I Was last week in Las Vegas for an event focused exclusively on the application of technologies in the insurance industry, the Insurtech Connect 2016. The first impact was the amount of people: 1.500. From hence arose a great difficulty in selecting which panels to attend. I had to choose 20 from over 50, which by itself was a pain, because the will was to be at all. I will try to summarize in this article a little of what I saw and heard in two and a half days of immersion.
The first point, that perhaps summarize what we are living for the world – and Brazil is not out of this reality is that the insurance industry is one of the last frontiers of the financial market that had not yet been dramatically impacted by the technological revolution brought by the startups of finance, the ever popular fintechs. The future has arrived, and as the initial measure for this group of companies to be baptized with a proper name to differentiate: are the insurtechs.
Talking with the participants of the event, the astonishment is that a year ago or if he spoke of the new specific term, much less could imagine an event of this magnitude with such a hearing. The great thing is that there is a lot to be done in the industry, taking as a basis a study from Financial Technology Partners called the Insurance Technology Trends, allied to my professional experience and the event in Las Vegas.
The largest part of the communication and the engagement of the customers with the category is still done inefficiently through the channels of distribution today. The system of prices and the characteristics of the products (and a huge range of services) are still seen as a black box to consumers. The collection of data for pricing and the operational processes are relatively archaic compared with the technology available and in many cases still dependent on paper. Insurers coexist with legacy systems difficult to maintain and to integrate with the new digital world.
The systems and processes were not constructed with the new demand of usability (UX – user friendly) and are very flexible and adaptable. The actuarial models in use, although historically very effective, may be an obstacle to the development of custom products designed for specific situations, such as, for example, insurance on demand, newly released on the market by an insurer digital call Trov. The claims processes generally require the physical presence of steel, deep analyses by skilled technicians and relatively long periods for approval and payment of compensation.
meanwhile, what we have seen in the markets with the use of technology in an advanced state are online brokers with ability to present products and prices more transparent, uncomplicated and quick. In addition, the payment of claims "real-time" through the use of artificial intelligence; pricing and underwriting risk flexible; the use of machine learning and applications that allow customers to manage their policies; simplified procedures integrated by webservice to brokers and service providers; great connectivity of the broker with the insurance companies; and custom products and on-demand.
Finally, I participated in a panel that launched the provocation of trying to predict which of the initiatives below are being used five years from now, trying to predict the that is here to stay and that is just a fad doomed to disappearance. I’ll put the terms in English, because still I have not found better translations: driveless cars, telematics, wearables, artificial intelligence, blockchain, big data, usage based pricing, internet of things, P2P (peer-to-peer insurance), cloud computing and machine learning.
in Conclusion, the future has arrived and it seems overwhelming. The insurance companies that are having success are those that approach this digital ecosystem, and develop solutions in conjunction with the most varied of startups rather than trying to seek solutions on their own. The biggest example of this is the insurer of the chinese Zhong An.
Marcelo Blay - CEO and founder of Minute Insurance
No comments:
Post a Comment