Last month I attended yet another great and amazing InsurTech event. Perfectly organized by the DIA team and even providing attendees with one of the best Flat Whites available in Munich.
The title of this blog might seem cynical. As one keynote speaker commented “Nothing disruptive here.” But in reality, I am just being pragmatic, because transformation doesn’t happen overnight. Not every insurance company can embark on a digital transformation journey at the same time and same pace.
At the DIA conference, 50 InsurTechs got the opportunity to “Show & Tell” — or demonstrate their solution in a short 8-minute time frame. As I watched these presentations, it was clear that the insurance industry can choose from plenty of InsurTechs to help improve and complement their existing products and processes. Disruptors, maybe? Enablers, definitely.
Interestingly, much emphasis was placed on customer engagement. That focus indeed should prove to be very helpful, because the insurance industry is traditionally based on a single touch-point business model. Fortunately, more and more insurers are beginning to accept that they must move away from this model towards one that engages with customers more regularly and delivers a seamlessly integrated customer journey. Doing so allows them to better understand their customers and provide the right products and services at the right time through the right channel. But to achieve this, insurance companies need data, which they have lots of, and artificial intelligence, to make sense of it.
And that’s where the enablers come back into the game. There are many InsurTechs to choose from and Shift is proud to be an enabler for more than 80 insurers worldwide.
To conclude insurers may not be experiencing major disruption yet. But it is clear the industry will continue to need the InsureTech Connect, Magic of Innovation and other Insurtech events staged around the world, and I am looking forward to attending DIA’s event next year and seeing the new crop of technology enablers gradually forming the new insurance ecosystem.
