Insurance and the media: getting your message out
Greg Lang, founder of the Reinsurance and Insurance Network, gives some tips on the best way to get your message out into the wider world.
Elon Musk has never been shy about sharing his views on any topic, including the media. He recently said: “People who get their news from legacy TV live in a fake alternative reality.”
Whether you agree or disagree, the role of mainstream media and its impact on the public have changed. The perception and accuracy of information is changing too. The same can be said for the insurance news we consume.
“I tried writing an article using Perplexity. It was amazing.” Greg Lang, RAIN
In the past, large daily papers had beat reporters dedicated to writing about insurance. Today, the industry depends on podcasts, blogs, social media and trade publications to disseminate information. Most of us get some form of email every day. Many organisations provide them. Everyone has their favourites. The investment in proprietary content has exploded. Unfortunately, much of it comes across as “salesy”.
AM Best’s monthly magazine Best’s Review identified 50 publications reporting insurance news. Four focused specifically on the captive insurance industry, including this publication. The same article identified 42 industry podcasts.
The number of podcasts might be understated—even an old guy like me has made an audio podcast. Following its release, I conducted an unscientific survey. I posted it along with an article with similar content, to my LinkedIn page.
The article initially got more traffic/views. It might be my voice. It might be my age, or the age of my audience. But six months later, the article gets an occasional read while the podcast clicks are more constant. I see video podcasts as a dominant medium going forward. Who’s doesn’t watch videos on Instagram or YouTube? With advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), we will be able to share insurance banter long after we’re gone. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing—but more about AI later.
Speaking of being gone, does anyone still answer their phone? Are all your calls now scheduled on the calendar? Have Zoom and Teams replaced the phone? Are you a camera on or camera off person? Maybe we do have too many videos.
Distributing information unfiltered, uncensored, and uncut
A 1973 National Lampoon cover featured a dog with a gun to its head. The headline was: “If you don’t buy this magazine, we’ll kill this dog”. There is a lot of pressure on publications to maintain readership and profitability. Publish or perish has been replaced by “whoever has the most clicks wins”.
Does anyone else feel that their LinkedIn feed has become another Facebook? LinkedIn was Microsoft’s biggest acquisition to date in 2016. Within five years, revenue grew to $10 billion annually. Much of that was from ads—revenue taken from Facebook.
AI-generated media
AI-generated articles are becoming more the norm—algorithms pulling content from existing databases. Since much of the content is press releases, it is not surprising that many of the articles read the same. Forty percent of all insurance-related content is in the form of a press release.
Fortunately for me, the captive insurance industry has limited accurate content available online. I assume many of you have tried ChatGPT—a version is available for free. The Wall Street Journal wrote an article about a test it conducted on the top five bots and their useful skills. OpenAI’s Chat GPT is probably the most well-known. Perplexity, a research-focused chatbot, won for being best at business writing. Perplexity cites its sources with links, which is helpful when submitting articles to editors, the good ones anyway, who still value getting the story right.
I tried writing an article using Perplexity. It was amazing. Amazing as me though? LOL. I’m going to keep on writing.
Reading and learning
I’m often asked about books I would recommend about insurance and captives. My first read was “Invisible Bankers: Everything the Insurance Industry Never Wanted You to Know” by Andrew Tobias, written in 1982. I read it in 1986 and I still quote from it today: “There are only two things more complicated than insurance accounting and I have no idea what they are.”
Kathryn Westover has written several books on captives. The first, “Captive Practices and Procedures”, was written in 2006 and she wrote a follow-up in 2014. Westover’s books are a good place to start your Captive 101 journey. Several chapter titles from her original book became the basis of the International Center of Captive Continuing Education (ICCIE) course; ICCIE will be celebrating its 20th anniversary at the Vermont Captive Insurance Association conference in August.
Most of the readers of this publication quickly move past the 101 and are looking for resources for the specifics of individual captive needs. Most of this sector knowledge is not easily accessed and often resides in the heads of my peers who either don’t have the time or the inclination to write it down or share.
Knowledge is power, right? It’s also how many of us make a living. Some believe in giving back—it’s why I started writing. I’ve also started teaching again with ICCIE. I believe some of the course materials after 20 years are due for updating. Anyone want to help?
Greg Lang is the founder of the Reinsurance and Insurance Network (RAIN). He can be contacted at: glang@rainllc.com
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