Insure Think

Keeping track of frequent changes to homes has become a complex issue for many insurers. With limited resources and rising customer expectations, many insurers are moving beyond traditional forms of customer outreach – emails, phone calls, and on-site inspections— to obtain the latest underwriting data about the properties in their portfolio.

Despite an influx of potential rental insurance customers, carriers must innovate to cut through the noise and connect with their best prospects on a personal level to ultimately turn them into a client. With so much competition, simply reaching out at the right time may not be enough. Insurers need to understand these consumers on a deeper level.

Automation is well-positioned as a maturing technology that facilitates digital transformation without jeopardizing customer service.

The best ways to leverage relationships to advance in the C-suite aren't always encapsulated by corporate programs.

We’re making some changes to our editorial calendar.

After reviewing the claims data from 2019 to 2021, Embroker uncovered some interesting trends and shifts that can help insurers predict the types of claims that businesses will most likely continue to see in 2022.

As property and casualty insurance carriers look to reduce growing loss ratios in 2022, many have shifted their focus away from growing their customer bases and toward increasing their profits. But for carrier marketers, the path to efficient customer acquisition isn’t as simple as merely cutting budgets.

Continuous monitoring can de-risk behavior-based models for customers concerned about increased rates. Instead of having only one shot at earning their safe driving discount, they can focus on improving in the next term.

The fast and first implementation of AI is important, but it can’t be the only focus when scaling—attention to safety is vital. Insurers need to consider how they will maintain oversight of models and manage risks as use of AI increases. Bias is one of those risks.

COVID-19 has accelerated some trends that look certain to reshape the insurance industry. At the same time, some of the problems that have challenged the industry over the past decade have not gone away. In a new report, McKinsey examines actions insurers can take to address the challenges of this period of intense flux.

We want insurers to transform from premium collectors to lifelong protectors. And technology is at the core of helping them achieve this.

As this booming market evolves, the value of innovation by insurtech startups is becoming clear. These companies drive change by meeting customer demands, as consumers increasingly demand insurance is delivered in a way that suits them – digital services that are quick and easy to use.

Many insurers anticipate an accelerated economic recovery, which can lead to additional digital technology investments in 2022. However, the challenges companies both big and small are facing due to a volatile risk environment continue to be both hurdles and motivators towards technology adoption. One of the pieces to help overcome these hurdles is talent.

The pandemic rollercoaster continues to rattle the insurance industry as we ride into 2022. One of the bright spots for our industry was the acceleration of technological innovation. All the uncertainty and changing consumer habits are fueling substantial changes in how insurance is marketed and sold by independent agencies.

Technology investment is showing no signs of slowing down, M&A continues at a torrid pace and the composition of the independent channel is shifting with generational changes. One thing remains certain: the independent channel has a lot to look forward to in the coming year.

As 2022 gets under way, insurers have opportunities to boost their visibility beyond simply increasing their marketing spending.

In 2020, American Family Insurance launched a partnership with the Creative Destruction Lab and the University of Wisconsin-Madison that provides support and mentorship to start-up founders in their companies’ early stages. A year into the partnership and there are truly inspiring to learn from the startup founders.

In 2020, natural disasters, excluding COVID-19, caused a total of $76 billion in insured losses, as opposed to the $7 billion in man-made insured losses. Companies must prepare to meet the demands of an increased customer base, including facilitating an easy claims process and expanding digital access.

Some consumers don’t seem to be crying out for usage-based insurance and evidence shows some of the models in use are only mildly predictive at best. Why is that? Why is it that auto insurance companies have not found a way to significantly improve on the traditional metrics of age, zip code and the like despite all the technological advances of the last few decades?

The pandemic and industry challenges that lie ahead have fast-tracked innovation and a push for much needed modernization in the industry.

As we look ahead, evolving technologies are presenting home and auto owners with new potential risks. Hacking and ransomware, once confined to computer networks, may become an endemic cyber vulnerability for our increasingly connected vehicles and “smart home” devices. Yet many of these same technologies could create new data sources and risk mitigation options for personal lines insurers.

Breakthroughs in AI over the past decade mean we can now use it to train computer vision algorithms to perform visual tasks as accurately or more than humans. Smartphones can be turned into visual experts in your pocket, which can appraise some aspects of the environment better than people.

Insurtechs are everywhere, covering every sector and raising money at record-setting clips. But the legacy insurance businesses, from carriers to agencies, have already been here and have the deep pockets to remain. So naturally the story has become about competition for market share.

As we emerge from the pandemic and look to the future, the case for cloud must be elevated beyond the limitations of IT savings, to how insurers can use it to address their biggest business challenges.

The disruptions created by the pandemic, natural disasters and a shifting workforce in the past year have challenged insurers to respond to market uncertainties with speed. Before looking at where technology met its goals and where there are opportunities for 2022, it bears noting how carriers mitigated uncertainty and aggressively charted a path forward. Carriers didn’t shy away from the need to digitize or accelerate movement to the cloud.

New methods, using artificial intelligence, ease the fraud detection burden and help insurance companies stay one step ahead.

Using the right advanced technologies, litigation analytics can give you insights into legal cases and trends that were previously unknowable to provide better legal advice, develop better litigation strategies and win more cases.

New research from SMA shows that the plans and progress of some transformational technologies are accelerating ahead as others have hit the brakes.

Auto insurers can leverage critical mobility risk insights like distracted driving, hard turns, and more, turning them into effective personalized marketing campaigns.

Many of the opportunities that exist now and in the coming year are being shaped by the world around us and the uncertainty created by the pandemic.

Based on more than 700 billion miles of historical driving data, most recently from more than 32 million active mobile telematics connections and more than a decade of data directly from cars, we’ve predicted three major trends to keep an eye out for as we head into 2022 and beyond.

It is no surprise that insurers are looking to health tracking technology to create new possibilities for accurate pricing and incentivizing better living.

Ecosystems, sustainability and workforce transformation were the main topics of the EY 2022 Global Insurance Outlook, which comes out in January 2022. It’s important to understand how digital transformation is uniquely related to each of those topics.

In case you missed it, insurtech -- technology developed to improve and transform the insurance industry -- is having a bit of a moment. Forrester recently reported record-breaking funding for insurtechs, closing Q3 at $15 billion - more funding than in 2019 and 2020 combined - with more deals anticipated by the end-of-year.

By facilitating access to rich, unstructured data in real-time, technology is paving the way for insurers to employ greater personalization and become customer-centric. It can drive tremendous growth opportunities as well as cost and operational efficiencies by promoting wellbeing and prevention services.

As the effects of the pandemic continue to play out, market activity indicates commercial lines insurers are reprioritizing their tech-oriented projects, with some plans continuing to move forward while others have slowed down.

There are vital aspects of business that have virtually stagnated despite the high-tech breakthroughs all around them. In insurance, it’s easy to spot: the process for managing risk transfer still relies on technology better suited for the 20th Century. It’s time for an upgrade.

In 2021, the insurance industry reckoned with the broad impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Appropriately, 2022 will need to be the year that agencies and carriers pivot from reacting and surviving to implement new strategies for success.

Not only is digital technology changing but so is the regulatory landscape. Some U.S. states have passed laws that will lead the insurance industry to take a fresh look at technology such as Bluetooth and navigation because they capture significant amounts of personal information from drivers and occupants.

There’s no denying that working with startups entails risk. Plenty of newer insurtechs have technology that’s too underdeveloped, a value proposition that’s too undefined or leadership that’s too inexperienced to overcome the gauntlet of obstacles that stands between startups and success.

In this segment of the series, the authors examine the role M&A will play in the industry’s adoption of insurtech—and more generally, the need for established carriers to adapt to the increasingly innovative and service-based product and service offerings new entrants bring to bear.

The transformation of consumer-focused technologies is forcing providers to adopt new tools to keep up. However, many of these tools are not built with user-friendly experiences that meet customer expectations, and therefore, they suffer from low engagement and adoption.

Today’s clients are looking for financial guidance and product recommendations that account for their entire financial lives. Unfortunately, because of legacy technology in place, most insurance advisors can’t credibly weigh in on the whole picture.

The stay-at-home mandates, school and business closings, and increased remote work arrangements emanating from COVID-19 resulted in a significant decrease in motor vehicle accident frequency in 2020, with that trend continuing into 2021. There are many other, less obvious forces that actuaries and company management should consider as 2021 year-end reserves are analyzed.

There are many important legal issues to consider when operating in the heavily regulated and ever-changing insurance ecosystem. Discussed are some of the key issues to consider when contracting, to demonstrate what is truly important and where insurtechs should focus, whether it concerns program administrator agreements or other types of partnership, master services, or marketing agreements.

Five strategies that insurers can use to cut friction from the customer journey as they work towards digitally transforming their business.

Suddenly the metaverse is everywhere. Ok, the concept of the metaverse is everywhere – thanks to Mark Zuckerberg’s October 28 announcement that “Facebook” has become “Meta.”

Success demands an innovation-driven formula with four main components: speed, accuracy, scale and customer experience. To do this and change the economic equation, here are five efficiency strategies recommended by Verisk.

B2B payments represent the last mile for insurance carriers — the final step that must be integrated and digitized to achieve the industry vision of straight-through processing (STP). And the likely starting point for STP is auto claims, which represent nearly half of all P&C claim volume.

A crucial point that many businesses engaged in the B2B sharing economy are increasingly aware of is that engagement often carries considerable liability risk, which is why it is of utmost importance for businesses to insure against this risk with robust verification services.

At this point in the insurance sector’s lifecycle, change is inevitable. Now more than ever, especially with the rise of technology and insurtechs, competition in the space is cutthroat. And that is why first and cheap are no longer going to cut it.

Deciding which transformation initiatives to tackle first should involve a careful examination of the dysfunction, importance and level of change resistance expected among stakeholders of any process that may be impacted.