Sunday, 30 June 2019

Insurance 2020

Cogitate Technology Solutions explores how socio-economic, global and even environmental factors that will reshape P&C insurance in the coming years in addition to the technological shifts.

The future, though unpredictable, can yet be prepared for. In a previous blog post, we looked at how the face of property and casualty insurance has changed. In this post, Cogitate Technology Solutions takes a look at the mega-trends that will shape the metamorphosis of the property & casualty insurance industry in the next decade:

Social buying: Traditionally, there have always been intermediaries between insurance providers and their customers. It was the role of these agents to understand consumer and business needs, followed by matching and personalizing insurance solutions to these needs. 
Insurance Solutions


However, with the increased reach of the internet, mobility and the onset of social trends, supplementary direct sales channels have emerged as customers begin to show a definite preference for buying directly from their insurance providers. The speed, convenience and accessibility that is offered by direct sales offers wider geographical reach and an opportunity to sell to new customers – especially the elusive millennials. The biggest advantage, however, is the opportunity for insurance providers is to offer their services wherever customers demand.

Although. insurance companies will continue to depend on the agents as advisors and as a sales channel. the social trend will subsequently also give this role to their customers’ as network of ‘social advisors’. Insurance companies are predicted to face challenges from self-insuring online communities and influential social networks as group insurance channels. Insurance providers that tailor offerings across all their lines to address such scenarios and build capabilities across multiple digital platforms will find themselves rising to the challenge. 

Climate change: The insurance industry has historically handled low frequency natural disaster such as earthquakes and tsunamis well. However, as the frequency and severity of calamities like unseasonal cyclones, hurricanes, floods and fires increase each passing year, the property-casualty insurance domain is struggling with underwriting these risks, largely due to unavailability of data for assessing risks. 

Property Casualty Insurance Software

P&C insurers need to arm themselves with new monitoring and sensing technology, hyperlocal weather data and new mechanisms for transferring risks. Solutions such as more investment in renewable energy resources will also affect insurance houses as they are pressed to come up with innovative offerings to share risks. Protected by sophisticated risk modelling and innovative ways of risk transfer or sharing, insurance companies will have a chance at combating the twin challenge of sky-rocketing prices and reduced capacity. 

Emerging Markets: The inter dependency of world economies continues to increase, and the trend is here to stay. The attention shift towards prolific wealth creation in emergent markets coupled with the effects on developed economies of the 2008 financial crisis will play a key role in all domains. Emerging economies continue to witness increased consumption fueled by the rise of the middle class in developing nations. Add to this the greying population of mature economies while the growth of ‘earning’ population continues to rise vs the ‘dependent’ population in developing nations.  

The momentum shift from the dominant developed nations to the productive growth of emerging economies is a reality that property-casualty as well as other insurance providers will do well to prepare for. Especially for business lines, as customers look at newer markets, any inability to stay in step with their needs will put current relationships at risk.

Globalization: Thus, emerging markets are becoming an area of increased interest for insurance companies, as businesses shift their focus to lucrative new markets that have come to the fore. There is also unexpected manna in the form of the main insurance provider in many of these economies being the government, which neither markets aggressively nor offers diverse offerings. The rising middle class demands, and is ready to pay, for more sophisticated offerings, especially innovative P&C business lines. However, serving new customers in these markets or old customers expanding to new markets will pose a challenge before it becomes an opportunity.

Insurance companies will need to reinvent processes and practices for markets that may not follow global standards. They will need to design standardized products and policies to serve customers with presence across economies. Also, insurers will need to understand, leverage and maybe even modernize the extant traditional distribution networks in these nations. Insurance houses must be geared for increased regulatory scrutiny and oversight aimed at fraud and money laundering. Strategic alliances with local insurance providers will need to be established to manage financial and reputation risks in these untested waters.

There exist no authoritative solutions to meet these future scenarios. Insurers must rely on strategy, talent, organizational strength and their core competencies to turn challenges into opportunities. While some of these factors are built into the DNA of an organization, others can be acquired with strategic partnerships. To learn how Cogitate Technology Solutions can help, visit www.cogitate.us.  

Friday, 28 June 2019

Impact of Digital Transformation on the Insurance Workforce

Cogitate Technology Solutions takes a look at the organizational ramifications as insurance providers undertake digital transformation  and seek talent for InsureTech.

As insurance providers undertake exciting digital transformations that enhance customer experience, drive productivity and boosts efficiencies, the focus is often on only the technological advancements and changes. An often-overlooked aspect is the effect of such a transformation on the current workforce.

Most digital insurance journeys will necessitate the workforce to equip themselves with an entirely new skillset. Insurance providers must:

•Recruit new generation of workforce which understands the business and are comfortable with using new and advance technologies. 

•Their current workforce includes valuable experts who must be retrained to harness emergent technology  . 

•Work procedures will be altered, requiring reorientation and retraining of existing staff for new, efficient processes.

•Most insurance providers will also need to address employees’ fear of loss of employment due to obsolete skills and roles.Technology implementation will require revamping processes and training the employees to use new technologies.

•The leadership will have critical role of the Change Agent.They must ensure that the transition from older processes to the new digital insurance ecosystem is smooth and swift.

While Insurance Software Companies in Usa realize that digital transformations will require a workforce with new proficiencies, what are the new skills their employees will need? How do they attract this talent to their organization? Cogitate Technology Solutionspresents some pointersand some challenges to watch out for    :
Insurance Software Companies in Usa


Identify missing competencies: The tectonic shift in the insurance industry may be tech-focused, but the organization as a whole, needs to rethink the competencies required for tomorrow. An elementary step is to assess the skill gap in the current technical competency-set and those required to meet the company’s digital transformation goals. The new workforce will include not just data engineers and data scientists but also experience designers, technologists and cloud computing specialists. 

Since most insurance houses are on this journey for the very first time, an experienced digital transformation partner who can provide insights based on prior experience and augment in-house capabilities can be invaluable in this regard.

Hiring the right talent: The insurance industry needs to contend across industries to attract the top talent. According to code.org research, there are half a million open IT jobs and the insurance industry will have to battle fiercely for their share of the talent. Their competition will be with the tech giants and the best-of-breed organizations from across the board. 

The task will be made harder by the fact thatSTEMC (“Science, Technology, Engineering, Math and Computers”)   graduates usually do not consider the traditional insurance solution as a serious, long-term career option. Insurance will also need to consider a generational shift, especially in the light of the ageing workforce in the insurance industry. Insurance providers need to start thinking of not just selling to millennials, but becoming an attractive employer for them, too. Evolving aggressive strategies to attract, nurture and retain talent with the critical skill sets will be indispensable to keep pace. 
Insurance Solutions


While some hiring will be a must for insurance providers, again, a collaboration with the right technology partner who has a ready software talent pool to deploy your digital transformation strategy can make all the difference.

Shifts in management paradigms: The second part of addressing the competency gap is do develop the leadership required to helm an insurance company. Developing managing capacity in-house is an absolute must for any insurance provider who aims to remain relevant in the emergent InsureTechecosystem. New competencies like advanced analytics will become must-haves to be able to leverage the technology and they will need to re-skill themselves to manage a much younger workforce. Managers will need to assimilate skills, insights and technology from across the organization and must be supported with buy-in from the leadership.

Cogitate Technology Solutions has worked with some of the biggest insurance providers in the US on their digital transformation journeys. To understand how we can help you, too, please visit www.cogitate.us.

Thursday, 20 June 2019

Insurance Solutions for Property-Casualty Insurance

Cogitate Technology Solutions takes a look at trends in property-casualty insurance and how insurance providers can channel these changes to their advantage.

As disruptions continue to transform traditional industries, insurance companies too are looking at a future that is hard to predict. Technological shifts continue to impact the very nature of the services and the role of insurance providers. The future, though unpredictable, can still be prepared for. Cogitate Technology Solutions takes a look at the top trends that are transforming P&C insurance to help prepare insurers to meet these challenges:

Big Data and analytics: Good data will always remain an invaluable advantage for any insurance provider. Now more than ever, P&C insurance companies have a gargantuan amount of data collected from direct interaction, smart-device usage, wearable and embedded sensors or even social media. However, the quality of insights from this data and their actionability is only as good as the analytics. For insurance companies that can harness the power of predictive data analytics systems, improved pricing and risk selection, identifying frauds and quicker processing of claims hold the promise of increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Drone inspections: Certified drone operators could be the future of claims professional, especially for property-casualty insurance. Drones are increasingly used to gather data before property insurance, assess damages after a catastrophic event and even assist in routine maintenance. Expect regulatory changes that will help insurance houses expand the nascent use of drones to more domains and tasks. Combined with geospatial analytics and AI sophistication, drones can give P&C insurance providers the competitive advantage. 

Wearables: The face of workplace injury insurance solutions is set to change with the integration of wearable devices and sensors into traditional offerings. Smart wearable devices that track movements and can help establish risk profiles for employees will be invaluable for managers when planning trainings. The real-time safety data will have a tremendous impact in lowering injury risks, creating safety checklists and inspections. 
Insurance Solutions


Autonomous vehicles: As driverless cars accompanying safety and time efficiency become the norm, KPMG predicts a massive drop in traditional automobile insurance the coming decades as the number of accidents and bodily injury liability reduce. Premiums might hold up in the short run as cost of individual accident go up due to expensive automobile technology and parts, but in the long run analysts predict a sharp fall. However, the loss in personal lines may be compensated by gains in commercial lines as more ridesharing and on-demand services rise. Also, with the convergence of ultra-connected automotive technology and mobility, breach of data privacy and malicious interference might see a commensurate rise in cyber liability insurance.

Robotics: As insurance companies seek to add more value through technology, robotics process automation (RPA) adoption will see a rise with P&C insurance companies. RPA is a technology that uses no-coding-required software bots to imitate human interactions like clicking, opening apps, typing, etc. RPA integrates these interactions with digital systems and helps insurance providers gain an artificially intelligent workforce that can handle time-consuming, routine tasks. RPA combined with human intelligence can help augment higher-value decision-making, increase efficiency and improve scalability across the P&C insurance value chain. 

Insuring millennials: Millennials are a part of the market that insurance companies must learn to sell to, however steep the learning curve. Digital natives by nature, millennials demand ease and convenience. Insurers must establish a presence not just online, but also offer mobile insurance solutions and be accessible across multiple social platforms. Rich rewards in the form of educating and engaging a whole new segment of the market awaits those that succeed. 

Weather Analytics: As the frequency and severity of calamities like unseasonal cyclones, hurricanes, floods and fires increase each passing year, the insurance domain is struggling with underwriting these risks due to unavailability of data for assessing risks. P&C insurance providers need to arm themselves new monitoring and sensing technology, hyperlocal weather data in catastrophe-prone areas and focus on climate related risk management and investments. 
Property Casualty Insurance Software


Most property casualty insurance software providers are skeptical about the impact of these changes and believe the changes to be far in the future as most of these disruptions are in an embryonic stage. While this conservatism is understandable, insurers’ agility and preparedness in responding to these changes will play a key role in Their survival. Partnering with the right technology partners to help ride the wave could be the differentiator between thriving on change or succumbing to it. To understand how Cogitate Technology Solutions can help you harness the power of change, visit www.cogitate.us.

Cogitate is a Serious Contender in the MGA Core Systems Space

  On September 7, 2023, Datos-Insights released its  Property/Casualty MGA Core Systems: Overview and Solution Providers Report . This compr...