If insurance were a map, we would be surveying a whole newworld.

The fences and boundaries of tradition have fallen. Thesnow-capped mountains of certainty are melting away. The rivers ofmarket share are changing course and streams of data are comingdirectly to our doors. We know there are still products to plantand fields to harvest, but how will our planting change in themonths and years to come?

Many insurers will be looking at greenfields for the answer.

Greenfields, startups and incubators are different ways oflooking at the same essential concept — starting from scratch. Eachis a new beginning. Greenfields are new initiatives often aimed atdeveloping new markets. Startups are most often new initiativesthat will reach existing markets. Incubators are designed to testnew products within new or existing markets. For our purposes, wewill lump them all together under the title of greenfields, becausefrom an organizational perspective, the need for them andpreparation for them are similar.

Cultivating the soil

Think about how insurance has grown, just based on the questionswe have asked ourselves over time. Insurers used toask, "How do we do what we dobetter?" They were thinking of underwriting, sellingand meeting market demand.

As the internet and the digital realm arose, they began askingthemselves, "How do we do what we dodifferently?" They needed to knowhow to reach the same people with better channel management andimproved customer service.

Now, they are asking, "How do we do what we don'tcurrently do at all?" They want to know how toidentify, build and capitalize on new risk needs, new markets andsocial networks, how to use technology to its fullest, how tobecome a trusted resource for services outside of insurance and howto reinvent the organization and brand so that it is prepared to beprofitable no matter what initiatives lie on the horizon.

It is the preparation that is an important first step. A greatidea can't take root in an organization that won't support it. Howcan insurers prepare for greenfield development?

Abandoning silos

Greenfield insurance companies that are starting outside of atraditional insurance organization and those that are startingunder the umbrella of traditional insurance companies both value"fresh air" and an environment that is unclouded by tradition.

Starting from scratch allows them to think without constraint,test without constraint and operate without constraint. They dohave barriers. Most are operating within a window of opportunityand all are operating under the assumption that investments need topay off. But for the most part, greenfields take advantage of thefact that organizational politics, processes, traditionaltechnologies and time-honored ideals are all open to reassessment,replacement or removal.

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The greenfields in insurance are ripe for investments andthey are bearing fruit. (Photo: iStock)

Organizational silos need to be bridged, if not completelyabandoned. The new opportunities where greenfields will work bestwill be created by cross-functional teams that understand how tointegrate new technologies with the best ideas.This is one reason hackathons have recently grown in popularity.They are simply borrowing a common concept from ad agencies, TedXevents and jazz musicians…the idea that walls and ideas aren'tcompatible.

The best fertilizer for ideas is a diverse set of perspectiveson how the idea will be constructed and how it will work inpractice. Teams need functional area experts, but they also needgeneral leadership with a holistic perspective as well as inputfrom technology partners who grasp what is technologicallypossible.

Investing in seeds

Seeds are investments and most investments have phases. Thegreenfields in insurance are ripe for these investments and theyare bearing fruit. But those that will be most successful will payclose attention to planting methods.

For example, farmers don't take the newest seeds and plant 1,000acres. They test them in plots. In insurance, our ideas need to becultivated quickly, first in small pots, in our incubators andcenters of excellence — we can call these our insurancegreenhouses. If they appear to be working, we test them in smallgeographies then roll them out to larger segments. Seed planting isspeed planting. The idea works or it doesn't. We scale up quicklyor toss the idea out. We invest wisely by investing small, untilthe investment proves itself and then we invest more.

As we watch SEED money flowing into InsureTech, we know that some of these investmentswon't pay off. Many venture firms will have invested more in aproof of concept than they should have. Some will attempt a rolloutbefore the concept is mature. The best growth will happen throughorganizations that know how to phase greenfield investment.

Greenfields will be capitalizing on technology to saveinvestment funding. This includes reusing technologies and sharingsystems. Cloud platforms with a "pay as you go" pricing model areperfect for greenfield development because they answer thedemand for agility, innovation and speed (low implementation time,quick speed to market, light or no customization) with lowerinvestment and maintenance costs … allowing the investment to focuson the business not the infrastructure. Greenfields are creativepursuits to new opportunities. Their back-end solutions willrequire just as much creativity as their front-end marketing, butthey will want solutions that don't require massivecustomization.

Greenfields will therefore capitalize on what they don't need tobuild from scratch. Modern core platforms will allow them to usepre-built, integrated content and data sources, pre-built bestpractices and products and pre-built channel options. They will usetheir creativity to build new business models around pre-builtinfrastructures, instead of building new systems from the groundup.

The passion for planting

In the coming weeks, we'll take a more in-depth look atgreenfields, startups and incubators. We'll look at the surprisinggrowth of insurance innovation investment and what it means toexisting businesses. We will discuss how deeply the choice ofplatform can affect insurer preparation and we'll also look at thegreenfield spectrum that includes new value-chain technologies, newaggregator channels and completely new types of insurance.

Our goal is not to gawk at the high number of entrants into themarket, but to glean a whole new perspective on opportunities. Youmay find that your unique position will allow you to havemarket-capturing ideas ahead of others. And you may develop apassion for planting your own seeds in the greenfields ofopportunity. Is your organization ready for your team's next greatidea?

Denise Garth is senior vice president of strategic marketingfor Morristown, New Jersey-based Majesco, a providerof technology solutions for the insuranceindustry. Opinions expressed in this article areher own.