2018: The Year Insurtech and Data Analytics Pay Their Way

As the new year gets into its stride, I can see the insurance industry heading in some exciting directions. The starting point is how the past year has witnessed InsurTech and Data Analytics make big inroads. However, the year ahead will be about how those ideas and blueprints are turned into more concrete outcomes for insurers.

Data listening monetises managing 21st Century risks

Protecting people and businesses from rising cyber risks is an obvious insurance opportunity. Analysing non-traditional data, crucial to underwriting new cyber risks, has been a dark magic act. Insurers are working overtime to mine data that might deliver the required personalised insights, just like Amazon and Facebook. In 2018, the industry will demand and reach for new sets of smart artificial intelligence tools that formalise data listening of external sources to evaluate and price new kinds of risks.

Insurers rely on Dynamic Data Analytics

With a reliance on actuaries from its earliest days, insurance has long been a data analysis business. So, data analytics being relevant in 2018 is not much of a forecast. What will become a differentiator is how insurers will rely on live analytics to support more personalised engagements, aligned to individual customer needs. Typically, digital transformation has been about faster transactions. During 2018 the goal and the norm will be to make core insurance systems smarter. Smart core is all about live data analytics happening right at the centre of operations, rather than in an isolated silo.

To learn about other ways InsurTech may change the insurance industry in 2018, please read my Finextra article.