InsurTech was once the Wild West of the insurance industry. Many of InsurTech’s early players came from outside insurance after observing the industry struggle to deliver what was, in their view, a competitive customer experience.
Executive Summary
With a harder market shaping up, ReSource Pro CEO Dan Epstein offers a reminder of the importance of having insurance professionals who have lived through prior hard markets oversee technology solutions—to contribute understanding that can guide customer service experiences. He supports arguments about the need for insurance industry-technology company collaborations with a review of recent tie-ups and a call for design thinking and customer journey mapping to center tech solutions on the humans served by the insurance industry.Led by ambitious entrepreneurs from outside insurance, backed by Silicon Valley and focused on industry disruption, early InsurTech initially promised to displace incumbents and usher in a new era of insurance offerings and tech-driven solutions.
Nearly 10 years since its inception, the reality of InsurTech has evolved.
The messaging about supplanting industry giants is gone. In its place is a more collaborative environment led by insurance industry leaders partnering with tech solution providers. The simple reality is technology cannot do everything. The integration of experienced insurance professionals and tech is needed to manage across the insurance value chain.
There are powerful drivers of change toward greater automation: insurance professionals aging out of the industry, consumer expectations changing, the transformation of risk itself through the Internet of Things, the continued fragmentation of the industry and legacy systems that don’t talk to each other. Startups and incumbents alike are embracing these challenges through innovative methods designed to drive change across the value chain. Customer journey mapping, design thinking, lean process mapping, intelligent automation all have become increasingly part of the industry’s response to evolving customer service needs.
