Not so long ago, technological terms like “artificial intelligence” (AI) and “machine learning” weren’t the usual words you’d find in a sentence about insurance. Now a chief executive is suggesting that failing to have your eye on technology could impact negatively on insurance companies.
Speaking with Insurance Business, InsuredHQ CEO Jon Davies (pictured) asserted: “If you’re not thinking about your technology stack, you’re going to be at a disadvantage competitively in the market. Every insurance company should be a software company, and we’ll probably change that statement in a couple of years to say that every insurance company should also be an AI company.”
In Davies’s view, things are fundamentally going to change digitally in terms of how people interact and consume things on the web.
Looking ahead, Davies is anticipating the prospect of combining InsuredHQ’s insurance administration platform with the next big thing in tech.
“We’re already thinking about how we can integrate native language chat models into how we operate our platform,” the chief executive said. “ChatGPT would be the perfect example. What we’re thinking about now is how we integrate that with our users and get them better access to a knowledge base when they need it.
“So, provide them better support… eventually the support that they’re trying to find – that AI will then be able to actually do that function for them once they ask them to do it.
“A use case would be: I have a customer that is changing address for their motor vehicle insurance, and I need to update their address. ‘OK, what’s the new address’; you would give them their address; they would verify that address; they would update the insurance policy and then get reissued a premium based on the endorsement because the premium may change.”
Davies believes those kinds of interactions are going to be able to happen via chat in the next two years.
Like every other industry during the global pandemic, insurance has had to adapt and change its ways. For most, there has been no turning back.
“The insurance market itself is very latent in terms of its digital transformation efforts compared to other industries,” Davies told Insurance Business. “But right now is when the insurance market is really increasingly embracing digital transformation. The pandemic really accelerated this trend.
“Companies are now seeking technology that can streamline their operations and increase their capital efficiency because it’s been a pretty hard few years in terms of the insurance market and claims, especially with catastrophic environmental events happening.
“So, they’re wanting to streamline their operations, increase their efficiency, and now one of the biggest transitions that I’m seeing, especially coming from the US, is around customer experience.”
The InsuredHQ boss quipped that no-one wakes up in the morning saying, ‘I can’t wait to buy insurance today’.
He said: “What you want to do is, is where the touch points are with customers, you want to make that as delightful as possible or as positive an experience as possible, especially on the claims side. So, if we can provide digital tools that free up an administrator’s resources to deal with the customer, not deal with administration, I think that’s a win for everybody.
“That’s where I think insurers and insurtechs need to really talk together – about enabling the right thing, which is the right customer experience.”
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