Insurtech innovations have rapidly changed the industry landscape in recent years. The growing advent of digital transformation has also led to a paradigm shift in the insurance sector. After several life-changing events in the last couple of years, the world is at a crucial juncture where diverse natural, geopolitical, and cultural aspects are steadily intertwining. This is leading to something of a widespread crisis. With multiple overlapping issues, it becomes more challenging to fix them all, based on their origins and unique aspects. Rather than getting down to the brass tacks of every individual problem, businesses can focus more on making a difference by tackling what can be called the cumulative impact of such circumstances on the masses.
This is where technology has become an immense enabler for ensuring higher support and assistance in unique ways, right from delivering supplies during disasters to boosting mental health and wellness and more. Here is how an industry like insurance can also leverage technology to do more good when things do not quite feel right from a sociocultural perspective.
A Multi-Dimensional Insurance Shift
Digital transformation in the insurance sector holds the potential to do more good than ever before. The industry has always had to deal with numerous complications, including the difficulty of marketing and selling products that people may not require. Yet, due to the risk management and financial security insurance provides, suitable offerings may also promote wellness which is an oft-neglected aspect of what it can do very well.
An increasing number of health and life insurance policies are now providing wellness benefits including fitness memberships, mental health services, preventive health screenings, and a lot more. This is enabling customers to focus on their health requirements, thereby impacting their quality of life positively amidst the crisis mentioned earlier. Here are a few aspects where insurtech innovations can bring the doing good bit into the picture:
How It All Stacks Up
Insurers can do good in multifarious ways as highlighted above. They can use technology to improve customer access to necessary offerings, streamline policy purchase and issuing procedures, underwrite risks more effectively and personalize offerings. They can also ensure faster claims and engagement with customers for better experiences.
At the same time, Gamification will help them create an ecosystem where positive healthy behaviours are encouraged. Companies, however, should be careful about integrating multiple teams to take care of everything seamlessly, right from product development and sales to underwriting and more. They should create digital frameworks to implement analytics and gather customer feedback in order to come up with suitable solutions accordingly.
The eventual goal is to make insurance something of regular or everyday value to customers instead of a future safety net that is tucked away in the financial portfolio. Insurance is estimated to have assets worth $13 trillion worldwide although it does not still have the customer trust that it deserves. Studies have discovered how a whopping 68% still do not trust their insurance companies, while there is negligible delivery of value or engagement on a daily basis. Hence, there is a pressing requirement for insurance companies to scale up regular engagement with the customer base. With 70% and more of deaths resulting from chronic ailments as per reports, there is a growing need for insurance companies to prioritize tech-driven initiatives that contribute towards improving the daily well-being and lifestyles of customers. Technology is the game-changer in this case, something that can truly take the industry forward towards positively impacting more people amidst challenging and stressful times.
FAQs
Technology can vastly contribute towards better agility and customer-centric approaches in the insurance industry. It can help streamline and automate repetitive procedures to ensure faster policy issuing, documentation, underwriting, claims processing, and payouts. It can also help contribute towards improved wellness through greater personalization of offerings and behavior-linked products. It can help enable value-added services for customers that enhance their overall well-being and quality of life.
Net leverage is a significant term in the insurance sector. It is the sum total of the net written premiums ratio of an insurance company and the net liability ratio. This figure helps work out the exposure of any insurance company towards errors in pricing and the estimation of claims. It is used to effectively assess the financial health of insurance companies.
Several emerging technologies hold immense potential in the insurance industry. Some of them include artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), data-driven analytics, Gamification, automation, trust architecture, IoT (Internet of Things) and more.
The insurance industry has leveraged technology for faster claims processing and underwriting along with using big data and reporting through the visualization, collection, and analysis of data. They are also tapping predictive analytics to predict customer actions and behaviours that may lead to claims. Customers are getting increasingly personalized offerings based on their health-related and other behaviours. Several value-added resources are being offered to benefit and retain customers, while automated claims processing is enhancing overall convenience greatly. These are only some of the ways in which the insurance industry is leveraging technology to drive growth.
