Bureaucracy & Insurance Might Be Dull But It's A Happy Fascination For Innovators. My look at Gallagher Re's latest insurtech report.
Innovators love 'dull'.
Steve Jobs. iPhone. Personal admin made shiny. That was a big one.
And I don't know about you, but I'm fascinated to know how Elon Musk is going to cut $2trillion from US bureaucracy spend over the next few years.
Many say it's irresponsible. Entrepreneurial bravado. While nobody wants vital services cut, I suspect Mr. Musk is on to something. I've no doubt there are huge efficiencies to be had with a bold and fresh approach to process & systems. It will be interesting.
Insurance is dull too, but another fascinating space.
Smart tech and bold thinking is slickening up backoffice insurance processes, helping unlock a myriad of commercial and societal benefits. And that's fun and rewarding for those involved.
And of course it attracts investors who see money making potential.
Where insurance is innovating - new report
Last week Gallagher Re released their latest report on the insurtech space.
A state of the nation on investment trends and the areas where intelligent tech might have its biggest impact on insurance. I thought I'd share the low-down.
This quarter Gallagher has focussed on Central Business Operations. One of four areas where so-called ArtificiaI Intelligence (AI) is set to have an impact.
While policy administration might not seem like the most exciting topic, it is arguably the most important function of (insurance) operations. It covers the management of policies and customer data from the point of policy issuance through to either renewal, exhaustion or claim or attempted claim - the whole lifecycle of a written insurance policy. Gallagher RE Global Insurtech Report Q3, 2024
It's a tough nut to crack
Most of the big insurance players have old, monolithic systems or 'Frankenstein' systems (multiple systems stitched together but not hugely efficient).
It's the price of being in the game a long time.
And M&A adds to the problem of course. Plenty of this going on.
M&A adds extra complexity to even the most elegant of operational set-ups, creating a murky 'thrown together' cocktail of disparate systems, data and processes.
Change by a thousand cuts
But there is hope.
The smaller and more youthful insurers have greater freedoms - less legacy or no legacy. These challenger organisations can embrace the versatile, cloud-based open architecture frameworks of 'now'; solutions that happily co-operate and share data to deliver superior outcomes.
As a vendor in this game (check out our Go-Insur PAS ) I can vouch for the co-operation that's alive in the sector. Partnerships, JVs, frenemies - there is a genuine appetite to work together in a client's interests. In the sector's interests.
And this seems to be where the investment interest is.
The future is change by a thousand cuts - not a single revolutionary act, but multiple parties iterating, collaborating and building out the 'new capabilities ecosystem'.
As the Gallagher Re report says, increasingly investors are recognising that...
...the real value of insurtech lies in its ability to improve existing processes, streamline operations, and find profitable opportunities in previously unexplored areas. Global Insurtech Report Q3, 2024
No more crazy valuations either. At least for now.
Gone are the days when a company’s valuation would be estimated by multiplying its expected return to value by the 'total addressable market' (a percentage of the global insurance industry, often arrived at by somewhat unclear means)... Valuations are now more squarely in line with traditional success criteria e.g. underwriting results, expense ratios, time saved, value created etc. This has reduced valuation volatility... Global Insurtech Report Q3, 2024
The report gives a handy A-Z of the operational areas for an insurance business alongside the core of Policy Administration - the areas occupying today's innovators;
1. Account servicing
2. Accounting
3. Agency effectiveness management
4. Analytics
5. Billing
6. Business process analysis
7. Company strategy support insights
8. Compliance/licensing requirements
9. CRM optimization
10. Data management
11. Digital asset management
12. Document automation
13. Document imagery
14. Due diligence
15. Form filling proofing
16. General management of live policies
17. Insight into improving customer relationships/engagement
18. Internal/external messaging
19. Loss control
20. Modeling
21. New product development/pricing insights
22. Placement insights
23. Product design insights
24. Rate filling proofing
25. Rating
26. Record management systems
27. Redefining underwriting guidelines
28. Research
29. Review of policy handling processes and architecture
30. Sales support
31. Strategic
32. Workflow systems
33. Workflows/outsourcing
Most applicable tech areas
And Gallagher Re also ventures a chart on the applicability of different types of tech in the central business operations space. A useful reference.
The impact on humans
Finally, there are the ethical questions around AI.
The report touches on this.
We innovators love to create faster, more efficient and more robust processes, but automation and the new intelligences are going to make people redundant.
Or free them up to do other things.
What the 'other things' are is yet to be defined.
And there's the worry around fairness and getting insurance decisions right.
The report touches on the risk of computers increasingly 'just getting on with things', at worst unchallenged - the 'AI blackbox' concept - where subsequent generations of underwriters become increasingly distanced from, and unfamiliar with, the rules and algorithms governing decisions. And it being impossible for them to intervene.
Nobody has the answers yet, but the debate is beginning.