Protection is our purpose: Turning obstacles into opportunities in 2022

As I reflect back on 2022, I am grateful for our Property & Casualty associates and partners who helped us support customers in a year where the word “unprecedented” barely does it justice.

Together, we faced a variety of macro-trends that impacted the industry and hit businesses and families close to home. These trends included:

• the current and future rate environment and duration of financial/social inflation
• a potential recession
• the Federal Reserve actions and financial market reactions
• the geopolitical landscape, including supply chain and energy implications
• and the impacts from climate risk

Despite these headwinds, we made significant progress in a few key areas and have strong momentum as we kick off 2023.

Making our communities safer through legislative efforts

We worked with state legislators in several states to demonstrate the need for hands-free driving legislation that will keep drivers’ eyes on the road and not their phones. Earlier this year in Nationwide’s home state of Ohio, Governor Mike DeWine signed into law HB 283, which codifies hands-free legislation and makes Ohio roads safer.

Nationwide also continued its push on both the state and federal levels for stronger building codes so that structures are better prepared to withstand severe weather events which are becoming more frequent each year.

Protection through advocacy

Nationwide doubled its efforts in terms of raising awareness on issues and dangers that impact our customers every day.

In September, Nationwide announced a new partnership with The Ohio State University to form the AgTech Innovation Hub, which will provide money and other resources to help identify solutions to food supply issues caused by climate change.

Finally, our Nationwide Agency Forward survey campaign identified consumer and business owner concerns about the economy, construction, driving behaviors, and cyber security. We used this data to better understand the issues facing our customers and provide resources to our distribution partners to make sure their clients were adequately protected from those perils.

Partnerships with an eye on innovation

Nationwide amped up its partnership program with insurtechs to help identify and prevent potential risks before they happen, saving customers money and avoiding months of inconvenience.

Some of those partnerships include:

• HayTech, an Ag partner who has developed state-of-the-art technology to prevent hay fires and manage hay quality
• Betterview, which uses artificial intelligence and aerial imagery to identify potential risks to commercial properties
• Kinetic, which developed a wearable device to alert workers when they are performing movements that could lead to an injury
• Hartford Steam Boiler, which helped us distribute the Ting electrical monitoring system, which monitors home electrical systems to detect issues that could lead to a fire

Nationwide’s associates and partners made great strides together in 2022 to help make our communities and workplaces safer. I’m looking forward to seeing what we can accomplish in 2023.