IE wanted to get some feedback on the latest tech trends that are helping the insurance industry cope with the challenges of teh 2020s – and beyond. From claims inflation to data driven pricing, AI to autonomous buses, tech is constantly evolving and shifting gear. Let’s get into it;
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE: IT’S BOTH GLOBAL AND LOCAL
Doug Cunningham, CTO, Forrit offers some insights;
Creating exceptional online customer experiences will be key for all businesses – not just those in insurance. For years, organisations have relied on their website as a branding and sales tool, but customers are increasingly expecting more personalised experiences. One of the most important aspects of that is localisation; more than half (56%) of consumers say they rank accessing product information in their preferred language over price.
As more organisations expand globally, they must keep their content strategy top of mind. Many organisations take an English-first approach to their website and then go live in other languages later – but the lag in this can be up to four weeks. This delay is caused not just by the time taken to translate content, but also adapting other aspects including images, colours, currency and product names.
We recently launched the latest version of Forrit One, a content management system (CMS) that can help insurance companies, amongst others, tailor content for a more localised experience. Forrit One includes a simple-to-use localisation feature that streamlines the process of delivering content across multiple markets. Users can also create a single master page and the CMS will auto-create a translation job and populate the correct page in the local market and language while ensuring brand consistency across the board.
Instead of taking weeks, translation can take just a few days; meaning that organisations can launch in multiple regions simultaneously.
Over the next few years, this type of smart linking content will become a vital part of personalising the online experience for customers while helping insurance companies gain a competitive edge and expand their market.
PERSONALISED TELEMATICS
Matt Kirby, Managing Director of Radius Insurance Solutions thinks that fleet telematics is going to get smarter and more granular, as tech advances;
The data collected in all aspects of our lives allows us to have personalised experiences in almost everything we do, and insurance should be no different. New technology is set to modernise the insurance market. Particularly in vehicles which already use telematics to collect driving data, smart insurance products can uncover valuable insights into driver behaviour, accident frequency and other relevant factors to encourage and reward safe driving.
Radius Insurance Solutions has launched onboard, the new smart fleet product that is powered by a revolutionary algorithm that leverages telematics data and is designed to help businesses to manage their fleets with simple inputs, reducing claims frequency and keeping their costs low.
By analysing telematics data the algorithm can assess the risk associated with each individual driver or fleet. This information enables insurance providers to offer more accurate and personalised pricing based on the specific risk profile of each customer. To date, Radius has seen up to 15% cheaper premiums. The product also aims to reduce claims by providing insight to drivers and fleet managers. The gamification interface and driver scores allow drivers to track their own performance and see how they rank among their colleagues.
This feedback loop, combined with personalised coaching and e-learning resources, helps drivers improve their behaviour, reduce risks, and contribute to safer roads. In this way, while traditional insurance covers risk after the fact, smart insurance policies aim to offset risk before an incident occurs.
PIXEL CYBER RISK, WHAT’S THAT ALL ABOUT?
IQUW Cyber Lead Underwriter Andy Lewis thinks that we may well see pixel related claims happening in the future. Yeah, we needed to get up to speed on this one too;
One of the continuing trends we are seeing in 2023 is increased claims from wrongful collection of data, and specifically pixel-related matters. Pixel technology is used by websites to track a user’s activity which can locate them beyond the primary site as well. The main concern with these types of claims is that they have a significantly longer tail to them. For example, the severity of ransomware claims can be understood relatively quickly depending on their impact on an organisation, but claims from the wrongful collection of data can take years to resolve due to the liability issues with limited knowledge of the severity of these losses.
The risk of using pixel technology should make insurers think carefully, especially with the kinds of insurance liabilities that stem from these privacy violations. We have started to see settlements of class actions in this area specifically in the US healthcare sector.
As we begin to see our first pixel-related claims making their way back to insurers, we will have to answer the question of the insurability of these claims. Pixel issues are just the next phase of these losses following the BIPA claims the market has been seeing for the past few years. Given the increased regulation, we expect this area of coverage to have a large impact on insurer loss ratios in the years to come.
NEW THINKING, NEW TABLES
John Bowers, Actuarial Product Director, RNA Analytics sees the vast amount of data, plus the analytics tools to build actualrial tables, as being a huge step forward.
The great strides made in insurtech over the past five years alone show just how much promise the future holds. It is truly a new dawn in the development of software and products for the industry, as insurers take the digital–first approach for both internal and customer facing operations.
The impact of these developments on the actuarial function, and on the role of the actuary through 2030, are as promising as they are wide-ranging. Actuaries are already beginning to leverage new datapoints in ever more powerful ways – from exploiting data and AI for more accurate reserving, ratemaking, pricing and capital modelling; to interrogating new input and statistics to tackle changing dynamics in life and pensions; and better understanding emerging risks such as ESG and even AI itself.
As customers increasingly look for greater accuracy, flexibility and speed from their digital tools and ecosystems, a rapid shift to cloud computing is underway for core systems, paving the way for a level of innovation that the industry has not yet seen. Cloud will be absolutely critical for enabling the type of computational power that is needed to fully understand and make use of these new and incredibly large datasets – all of which enhance the richness of the information and the accuracy of outcomes.
This new dawn brings about considerable change for actuaries. At RNA, we see this as a huge positive that will supercharge the value of the actuarial function and secure its value a long way into the future.
WILL INSURTECH FADE AWAY BY 2030?
Wayne Slavin is co-founder and CEO of Sure, the insurance technology leader that unlocks the potential of digital insurance. He thinks that insurtechs need to fade into the background somewhat and stop trying to be the actual insurers.
I think it’s going to be really interesting to see how the transition from Insurtech 1.0 to insurtech 2.0 unfolds. Direct-to-consumer companies like Lemonade, Hippo, and Next that represent insurtech 1.0 recognized the need for a better customer experience when buying insurance, so they built it. But they also signed up to be the insurers themselves. That structure complicated their long-term success path.
What we are now seeing is that while the insurtech 1.0 companies had the right idea to create a better customer experience, maybe they didn’t also need to be the insurers. The reality is that being an insurer is really hard. The legacy insurers are really good at being insurers, so let them manage the risk and do the underwriting and leave the better customer experience to technology partners who take the insurance product and run it on their systems.
As we turn the page on the insurtech 1.0 era, I expect you will see some of the insurtech 1.0 companies fade away and be replaced by insurtech 2.0 companies. I also expect you will see the modern insurance platforms replacing the legacy platforms that are used by the big incumbent insurance carriers. In reality, you can’t keep band-aiding on to your legacy platform. They are too slow and not flexible enough to deliver true embedded insurance experiences that will define the insurtech 2.0 era as well as the next 20 years of insurance distribution.
CUSTOMER JOURNEY
Paul Williams, (above) CEO at Ripe, has some thoughts on the alternative customer journey:
“Thanks to new technologies – in particular, robotics, machine learning and AI – the process of purchasing insurance has become a much more dynamic experience for consumers. At Ripe, we believe the primary role of technology is to serve our customers. AI models can work non-intrusively to analyse data on customer characteristics and behaviours.
“Each of our insurance products is specifically tailored to an individual’s needs; if you’re a hairdresser looking for salon insurance, or a cyclist looking to insure your new bike, on our customer journeys, you’ll only see what is relevant to you. This hyper-tailored experience differentiates Ripe from more traditional brokers that rely on aggregators – we use data to dynamically understand the customer and adapt products in real-time. For example, we use innovative eye tracking and Biometric technologies to better understand how customers respond during their policy purchase. Advanced technologies like this are revolutionising user experience, bringing financial services out of the dark ages and firmly into a leadership position along with global tech and top retail brands.
“When it comes to customer service, new AI based technologies will increasingly play a crucial role. AI based chatbots can sit alongside customer service teams to provide a faster response to queries. Live Chat is already an asset in our toolkit to assist customer interactions and engage with a higher volume of customers each day. We’re also looking at using speech analytics, and large language models like ChatGPT to enhance our productivity.”
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