Overheard at InsureTech Connect 2017

Jeff Young on October 23, 2017

Over 3,800 insurance professionals from across the globe gathered recently at InsureTech Connect in Las Vegas. I was impressed by both the scope of innovators who shared their insights over the two-day event, as well as the expertise on display during the educational panels.

For those who were unable to make the trip this year, here are a few of the main takeaways I had from my interaction with attendees and featured speakers:

  1. Insurance is competitive.  People can buy insurance from more mediums today than ever before.  Policy holders can switch providers with very little, if any, exit costs.  As an insurance vendor, reinsurer or broker/agent, innovative solutions that heighten customer engagement, mitigate risk or expedite resolutions will have a big payoff.
  2. Review processes. The fact that it’s always been done a certain way doesn’t mean it should continue. To quote Benoit Claveranne, Group Chief Transformation Officer at AXA, as it relates to innovation “There is no point to putting Artificial Intelligence on a stupid process.”
  3. Speech solutions are needed.  Insurance protects those whom people love and the possessions that they’ve spent much of their lives working to attain.  Impersonal communication methods simply cannot replace the value of human-to-human connection.  There is tremendous opportunity for InsureTechs within the speech landscape...especially for those who are able to integrate AI with big and small data.
  4. Feedback is important.  Insurers need innovative solutions that expedite the collection and interpretation of data.  The faster data can be generated and analyzed, the quicker the insurance industry can align itself.  Enterprise integrations from InsureTechs can play a big role in this.
  5. Fall in love with your problem.  Deeply understand the problem for which you need a solution.  Don’t just seek out cool technologies that fix things.  As Rob Schimek, President and CEO or AIG Commercial stated, “You must first fall in love with the problem to find a great solution.”
  6. In the end, customers should drive innovation.  I believe the InsureTechs and insurers at the conference would agree with James Siminoff, founder of Ring, when he said, “Do something that makes people’s lives better, don’t focus on the technology.”

Want more insights from InsureTech Connect? Give a listen to the InsureTech Insider Podcast live from the conference, hosted by Deloitte's Nigel Walsh, and featuring a guest appearance by our VP of Marketing Darin Reffitt speaking about SPLICE's role in the InsureTech landscape.