When insurance companies are looking to broaden their offering, their product developers are tasked with helping them adjust to new industry developments and meet evolving market demands.
Naturally, every insurance product has its own target market and audience, but so too does each translated version. Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter how perfectly you have honed your approach to the first two, if they are not properly communicated throughout your global footprint.
Products for foreign markets must be localized so to use the most current and appropriate market terminology for that language and culture. Not only that, but they must get your key messages across effectively.
After 60 years of partnering with insurance, reinsurance and risk management companies, we know a thing or two about delivering the right product, in the right language, at the right time.
Here are our top tips on how to increase the quality and timeliness of your translations when launching your products in new geographies.
- Don’t duplicate your workload
A good language service provider will use Translation Memory for your company’s translations, meaning they will store previously translated work for future reference.
If you’ve worked with your language partner on previous projects, it’s possible that an existing product has already been translated into the language you need for your new product. In other cases, an existing product may have originally been created in that target language.
In either of these scenarios, your language service provider can then refer to the existing texts to ensure consistency in terminology across all of your products and adhere to your preferences from the start. These terms can then be inputted into the Translation Memory for your company’s future translation work, saving you time and money.
- Make the most of your in-house resources
If you are a global company, there’s a good chance that you have in-house professionals who are native speakers of the target language. This is an advantage.
Why? In many cases, these colleagues – be them underwriters or brokers – can serve as additional ‘in-country reviewers’ who read the translations before they hit the target market.
If they weigh in with any preferences, these can be fed back in partnership with your language service provider and will make the entire process go even quicker. Your in-house resources can also be tapped to collect terminological preferences upfront, such as not translating certain company department names, product names or slogans. In many cases, leaving these in English is the norm and works in many foreign markets.
- Check local legal and compliance issues
Any client developing a new product needs to have their local counsel weigh in on the legal and compliance aspects of the new product. Since the local counsel will naturally speak the target language, they can also weigh in on any terminology changes which should then be discussed with your language partner. In some cases, changes to the translation can risk deviating from the source text. In other cases, the proposed change may be a completely acceptable synonym your team prefers.
The closer and more effectively you are able to work in partnership with your language service provider, the better the result. And the better your provider, the easier each subsequent translation should be.
For more information on our specialist language services for insurance professionals,
contact us today or
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