How InsurTech is shaping the general insurance market

The rise of InsurTech is bringing with it greater efficiencies and cost-savings across the entire insurance function, not to mention changing the way organisations are recruiting talent and utilising both human and artificial intelligence. Paul Tasker, Managing Director at REG, knows better than most how InsurTech is shaping the general insurance market. As an award-winning solution for counter-party risk management, REG delivers solutions to help manage financial, legal and regulatory risk. As the demands on regulated firms continue to increase processes will be automated to bring about efficiencies, which is where InsurTech plays a major role. Paul spoke to us about what’s happening in InsurTech currently and the impact this is having on the wider market. "As technology has moved on it's effectively influenced every part of an organisation" Technology, says Paul, has permeated every element of a modern business, with general insurance not escaping its influence. For many years investment in technology has been significant, however new tech solutions - and the emergence of many smaller firms that offer such solutions – has led to a shift in market conditions. Now, with a wider range of distributors and smaller organisations operating effectively as service as a software (SaaS) firms, there’s less requirement for big installations and capital commitments meaning more buyers can find solutions that work for them out of the box. Therefore, InsurTech means solutions are more accessible and affordable than ever before. "Repetitive process automation and artificial intelligence free up human labour to focus on the tasks that have the most impact" InsurTech can be used to automate repetitive manual processes, with artificial intelligence and automation turning tasks that were once labour- or time-intensive into accurate, efficient machine-driven processes. Rather than technology replacing human jobs, this in fact presents the opportunity for people to spend more quality time dealing with issues that require the human brain and experience, rather than menial or monotonous tasks. Instead of spending time collecting, collating, cleansing and analysing data, those who harness InsurTech can focus that time on reviewing and analysing the output of an automated process and use it to make business decisions. This means human labour is freed up to make better decisions for the business in areas such as risk, growth and compliance. "InsurTech is creating more jobs - and different jobs" Any new business finding its feet today will have some reliance on tech, says Paul, with many jobs across the market now requiring tech skills and experience. Tech enablement is significant in this industry, yet for general insurance recruitment we know that the human touch remains imperative. The competitive, crowded marketplace means that businesses still need people to promote and sell their products, but those people are increasingly being required to learn new tech skills and use InsurTech to their advantage. Traditionally the insurance market has been a late adopter of technology, and indeed Deloitte notes that most insurers have struggled with innovative product development in the past. Now, however, we are seeing widespread use of InsurTech across the industry, suggesting that those who do not adopt the tools available will be left behind. "Data protection and legacy are challenges for InsurTech" While InsurTech presents enormous potential in terms of efficiencies and cost-saving, it also comes with challenges. One of these is for organisations that were early adopters of new tech years ago. These businesses will likely have built up large legacy applications that still need supporting, which could lead to migration issues should these organisations decide to move to more modern platforms. Newer and more agile businesses – particularly start-ups – don’t have this kind of legacy debt and can therefore be nimbler when it comes to adopting new InsurTech. We’re seeing some incumbents navigate this by backing or acquiring developing InsurTech innovators that don’t have legacy and can offer new and more relevant coverages and capabilities. Data protection is also a major factor for all organisations using InsurTech, particularly with GDPR which has been in force for almost a year. "There's more real-time data available than ever before" The way people interact with technology has changed significantly in recent years, with people connected to devices and the internet on a near-constant level. This has provided an influx of real-time data that can be combined with artificial intelligence in InsurTech to make smarter, more accurate predictions. Automation, data analytics, connected devices and machine learning are being utilised to create holistic consumer solutions that can be easily switched on and off, says Business Insider Intelligence’s Insurtech Research Report, with disruption occurring throughout the insurance lifecycle. We’re also seeing more data sharing across functions, locations and territories, giving organisations larger pools of data to work with. The availability of such data means that applicants buying insurance solutions need to provide less information than they did in the past, as data is more readily available that can be used to make suggestions and recommendations. IDEX, InsurTech and RegTech IDEX partners with organisations within the InsurTech and RegTech space to source for roles across a variety of functions, including marketing, sales, administration and technology. In addition, we have a range of general insurance roles available throughout the UK, from underwing to business support. Whether you’re a professional looking for a next career move or an organisation requiring fresh talent, we can help.