MAPFRE Iberia: Depending on data in uncertain times

About MAPFRE

MAPFRE is a global insurance company. It is the benchmark insurer in the Spanish market and the largest Spanish multinational insurance group in the world. MAPFRE is the number one Non-Life insurance group in Latin America and the sixth largest in Europe by Non-Life premium volume.

Industries: Financial Services & Insurance
Location: Spain

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MAPFRE Iberia uses BigQuery to centralize its first-party data, empowering departments across the company to make the most of data insights and personalize customer relationships with Looker and Vertex AI.

Google Cloud results

  • More than 100 hours of manual work automated in the first month of using BigQuery and Looker
  • Increased job satisfaction improves retention of key talent by freeing them up to work on more challenging projects
  • Conversions of leads to new customers doubles by prioritizing leads with Vertex AI
  • Democratization of data drives informed decision-making throughout the company, removing intuition from the process

Google Cloud unleashes the full power of MAPFRE Iberia's data

More than 26 million people globally rely on MAPFRE to give them the confidence and security they need to go about their daily lives, without worrying about unforeseen events.

To honor this trust, and meet its customers' expectations, MAPFRE Iberia not only maintains an unwavering focus on its customers' needs, but is committed to lowering its carbon footprint and building a more sustainable world. For MAPFRE Iberia, giving customers the security they need to build their future goes hand-in-hand with mitigating risks to societies as a whole.

However, as the effects of climate change become more widely felt, and with economic and political volatility and the Covid pandemic contributing to greater instability worldwide, MAPFRE Iberia has found that their customers' needs are changing rapidly.

"We live in uncertain times," says Mónica García Cristóbal, Head of Transformation at MAPFRE Iberia, Iberia. "Not only for the insurance sector and for MAPFRE Iberia, but for the world in general. Therefore, we all need to be able to adapt to that uncertainty in an agile way. For MAPFRE Iberia, that means becoming a more data-driven company."

"We live in uncertain times. Not only for the insurance sector and for MAPFRE Iberia, but for the world in general. Therefore we all need to be able to adapt to that uncertainty in an agile way. For MAPFRE Iberia, that means becoming a more data-driven company."

Mónica García Cristóbal, Head of Transformation, MAPFRE Iberia, Spain.

Centralizing data to unleash its full potential

With over 7 million customers, MAPFRE Iberia has a vast amount of first-party data. However, until 2021 it was stored in a highly siloed way, making it difficult for MAPFRE Iberia's various departments to leverage the data to its full potential.

"For us, having the ability to collate that data, and then activate it into our core processes, was paramount," explains Mónica. "Google Cloud enabled us to centralize our data and make it widely available across the company, so that every department could harness it for their own business opportunities."

Empowering teams to make data-driven decisions

Prior to this centralization, MAPFRE Iberia departments often lacked the specific data they required to make informed decisions and set strategic targets, meaning that intuition often crept into the decision-making process.

With data centralized using BigQuery, MAPFRE Iberia departments are now able to use Looker's self-service tools to visualize previously inaccessible business data, empowering them in the day-to-day management of projects.

For Mónica this has led to a cultural evolution at MAPFRE Iberia, changing the way departments work.

"Instead of prioritizing by intuition, departments are now using Looker dashboards to change the way the data architecture is designed from the beginning of a project," Mónica explains. "The prioritization of objectives is now driven by data that was previously unavailable to those decision-makers."

This has made MAPFRE Iberia's work more efficient and productive. As Mónica notes, "In just the first month of working with the platform, we managed to automate more than 100 hours of manual work."

Not only does this free up MAPFRE Iberia employees to work on more ambitious projects, Mónica believes it drives retention of key talent. Instead of devoting their time on manual tasks, employees can engage with more challenging and impactful work, which increases their job satisfaction. As a result, these employees then want to use more valuable data, to have an even greater impact on the business.

This positive relationship with data is matched at a company level. Encouraged by the success of using data-driven insights on primarily digital projects, MAPFRE Iberia has gone on to make the most of the data at their fingertips in all kinds of projects across the company.

"Instead of prioritizing by intuition, departments are now using Looker dashboards to change the way the data architecture is designed from the beginning of a project. The prioritization of objectives is now driven by data that was previously unavailable to those decision-makers."

Mónica García Cristóbal, Head of Transformation, MAPFRE Iberia, Spain.

Keeping data secure with good governance

However, with great data power comes great responsibility, and as a multinational insurance company with a vast amount of sensitive first-party data, MAPFRE Iberia is acutely aware of the need for good governance to secure confidential customer data.

Looker's granular access controls enable MAPFRE Iberia to control which staff have access to what data and for what purpose. This allows MAPFRE Iberia not only to guarantee customer confidentiality, but to ensure that the data is accurate and of a consistently high quality to be used effectively.

Personalizing the customer relationship with AI and Machine Learning

One of the most important uses of this data for MAPFRE Iberia is its power to personalize the company's relationship with its customers, as well as to tailor its communications to the needs of prospective ones.

With Vertex AI, MAPFRE Iberia has been able to build and maintain predictive models to understand existing customers' needs more clearly, and personalize its messaging accordingly.

"It enables us to communicate with our customers at the right moment, tailoring our message according to the customer's status, the channel of communication, and the nature of the customer’s relationship with MAPFRE Iberia," Mónica explains. "As for prospective customers, predictive modeling allows us to learn what they want, so that we can be more relevant to their needs in terms of services or products, helping them with their specific insurance requirements on their journey to becoming a MAPFRE Iberia customer."

Prior to using Google Cloud, the challenge for MAPFRE Iberia was knowing where to focus its segmented marketing efforts for the greatest impact.

With the help of Vertex AI, MAPFRE Iberia has been able to prioritize its leads more effectively. By channeling resources into those leads most likely to convert, MAPFRE Iberia has succeeded in doubling its conversions of leads to new customers.

Encouraged by this success, MAPFRE Iberia plans to make significantly more use of AI and Machine Learning to optimize its customer relationships. MAPFRE Iberia will soon be rolling out a new virtual AI assistant, generating lifelike conversations with the help of Dialogflow, to streamline customers’ interaction with MAPFRE Iberia and help them find what they are looking for more efficiently.

For MAPFRE Iberia, it's all part of transforming the company to become more data driven, leveraging data to meet customers' changing needs and provide a service they can rely on.

"Google Cloud is a really powerful enabler of our transformation journey," says Mónica. "In this era of change and uncertainty, data is one powerful tool we know we can depend on."

"Google Cloud is a really powerful enabler of our transformation journey. In this era of change and uncertainty, data is one powerful tool we know we can depend on."

Mónica García Cristóbal, Head of Transformation, MAPFRE Iberia, Spain.

Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.

Contact us

About MAPFRE

MAPFRE is a global insurance company. It is the benchmark insurer in the Spanish market and the largest Spanish multinational insurance group in the world. MAPFRE is the number one Non-Life insurance group in Latin America and the sixth largest in Europe by Non-Life premium volume.

Industries: Financial Services & Insurance
Location: Spain