Practice and client management

The demand for no-medical exam life insurance has grown in the last year, likely related to the COVID-19 pandemic. From October to December 2021, about 56% of applications submitted through Policygenius were for no-medical exam policies compared to January to March 2021, which was only 26%.

The total losses and physical damages were estimated to cost $343 billion, well below the peak loss year in 2011 of $615 billion, however the 2021 losses, compared to 2011-2020 were about 4% higher than the average of $271 billion, according to the 2021 Weather, Climate and Catastrophe Insight report.

A recent study shows cyber incidents, business interruption and natural catastrophes are the most important global business risks for companies in 2022.

Allstate and John Hancock recently announced a partnership to reward John Hancock Vitality members with points if the policyholder is also a safe driver with the Allstate Drivewise program. The alliance is the first of its kind and could be an indicator of where the insurance industry may be going.

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.

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.

Digital Insurance spoke with Rand Harbert, chief agency, sales and marketing officer for State Farm about celebrating 100 years and its support of small businesses.

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

In 2021, only about 40% of claimants interacted with a claim estimator via digital channels and 47% made a claim using a website.

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.

Consumers getting policies from the California FAIR Plan climbed about 25% in 2020, according to data from the state’s insurance department. That was due to increases in both new policies and renewed ones.

Forty-six percent of consumers are open to pay-per-mile and 45% are interested in a program that rewards safe driving with discounts, according to a Nationwide survey. Yet only 45% of agents offer telematics to a quarter or fewer of customers.

Only 32% of 2,750 U.S. consumers surveyed by the company in fall 2021 had been offered telematics-based insurance, the company said. Of those that were offered, 49% took the offer, and 64% have stuck with it.

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.

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.

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.