overlooked — is critical to long-term success.

“It’s the boring stuff like data definitions, data quality and lineage, that makes everything else possible,” he said. “If you do those things, you can scale. If you don’t, you just build more legacy.”

Jonathan Davis of Zurich agreed.

“We start any data project by asking who’s involved and what they’re trying to achieve. The tech comes second,” he explained. In his view, the most successful deployments come when teams are aligned around a clear business goal.

Hyland’s Davis added that many data-driven transformation projects fail not because of technical limitations, but because there’s no executive alignment.

“If innovation, technology and business teams aren’t pulling in the same direction, the project stalls,” he said.

Across all speakers, a shared conclusion emerged: Data maturity takes time.

For RSA, becoming part of Intact gave them access to a lab with over 700 specialists that was capable of deploying machine learning at scale. Holden noted they were “the beneficiary of that maturity,” but that Intact had been realistic from the outset: “It took them seven years to get to a consistent single source of data they could really leverage.”

It’s the boring stuff like data definitions, data quality and lineage, that makes everything else possible. If you do those things, you can scale. If you don’t, you just build more legacy.

Customer trust and consent management

Finally, the panellists addressed the external factors shaping cross-sell strategy, particularly regulatory compliance and customer trust.

Stanton explained that regulatory frameworks like GDPR and the UK’s Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) remain central, especially as rules on consent continue to tighten.

“If you want to run campaigns via Google Ads, for example, you have to demonstrate user consent in real time,” he said.

Esure’s real-time event architecture, he added, is designed to manage live consent signals dynamically and ensure compliance across all channels.

More broadly, NFU Mutual’s Turner and Zurich’s Davis emphasised that customer trust is a foundation to retention and cross-sell. As Turner framed it: “You can’t offer more to a customer unless they trust you. Without that, no data model or digital touchpoint will be effective.”

Customers are bombarded with messages. Only the brands that understand them deeply and respect their preferences will cut through the noise.

Conclusion

From face-to-face models to AI-powered personalisation, the insurance industry is evolving in diverse ways. The common thread is that data, used responsibly and effectively, can drive enormous value — not just in cross-sell revenue, but in improving customer outcomes. Whether through real-time event streaming, sophisticated enrichment models or deep human relationships, insurers that build strong data foundations and keep the customer at the centre will lead the market.

The panellists agreed that cross-selling is not a goal in itself — it is the natural result of knowing your customer well and using data to serve them better at every stage of their journey. As Hyland’s Davis noted, real progress often starts small: “You don’t need to do a massive transformation to get value. You can start small, prove value and grow from there.”

Sign up to watch the webinar here.

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