Swiss Re has unveiled a nine-step methodology for companies to position themselves as trustworthy in an increasingly online world.
The thirty-page report, Decoding Digital Trust: An Insurance Perspective, provides a framework for understanding digital trust, highlighting its relevance against the backdrop of increasing digital automation, both in insurance and across other industries. The paper lays out a nine-step methodology – the digital trust pyramid – that explores digital trust solutions for companies.
Christoph Nabholz, chief research officer at Swiss Re Institute: “As a reinsurer, trust is a fundamental part of our business. In simple terms, when you buy an insurance policy, you receive a promise that we will provide you with financial recompense should disaster strike – and you will trust us to keep our promise. In a world where tech innovations are changing the way we live our lives, including how we manage our health and possessions and much more, digital trust has become of utmost importance.”
The reinsurance giant divides the nine steps into three zones arrayed as a pyramid: the reliability zone, the security zone, and the reassurance zone. The first, says Swiss Re, “[provides] an infrastructure that allows reliable, cost-effective internet access; easy-to-use interfaces which enable better and easier decision making; overcoming cultural and societal resistance or reluctance in the face of digitalisation.”
The second, the security zone, allows users to “[…] feel safe and secure in exchanging data with other parties, both in how other parties use and secure personal data; and protection against theft and attacks by third parties.”
The reassurance zone, at the top of the pyramid, is about, “Creating trust in the ability of machines to reach decisions and conclusions autonomously; establishing social reactions with technology; and those areas of business and society that may remain human-to-human.”
The three assets of the reliability zone are access to internet and data, ease of use and accessibility, and cultural and general attitudes. In the security zone, it is data and cyber risk, data ethics and privacy, and security by proxy such as laws or kitemarks. The reassurance zone is made up of AI and automated decision making, empathetic and social AI, and human interaction.
However, writes Swiss Re Institute, “There is no single data point that can define digital trust. It is not a commodity to be bought, not an asset that can be traded, not a risk that can be underwritten. If trust has a value, then it is in the perceived strength of the relationship between the individual, business or institution and the party with which it seeks to interact. The notion of trust is, to a large extent, subjective and mutable, making it difficult to measure.”
