One week on from the Insurance Innovators Summit in London, there are 3 major topics that have stuck in my mind:
- In a hyper-connected world, the perceived gaps between different regions across the world are reducing.
- AI is the hot topic …
- … but we still do not fully know what AI can do.
Walking into the Summit in London (the centre of the insurance world), I was ready to hear and learn about the future of insurance. I was very excited about the prospect of what I would hear, as having spent the past few years of my career in LatAm, I want to explore the differences between that market, seen as a developing market, and the more mature market here in the UK and Europe.
But interestingly, one of the biggest take-aways for me is that there are no major gaps around the issues we are trying to solve in different parts of the world. Year after year, we continue to talk about improving customer experience, personalising products, being an increased presence in the customer’s life, reduced operating costs, preventing fraud and so on.
Nothing particularly new here, but there was certainly a common theme in almost all sessions: Artificial Intelligence.
In the same way that 5-10 years ago, we were trying to figure out what the future of data mobility would be, and how smart devices would impact customer experience and bring efficiencies to operations, I can see that today we are trying to figure out how AI will impact customer interactions and deliver efficiencies to operations.
In this context, it was quite curious to see opposing opinions on the topic, from enthusiasts sharing visions of AI fully handling customer interactions and a world composed by AI to AI interactions, to more sceptical presentations concerned about the negative impacts AI could bring to the world.
But in all cases, there was one common view: we are just scratching the surface of AI capabilities.
Having said that, here is my list of my most interesting thoughts and questions I heard during the conference:
- There are still major risks in using AI for customer facing processes. AI when it works is great, but when it makes a mistake, the impacts could be astronomical.
- However, AI seems to be a great tool to improve efficiencies in the operation, when augmenting human processes and having human oversight.
- In the same way that great process is the key to great automation, great data is the key to great AI performance. We need to be very aware of our data quality in the AI world.
- AI could improve insurer results by increasing written premium through hyper-personalisation of products and reduce costs by improving fraud prevention processes.
- Can AI support insurance companies in the challenge of being more present in their lives?
- What will be the future of open insurance? How will the open data world operate in the future?
- The fight for the customer “ownership” will still be around, and probably with different players such as Amazon and other big brands. Can insurance companies compete against them directly?
- Parametric insurance is evolving and being recognised as a genuine risk transfer mechanism for uninsurable risks
- Gig economies are getting more relevant and insurers need to take notice
Well, in a world where the digital, the virtual, the cyber and AI seem to be replacing the execution of many processes, I will close with a thought shared by Simon Phipps: “the strategy beats execution, but the culture eats the strategy for breakfast.”
And with that, I can rest thinking that we humans are still the most relevant piece of this value chain.
Altus Consulting exhibiting at the Insurance Innovators Summit 2023.
