Technology trends that are poised to unlock new opportunities for stakeholders in the Insurance industry
As insurers embrace new ways to craft a superior customer experience and increase penetration, four key advanced technologies are bound to bring about a seismic change across the insurance sector
In my view, modern technologies are playing an increasingly larger role in bringing about disruptive transformation across various industries. The insurance sector too is witnessing a host of technological advancements that are revamping the products and services being offered to an ever-evolving customer set. Of the various technology trends that are in play currently, I see four of them likely to have a pronounced impact on both insurers and customers, revolutionizing how new products are developed, distributed, serviced, and consumed over the next few years. Let us look at each trend and its contribution in increasing market penetration, improving the customer experience, reducing insurance cost, and unlock new efficiencies across the entire insurance value chain.
Digital Technologies and their role in augmenting the India Stack
With a FinTech adoption rate of 87%, India has been lauded across the globe for accelerating the pace of embracing digital technologies. This has come on the back of the development of ‘India Stack’ as a unified platform and the world’s first national digital infrastructure. India Stack has developed into a technological foundation that enables ease of identity and payment whilst providing data security, which has helped widen access to financial services and in turn driving financial inclusion. Once the development of Health Stack is complete which will digitise records of the over six billion health transactions that take place in the country annually (and historical data), this will have far-reaching consequences. This wealth of data can be used by insurers to provide additional value-added services that are more in tune with the nuanced requirements of Indian customers. As more stakeholders, both private and public build integrations into this stack, it should lead to the creation of a digital health technology ecosystem that will improve efficiency, transparency, and the end-user experience across public and private healthcare networks, including personalised pricing opportunities.
How 5G and IoT will deepen the bond between insurer and insured
While insurers have been increasingly investing in automation technologies like Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to reduce latencies, the proliferation of 5G data services along with the network of connected devices, also known as Internet of Things (IoT), are reimagining new products in life, health as well as commercial insurance. By increasing the amount of data that can be shared at a larger frequency through IoT devices, insurers are better able to understand their customers’ risk profile and deliver tailored products that can provide them with adequate protection. Moreover, across industries that employ thousands of machines, industrial IoT can enable real-time monitoring of equipment and allow for predictive maintenance, reducing downtime and bringing down the number of claims related to malfunctioning. Similarly, in the automotive space, the use of Live Streaming has already brought down claim admission and approval times, thereby improving customer experience at the very first step of the insurance servicing process. As modern technologies work towards allowing insurers to manage risk more effectively by making use of complex customer data, a tectonic shift towards a “predict and prevent” model of insurance is inevitable.
The rise of Distributed Infrastructure facilitated by a shift to Cloud-based programs
Insurers are even today weighed down by extensive investments made in legacy systems and technologies that were the norm in a pre-pandemic world. However, with customer expectations altering rapidly post-COVID-19, there is a need to shift towards paperless and contactless processing, whether at the time of sale or during the claims processing stage. Towards this end, insurers and the entire chain of distributors, healthcare providers, reinsurers, and InsurTech facilitators are embracing the move to Cloud-based software solutions. This is helping the sector to be more agile in meeting changing expectations and deliver an enhanced customer experience through personalized products and services. What is more, the transition to the Cloud is creating a Distributed Infrastructure that is essential to realizing the true potential of the previously mentioned technology trends that rely on Big Data to drive further operational efficiencies. As healthcare ecosystems continue to develop with an increasing number of technological innovations native insurers will undoubtedly be in the best position to capitalize on growth opportunities, acting as an important cog between customers and the various stakeholders in the insurance sector. Having said that, insurers will need to manage the cost implications with Capex shifting to Opex due to cloud adoption.
Use of AI & ML to reinvent core processes and systems in Insurance
Even though the above-mentioned technology trends are changing how insurers and consumers look at insurance products, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are two technologies that are rapidly disrupting underwriting, distribution, claims processing, and other core processes in the insurance sector. Not only are they increasing productivity by eliminating redundancies, but insurers are also uncovering new ways to interpret historical data to predict buying patterns and understanding risk profiles across the diverse population set native to our country. The combination of AI and Distributed Infrastructure is creating a trust architecture that will benefit both insurers and the insured, leveraging privacy-protected sharing of health-related data on a real-time basis to drive faster and more accurate decision-making. The rising number of innovations in the applied AI space will transform how life and health insurance policyholders will look at matters of personal and family health, utilizing the predictive insights generated by AI based on their own interactions to improve life expectancy and lead a healthier life.
(The author is Nilesh Parmar, Chief Operating Officer & Chief Technology Officer at Future Generali India Life Insurance Company Ltd, and the views expressed in this article are his own)
