This is an opportunity for insurance carriers to differentiate with an always-on, contextual educational experience in addition to improved digital self-service options. While a single agent or broker can't offer personalized advice to thousands of individual insureds with varying needs and levels of knowledge, technology can. Digital assistants and chatbots can answer questions, guide plan members through enrollment, and recommend new products and services based on a plan member's health and demographic information. Like human assistants, the best digital assistants are proactive, not reactive. Ella, the name of Sun Life's AI-enabled "digital coach" first launched in 2018, encourages plan members to take action on important deadlines, cost-savings, and product offerings.

Measles, once thought to have been eliminated in the U.S., is popping up in isolated outbreaks as a result of skipped well-child visits and parents' fears that the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine is linked to autism. Though some 350 measles cases occurred in 15 states in the first three months of 2019, more than half were in Brooklyn, N.Y., and nearby Rockland County, N.Y., where large religious communities have adopted anti-vaccine positions. Rockland County responded by pulling 6,000 unvaccinated children out of schools and barring them from public places. The county's actions were effective; in just a few months, 17,500 doses of MMR were administered to area children. Yet, wouldn't it have been better to contain the outbreak before it got started?