Everyone tells me that the insurance industry is ripe for innovation. Then I read the statistics from this report and realise that it is so conservative that only major outside disruption is likely to shock the insurance industry into action.
Faced with a cataclysmic industry reduction in turnover of 20%, most industries would be be taking fast, systemic, remedial action, yet the numbers indicate complacency: By next year just over half of insurers MIGHT get around to making an investment in mobile tech (the most prolific channel for the next generation) and this year involvement with insurtech companies has risen from a quarter to just below half.
We are not setting the world alight here. Insurance needs to make the investments NOW to stay relevant and attractive to customers.
Otherwise they will simply go to someone who does.
More than half of global insurers estimate that around 20% of their turnover is threatened by insurtech, according to a new study by PwC. However, insurers are getting better about being proactive in the face of the threat; 45% of them have formed a partnership with an insurtech company. Last year at this time, just 28% of insurers had done so. Fifty-two percent of insurers said they realized that innovation had to be a central part of their strategy, according to L’Argus de l’assurance. Of those, 84% said they planned to invest in data analysis, and 58% in mobile technology, by 2018.
