Insure Think

Legacy carriers must work to up their digital capabilities and online user experience.

Labor challenges are driving insurers to rethink how work gets done.

Current actuarial techniques are good at quantifying in the aggregate – but less so in the detail.

Exploring past Dig In keynote John Rossman's insight.

It's in insurers’ and insurtechs’ interest to ensure their mobile apps.

Core systems that support policy, billing and claims functions have been foundational.

A comparison of the various forms of cloud tenancy across five important areas for insurers: cost, security, agility, maintenance, and scalability.

Cambridge Mobile Telematics research has shown that the right type of insurance telematics programs can help maintain and even improve safe driving behaviors.

Companies that deploy wearables to promote better employee ergonomics are getting ahead of the curve.

The goal should be to expand payment types and access options to give policyholders greater control of their experience.

Digitization can yield opportunities to provide more personalized experiences.

Agencies are exploring new channel partners in the distribution ecosystem.

Automation can uncover new opportunities to improve the way insurers do their jobs.

Insurers must invest not only in technology but also in their workforces.

Embedded insurance provides products and bundled services within other web and software programs and its popularity is growing rapidly.

Themes include timeliness of service and resolution, communication, process effectiveness and adjuster attitude and approach.

More publicly available digital information means underwriters have greater access to information on potential risk.

In the Accenture Interactive Fjord Trends 2022 report, we see how shifts in five human behaviors and trends may affect society, culture and business.

Visual intelligence may help insurers eliminate and automate manual steps throughout the claims life cycle.

Enabled by advanced technology, automation and digitization, insurers will discover and leverage new opportunities.

Can a new communication protocol help unlock the value proposition of insuring the smart home?

Digitizing the salvage process can enable faster settlement of claims, improve insurers’ NPS scores and lower vehicle storage costs.

Insurers are moving towards embedded risk-rated customer acquisition, offering the safest drivers the opportunity to secure a better premium directly within their existing insurance experience.

Two years of pandemic life have led consumers to be more hyper-aware of the risks to their life and property than ever.

Popular wisdom dictates that AI will result in a net loss of jobs as technology supplants human beings, but we're on trajectory to do the opposite.

Home insurers' digital tools and data analytics need to reflect the rapidly changing reality.

There is a clear business case for democratizing – or said more plainly, broadly sharing – data across an enterprise. If we responsibly open up data while working to mitigate the potential risks, there can be meaningful payoffs for our customers and companies.

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.