Digital Disruption in Commercial Insurance

Insurance is the fourth most disrupted industry and the one inclined to the most disruptions in the coming years. Much of the transformations are a result of the growing adoption of mobile technology, AI, ML, cloud and data technologies to name a few. So essentially, these technologies are redefining how insurance products and applications for services like claims processing, fraud detection, underwriting and risk management are distributed and managed. And, in other words, these new digital trends in insurance have given rise to a tide of technology driven insurance companies – which we know today as the Insurtechs. With this, we moved on to discuss the following: 1. Insurtechs are fast-moving, digitally enabled enterprises that are identifying and capitalizing on the weakness of traditional insurers in fields like auto insurance, P&C insurance, liability and home insurance with highly valuable offerings for customers. As a result, the entire industry is re–examining its solutions and delivery models that are weak and exploring opportunities for innovation with disruptive new technologies. Considering this, the speaker gave her views on how key trends like Customer Engagement and Digital Data Management can get disrupted by emerging technologies that can have a profound impact on the industry. 2. As a following question to the previous, we discussed on other opportunities with new-age technologies that can impact the commercial insurance sector. 3. Insurers are adopting emerging technologies to digitally transform their services and drive themselves forward in the digital world. However, insurers must be farsighted and strategic about the technologies they adopt and consult with experts on the best approach to going digital. With this, the speaker gave her valuable advice to insurers to help them avoid being blindsided by disruption in insurance. In other words, the speaker addressed how better strategies and vision can help insurers deal with such technology disruptions. 4. Moving towards the current market scenario, changing risk landscapes and worsening loss ratios are shifting the role of commercial insurance companies from risk mitigation to risk prevention. Additionally, the pandemic has put new pressures on business models as well which are increasingly making digital transformation a top priority for insurance carriers. Some of the main themes that are coming out of this are behavioural economics, IoT, and telematics. With this, the speaker gave her views on telematics and real-time monitoring technologies that can offer more flexible and usage-based insurance (UBI) products in the coming days that are beneficial for both the provider and the customer. Speaker Bio: Parul Kaul-Green, is the Chief of Staff, APAC and Europe at AXA XL. Prior to this, Parul was the Head of AXA NEXT Labs Europe at AXA UK Group. Parul is also a board member of UK Insurtech board at Tech Nation, which aims to promote UK’s position as Global Insurance leader. She was recognised as Top 17 Powerful women in Insurtech in 2020 and features on the Women in Fintech Power list  for Global Fintech Industry. She is a mentor at Pitch@Palace & Mayor of London’s International Business Partnering and Business Growth Programme. Besides, she is also an advisor to Insurance Times on Technology and Innovation. Lastly, Parul is one of the key contributor / author to “The AI Book”.