Following the US Insurance Trends: Insurtech Insights US22
The Insurtech Insights US event was held in New York during 25-26th of May. The event contained more than 200 speakers and 800 companies. From Virtual i Technologies Team, USA Expansion Lead Umut Sevin attended the event. The event was attended by both insurance incumbents and insurtech startups. During the conferences and panels the focused topics were insurance data, role of AI and Machine Learning in insurance, insurtech and insurance partnerships and web3, especially metaverse and insurance.
Here are some of the highlighted conferences and insights:
Embedding Data and Analytics into the Core of your Organization
On the topic of data and analytics integration four industry experts were on the stage:
- Pardeep Bassi, Willis Towers Watson
- Libbe Englander, Pharm3r
- Glenn Hofmann, New York Life
- Massimo Cavadini, MunichRe
The panel explained how AI and MLOps helped with big data analytics and how cloud computing is being an enabler on this front. Two main discussion points were how the change in an insurance company can be implemented and the topic of open source data for ML in insurance research.
How Insurers Can Achieve Fully Automated Underwriting at Scale
Automating the underwriting can change the ecosystem, especially if achieved reliably and at scale. Yuval Man from DigitalOwl, Nichole Myers from Ethos and Don VU from Northwestern Mutual talked about the benefits, the potential and the problems of underwriting automation. Tech automation will be the power of underwriting. Fully automated underwriting will be possible but semi-automated and manual underwriting will not be replaced, but assisted. There will always be a need for underwriters as expertise and human wisdom will always be in demand.
The balancing of automation will be the key in the future and will require big changes from insurance companies. The transformation will be a long process and will require a multidisciplinary approach. IT, data, business and underwriting teams will need to work together to improve automation and achieve the full transformation. AI/ML researchers cannot create or force the change by themselves. Finally, which is also discussed throughout the event, access to data is the bottleneck for automation of underwriting, especially for scalable solutions.
The Potential of Automated Underwriting
On the topic of automating the underwriting process the main problem is found to be access to data for training the automated AI models. Eugene Shafronsky from Thinktum, Lewis Liu from Eigen Technologies and Alex Frommeyer from Beam Dental agreed on the need for data access. The problem with the data is both access and the structure of the data. With these conditions scalability is a long process. The other discussion was about what role underwriters can have on this process. Underwriters should be a part of the ML training process.
How Automation is Revolutionizing the Claims Experience
Another automation topic was the automation of claims processes. Brent Wİlliams from Benekiva, Sathyanarayanan Sethruaman from UiPath and Samuel Falmagne from Akur8 talked about how claims processing is not only a decision making process but also a customer relationship business. Some repetitive tasks and easier situations can be automated however in complex cases human touch will be needed.
How Incumbents Automate with Startups
Karen O’Leonard, Willis Towers Watson, Sean Giday, Strategic Partnerships at Reinsurance Group of America and Paul Barron, ICEYE, talked about the automation in the insurance companies with the help of insurtech startups. Karen O’Leonard stated that they tend to work with partners in areas that they do not have full competency. On the other side, the problem insurtech startups are having seems to be getting investments. For startups it is important to get traction and key client(s) that validate them becomes crucial.
Building an Effective Ecosystem Strategy
According to McKinsey “25% of insurance will be over embedded in 2030”. In their speech Laura Drabik from Guidewire focused on embedded insurance as an effective insurance ecosystem strategy. What customers want is an omni channel & seamless insurance process. They want to choose how to be served at the time that they want to be served.
How to Leverage New Technologies to Proactively Attack the Evolving Risk Landscape
With the increase of insurtech startups new technologies are becoming available to insurers everyday. Which of them will become crucial and how to gain advantage from the current environment is an important topic. Each speaker on this topic had different technologies in their mind.
For Andrew Schwedel, Bain & Company, the key is data and the problem in the US is state regulations. If the benefits are shown, it can ease the data usage and handling regulations. The data then can be used for automation of underwriting processes, which is the game changer for Andrew. According to Johnny McCord from LoadSure these technologies will provide efficiency and will lead to data sharing within the industry. If data sharing becomes common, claim automation will be better and using AI-based decision engines will reduce the cost of claims.
Bastiaan de Goei from Instabase focused on explainability and data traceability. AI technologies should always make sure where the data is coming from and how it is stored to satisfy regulatory requirements. For the user explainity of AI decision making becomes crucial. Instead of black box AIs, users should be able to see which data was used and how the AI arrived at its decision.
What the Insurance Marketplace of 2030 Will Look Like
Insurance marketplace is rapidly changing and Jim Dwane from Bolt and Richard de Sousa from SCOR talked about the upcoming trends in the insurance industry. AI/ML and embedded insurance seems to be the future for the industry. Having more data will have an accelerating impact on AI decision making and with the variety of data sources customization will become possible in the upcoming decade.
The Technologies Facilitating Maximum Growth
Four panelists, Clark Frogley from Quantexa, Andrew Yeoman from Concirrus, Serhat Guven from Willis Towers Watson and Phillip McGriskin from Vitesse PSP discussed what the existing technologies need for their growth. The key holdup for growth is data. Getting the data and creating usable operational insights is the formula for growth. Companies need to find ways to get more data from the customer and connect the data better to be efficient.