Skip directly to search

Skip directly to content

 

Insights from InsureTech Connect Global 2020

 
 

Next Gen Insights | Paula Mazzotta |
27 October 2020

Last week I had the opportunity to attend the InsureTech Connect Global 2020 virtual conference. I was amazed that around 12,000 people worldwide were able to virtually attend as well as by the number of qualified speakers and the variety of interesting topics. In addition to 6 solid hours of content per day, there were also up to 4 different channels running concurrently with different topics per channel. There was a multitude of fascinating topics to explore, and below I will touch on some of those I found most interesting.

INSURETECH: INSURANCE MEETS TECHNOLOGY

Let’s take a look at the origins of the Insurance industry. It began in Europe about 400 years ago in order to protect merchants against shipwreck and loss of goods when trading with the New World. As a result, Marine coverage is the first reported line of insurance – and the industry was born. As the years passed and people’s needs changed, so did insurance types, giving us the expansive offering we know today, including Property & Casualty, Life, Commercial, Auto, Specialty, Cyber, etc.

In the 21st century, the landscape changed for insurers (e.g. demographics, sharing economy, social networks, digital experience, alternative capital, pandemics). As a result, we are in an era of digital transformation with a need to adopt digital technology to transform services or businesses through replacing non-digital or manual processes with digital ones.

Due to the nature of the industry and the fact that it is highly regulated, Insurance is known for its conservative and risk-averse culture. Many of the large, established insurance carriers (particularly those in the Life and Financial Services lines) are heavily invested in core applications that are built on legacy technology which is difficult to upgrade and modernise. As a result, the Insurance industry is ripe for innovation and disruption.

InsureTech companies aim to fill this gap and to enable innovations in the Insurance sector using technology. They are known to explore avenues that large insurance firms have less incentive to exploit, like ultra-customisable policies, social insurance and using data streams as alternative sources. The concept of InsureTech was formed in the global market around 2010 and has grown by about 41% annually between 2019 and 2020, and it is expected to do so until 2023.

CHALLENGES AND MAIN CONFERENCE THEMES

  1. Insurance carriers are slow to embrace innovation and digital transformation due to their conservative nature.
  2. Innovation and technology rates grow exponentially as each year passes.
  3. Insurance company infrastructure needs to keep pace with the accelerating rate of technology change, i.e. cloud computing, leveraging AI.
  4. New insurance carriers are at an advantage over legacy carriers as they enter the market using digital technology from the start, which gives them a big leg up over many established carriers.
  5. “Made for me” economy: Millennials expect to do business the way they like to, i.e. directly with the insurance carrier, when and how they want to, i.e. any time of day or night on a phone, tablet, laptop, etc.
  6. There is more data available in the world than ever before. Analysing, understanding and utilising this data is critical to:
    •  make sound underwriting decisions
    •  be able to predict claims
    •  appreciate and plan for risk
    •  maintain a competitive advantage.
  7. There continue to be huge areas of opportunity for expansion in the Insurance markets stemming from growing cyber risk and business interruption.
  8. It is critical for insurance carriers to have a digital strategy and plan to successfully transform their existing businesses in order to remain relevant in the industry.
  9. Many insurance companies are setting aside capital for the purpose of developing partnerships with InsureTech providers in order to resolve business challenges via digital technology.

EXAMPLES OF INSURETECH SUCCESSES

Church & Roost: A partnership made in IoT Heaven – In this session we learned about Church Mutual, an insurance company founded in 1897 in Wisconsin that provides specialised insurance to religious organisations. The significance of this story is that churches are often vacant 5 days a week, and if a problem occurs, it may take days before it gets noticed, which often results in large claims. For example, in the winter pipes can freeze and cause water leakage problems. Roost, the global leader in property telematics for insurance carriers, partnered with Church Mutual to improve their claims history and expenses. The strategic agreement was to deploy Roost’s Property Telematics Service to Church Mutual policyholders, who now benefit from a 24/7 alert management system focused on water leak, freezing temperature and power outage situations. When losses are detected, the policyholder is immediately notified, so they can address the issues immediately. As a result, claim costs have been mitigated and claim expenses have been significantly reduced.

Ping An’s ‘Ecosystem Approach’ to Insurance – Ping An is a Chinese holding conglomerate founded in 1988 and headquartered in Shenzhen, whose subsidiaries mainly deal with insurance, banking and financial services. Their story is impressive because of the sheer size of the company and the technology used to support the number of employees and policyholders. As of 2020, there are 400,000 employees globally, 1 million agents and 196 million customers, 35% of which have multiple contracts with Ping An. The business is supported by a high-tech digital infrastructure and ecosystem of applications, but regardless of the level of technology, when customers have a question, they want to speak to someone in the call centre. As a result, Ping An was struggling with the volume of calls. Furthermore, the number of different Chinese dialects made it almost impossible to effectively staff the call centres. They solved the problem using robots to answer the calls. This was highly effective because the robots can quickly scan the caller’s voice to determine the dialect and are able to answer questions using the same dialect. In addition, robots are able to scan data quickly and provide answers to highly complex questions in a more timely manner than most humans. And the moral of this story: you don’t always need humans to provide “the human touch”.

Future-Proof Your Business, the Time for Digital Transformation is Now! – This session presented the partnership that John Hancock created with One, Inc. in order to innovate and digitally transform their claim and payment processing applications. The timing for this transformation could not have been more appropriate! Because of the pandemic, mail delivery was unpredictable, and people did not want to leave their houses to mail insurance premium payments. On the other side, John Hancock employees were working remotely as well. With the transformation of these processes to digital, employees were able to continue processing payments and claims from their home offices with little to no negative impacts for the customers.

CONCLUSION

The future of successful insurance carriers is in their culture. Carriers must demonstrate a strong ability to communicate their digital strategy and goals between all people in the organisation, from CEO to mail-room personnel. They will also need the ability to develop strong partnerships with InsureTech companies in order to integrate ready-made digital solutions.

Developing a digital strategy and creating a digital infrastructure are the first steps to a digital transformation. Leveraging Artificial Intelligence to accelerate innovation will be important, so that new patterns in unstructured data can be translated into structured insights to be used in more effective underwriting and other processes. Designing seamless customer and agent experiences that take users on an end-to-end journey with reduced friction through fewer manual processes and touchpoints is also critical to a carrier’s success. After all, truly knowing and understanding the needs of your customer is key.

Paula Mazzotta

Delivery Manager, US Insurance industry

Paula has nearly 40 years of IT experience within the US Insurance and Financial Services industries. She has managed project teams consisting of various discipline experts like Developers, Business Analysts, Testers, and Architects, both on- and offshore and now nearshore. She has also performed the role of Account Manager and IT Partner to a number of business executives over the course of several years prior to joining Endava. When not working, Paula likes to travel and to read while sitting on the beach.

 

Related Articles

  • 17 December 2019

    Demystifying omnichannel and making it a reality

  • 08 October 2019

    How do you rate as a Business Sponsor?

  • 02 July 2019

    Is your payments provider 3DS2 ready?

  • 07 May 2019

    Failure to launch - Why contactless in the US is behind the rest of the world

  • 23 April 2019

    Placing the customer at the centre of your business transformation

  • 08 April 2019

    Get Emotional - How Feelings Dominate Decision Making

  • 04 February 2019

    Can a business thrive in the age of continuous innovation?

  • 07 January 2019

    Delivering Business Value at Speed: A Recipe in Three Steps

Most Popular Articles

IN-AI-ENABLE RIGHTS: DO WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO STYMIE THE DEVELOPMENT OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE?
 

Insurance Insights | Kevin Crawford | 02 June 2023

IN-AI-ENABLE RIGHTS: DO WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO STYMIE THE DEVELOPMENT OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE?

The Time Is Now to Start Thinking About Real-Time Payments
 

Payments | Monica Velez | 31 May 2023

The Time Is Now to Start Thinking About Real-Time Payments

An Anatomy of the Data-Driven Retail Supply Chain
 

Transportation & Logistics Insights | Jeremy Eaton | 25 May 2023

An Anatomy of the Data-Driven Retail Supply Chain

BNPL Regulation to Protect Consumers and Control Third-party Lenders
 

Banking | Annmarie Mahabir | 23 May 2023

BNPL Regulation to Protect Consumers and Control Third-party Lenders

How Offer and Order Management Systems Are Expanding The Aviation Business Model
 

Mobility | Joachim Zintl | 17 May 2023

How Offer and Order Management Systems Are Expanding The Aviation Business Model

Salut! I’m Adriana Calomfirescu
 

Meet the SME | Adriana Calomfirescu | 16 May 2023

Salut! I’m Adriana Calomfirescu

Hi, I’m David Boast
 

Meet the SME | David Boast | 15 May 2023

Hi, I’m David Boast

The Business Impact of Fan Engagement: How to Leverage Technology to Improve Loyalty
 

Innovation | Robert Milner | 12 May 2023

The Business Impact of Fan Engagement: How to Leverage Technology to Improve Loyalty

Staying Relevant – Why Merchants should Embrace Alternative Payment Methods
 

Payments | Steven Purton | 09 May 2023

Staying Relevant – Why Merchants should Embrace Alternative Payment Methods

 

Archive

  • 02 June 2023

    IN-AI-ENABLE RIGHTS: DO WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO STYMIE THE DEVELOPMENT OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE?

  • 31 May 2023

    The Time Is Now to Start Thinking About Real-Time Payments

  • 25 May 2023

    An Anatomy of the Data-Driven Retail Supply Chain

  • 23 May 2023

    BNPL Regulation to Protect Consumers and Control Third-party Lenders

  • 17 May 2023

    How Offer and Order Management Systems Are Expanding The Aviation Business Model

  • 16 May 2023

    Salut! I’m Adriana Calomfirescu

  • 15 May 2023

    Hi, I’m David Boast

  • 12 May 2023

    The Business Impact of Fan Engagement: How to Leverage Technology to Improve Loyalty

  • 09 May 2023

    Staying Relevant – Why Merchants should Embrace Alternative Payment Methods

  • 02 May 2023

    How IoT is Changing Insurance

  • 26 April 2023

    A Veteran Game Developer's Perspective on Tool Development

  • 24 April 2023

    How Digital Ecosystems Enhance the Healthcare Experience

  • 21 April 2023

    Green machines: how tech can help companies hit Net Zero targets

  • 20 April 2023

    The Role of People and Technology in the Future of Underwriting

  • 19 April 2023

    Media 2030: Why Advertisers and Publishers Are Racing To Find New Strategies

  • 18 April 2023

    Alright, I’m Adrian Sutherland

  • 14 April 2023

    How Synthetic Data Could Solve The Patient Privacy Dilemma

  • 11 April 2023

    Payments makes the world go round! How banks can get creative

  • 06 April 2023

    Higher Fidelity: Good Outcomes and Harnessing the Challenge of FCA's Consumer Duty

  • 05 April 2023

    AI in Pharma: How Machine Learning is Revolutionising Every Step in Drug Development

  • 04 April 2023

    Hello! I’m Leane Collins

  • 31 March 2023

    The Dos and Don’ts of Successful Carve-Outs in Private Equity

  • 30 March 2023

    Cage of Reason: FCA's new Consumer Duty heralds the rise of the 'Reasonable Insurer'

  • 28 March 2023

    A legal view on the ownership and future of AI-generated works

  • 24 March 2023

    Championing Women in Tech

  • 23 March 2023

    5 Ways Capital Markets Firms Can Ensure Resilient Operations to Improve Credibility and Efficiency

  • 15 March 2023

    Buenas! I’m Leticia Chajchir

  • 14 March 2023

    4 Ways to Improve Customers’ E-Commerce Search Experience

  • 28 February 2023

    4 Healthcare Innovations That Can Benefit People and Profit

  • 21 February 2023

    Hey, I’m Lewis Brown

  • 17 February 2023

    Top Considerations for Financial Services Providers Entering the Cross-Border Payments Space

  • 13 February 2023

    Better Together: Harnessing the Power of Digital Ecosystems

  • 09 February 2023

    What to Include in a Customer Re-Engagement Content Library

  • 07 February 2023

    Supercharging Wealth Management with Hyper-personalisation

  • 02 February 2023

    How Innovating the Insurance Customer Journey Creates a Competitive Advantage

  • 30 January 2023

    G’day, I’m David Marsh

  • 26 January 2023

    Empowering Underwriting and Unlocking Revenue with Legacy Insurance Data Sets

  • 24 January 2023

    Four Stakeholders Who Win the Most When Healthcare Innovates

  • 23 January 2023

    Journey to the Centre of the Cloud with AWS – Part 3

  • 20 January 2023

    Journey to the Centre of the Cloud with AWS – Part 2

  • 18 January 2023

    Journey to the Centre of the Cloud with AWS – Part 1

  • 17 January 2023

    The 4 Most Common Mistakes in Retail Site Design

  • 13 January 2023

    Boost and bolster your innovation. Three tips to help get it to the next level.

  • 10 January 2023

    5 Questions in Smart Energy That Will Define the Net Zero Transition

We are listening

How would you rate your experience with Endava so far?

We would appreciate talking to you about your feedback. Could you share with us your contact details?