This article focuses mainly on the first of the three elements of the Human Voice: aesthetics. Aesthetics means simply the study of, or concern for, appearance, beauty, form and impression. Unfortunately, the elements of the Human Voice are rarely heard in the insurance industry. There is little humor, concern for aesthetics or candor in the insurance business.

Could the absence of the Human Voice explain seemingly disparate industry concerns? Those concerns are: low morale, high turnover, stress, burn-out, juror litigation backlash (witness the replacement auto parts verdict against State Farm), increased bad faith litigation, slim or non-existent profits, increased regulation, and strained relations between carriers, their independent agents and insurance defense attorneys.

Adding the values making up the Human Voice to our workplace could be part of the solution.

As insurance carriers seek to maximize the efficiency of their delivery system by technological innovation and increase profitability by anti-fraud campaigns or by third-party billing audits and coverage modifications, none to this authors knowledge have embraced humor, beauty and candor as core values for success.

As analyzed by the authors of the book “Cluetrain Manifesto–The End of Business as Usual,” the Internet is exciting and appeals to us because it embraces the Human Voice. The Internet simulates and stimulates dialogue (instant messages) and brings us back to the free-wheeling international bazaar of past centuries where folks from around the world touted their interesting (or just mundane) wares with loud voices, humor, showmanship and self-proclaimed craftsmanship.

The lesson delivered by Cluetrains authors, Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, David Weinberger and Doc Searls, is lost on insurance carriers. Insureds (humans, dont forget) crave the Human Voice. Do insurance carriers speak and write or pitch their wares as interesting peddlers, craftsman, or with style and beauty? No.

The insurance industry has long ignored, for example, one of the most powerful and simple marketing and communication tools–color. With a few exceptions, insurance companies and agencies largely ignored aesthetics in their public advertising and products. The policy is ink on paper. Why not stylish looking paper then?

Why arent aesthetics incorporated into the insurance delivery system? As alternative delivery systems develop, as more efficient models evolve, as Internet price comparisons and access to insurance becomes the norm, and as product comparison becomes simpler, what will be the defining principle for consumer purchasing? Price alone?

Can or should an insurance company make price alone the key to strategic advantage? Do you hire or buy the cheapest car, hotel, doctor, law firm or accountant? Do insurance company underwriters want to be perpetually involved in a race to the bottom of the rate book?

Insurance companies believe price is key because they believe consumers focus on price. Consumers focus on price only because insurance companies and their agents have long made price the predominate feature of their marketing. Companies and agencies fail to differentiate themselves in any other way and then blame consumers for value-starved, price-oriented decision-making. This is a self-fulfilling myopic circle that does not allow for anyone to speak in terms of beauty, humor, candor or other values.

We cannot ignore price, but what if there were a set of core values that were useful in shaping marketing and the work environment, and were also the same values or decisional factors used by consumers when making purchasing decisions? Would not these shared values that are both internal to an organization and universal in their use by customers be powerful factors in the marketplace?

Consider the Human Voice–aesthetics, humor and candor.

There are steps to take to achieve a more human, aesthetic-based work-environment and a Human Voice the public will recognize and seek to embrace. The theory advanced here is direct: You are what you speak and write.

If we first change the voice (in the broadest sense) used to communicate internally, then later might our day-to-day public voice change and, eventually, the public perception of the company.

This is not about purchasing the appearance of a corporate persona. It is value centered. It is not an advertising campaign. Rather, it is a corporate voice flowing from a value system emanating from a well-spring of core principles (aesthetics, humor and candor) flowing outward first to employees, then to business partners, the customer and then the public at large.

Aesthetics in the Human Voice

Why Home Depot isnt just for weekends

The work environment and the work product should be beautiful–aesthetically charged, not challenged.

First, insurance companies and agencies could stand to improve their office space. Having personally visited dozens of insurance agency and company offices, and save a select few, most are unimpressive, uninspiring and forgettable.

Make the workplace fun and aesthetically pleasing. Allow employees to wallpaper, paint and create a pleasant looking environment that has whimsical or beautiful features. Consider letting the employees do as much as they care to, perhaps with professional oversight. If you want to drive home the concept that employees are the keys to success, let them drive a few nails.

Motivator Tom Peters exclaims that the “work matters!” Not just the work, but the workplace matters! Create a themed lobby or kitchen for staff. Use attractive colors and lighting to fit your culture and region or clients. If people actually stay in the building to eat in a refurbished kitchen, you might just generate conversation, new ideas and friendships. Why not a Weird Taco Party? Create a sports themed conference room with posters and memorabilia devoted to your hometown sports team. You might even get the team to pitch in some donated items for publicity.

Clients and visitors remember these rooms, and they cost little more than mundane office art, conventional furnishings and wall-coverings.

Why arent insurance policies artistically designed? In the eyes of the consumer, insurance is like plumbing–necessary but boring. How do you create product loyalty when you sell pipe and fixtures? Ask Koehler, Delta and Moen. Why not design policy forms with artistic or themed backgrounds like personal checks or license plates? Why not a printed backdrop of an athletic team logo on an insurance policy? People actually pay extra for personalized license plates. Would they pay a dollar more for a Gucci policy jacket?

Someone once observed that the cost of engineering, designing and manufacturing an automobile is the same, ugly or beautiful, so why not choose beautiful? Apple Computers gets it. So does the Volkswagen with their colored Bug. Any automobile manufacturer spends thousands of dollars and man-hours devoted to picking paint colors. Why dont insurers choose ink and paper with the same passionate attention to detail and color trends? #9;

Insurance companies find substantive product differentiation difficult to achieve in personal lines and with regulated forms and rates. Therefore carriers must find another way to distinguish themselves. Consider aesthetic changes. Send the homeowner a personalized policy jacket or CD with the policy terms and useful information or a personal video greeting. Why not trademark-licensed policies with college emblems, or trademarks and logos from Nike? Hilfiger? Auto and motorcycle risks under a Harley Davidson licensed logo policy?

To the consumer, your insurance product is a boring necessity. So make it interesting and beautiful. Hire a design firm for advice on color and graphics in your forms, applications and letterhead. Having spent thousands (or more) on a Web site, why not a few bucks on the paper and mundane stuff?

The insurance industry has long ignored aesthetics. The typestyle used by the Insurance Services Office is ugly, designed decades ago when typewriters were king. Humans dont choose the ISO-style font when writing or contracting. Why do underwriters? If you dont write like a human, why should a jury treat you like one?

Write in easy-to-read fonts with ink that conveys a themenautical, automotive, aviation, carnivalesque, sophisticated, techy, whatever. Write to look different.

Within the organization, offer a $50 cubicle improvement grant to the folks stuck on the open floor of indistinguishable cubicles and workstations. Give prizes to those who beautify the workplace–awards for Most Improved Desk Top!

Even dentists know to put pleasant comforting pictures on the ceiling for patients to see during treatment. If your business looks sterile and dreary, how can you expect to cultivate enthusiasm and creativity? Think about what fits your people, region, culture and clients before making any change. Theme-”ing” is a major force in restaurants, attractions, interior design and architecture. Why not themed insurance offices?

The very process of change within the office is uplifting regardless of the amount of money spent. Do not let the naysayers convince you that professional office space must be boring to be professional.

The noise aesthetic

The quality of the environment is affected (infected) by what you hear. Install a quality PA system for occasional announcements from time to time. Announce successes. Ring a cowbell. Use funny noisemakers when you win new accounts, score big victories or just want to goof around.

Junk the old music that plays while your customers are on indefinite hold. Bad quality music in your phone system is simply offensive and bespeaks indifference to the customer or client.

Going public with the aesthetic element

Only after your company is on the path to speaking in a human voice concerned with aesthetics internally should you expect your external voice to change. You cannot consistently project humor, beauty and candor if your own people and organization lack these things. One must create a culture that values the aesthetic element, and it is this authors belief that a culture grounded upon this element (coupled with humor and candor) will be better able to attract and keep creative thinkers, facilitate product innovation and develop fresh marketing approaches.

Ugliness, sameness or plainness, while useful in the wild for avoiding detection by predators, is not a successful long-term market positioning strategy.

Change from within first–your people, your environment and physical surroundings, and then outwardly–the appearance of your products, media spots and advertising.

Speak and write in a way others do not. Push aesthetic values and create beauty where none is expected or found.

In these ways, your customers will be able to see and hear your people and company above the din of the marketplace. Make your workplace look like the colorful playground of your youth.

David W. Henry is an attorney for Allen Dyer Doppelt Milbrath & Gilchrist, P.A. in Orlando, Fla., practicing in the areas of intellectual property, professional liability and insurance litigation. He is a member of the Society of Certified Insurance Counselors national faculty and is a frequent public speaker. He can be reached at [email protected] or at patentamerica.com

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, August 11, 2003. Copyright 2003 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.