Insurance Portal

As we move into a new phase of innovation after the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, insurers need to look ahead to determine what their technology priorities should be today. Our 2022 Technology Vision report focuses on the expansion of the digital world and the increasing overlap between physical and virtual reality. One of the trends I think is most relevant to insurance carriers is Accenture’s vision for the Programmable World.

In the report, Accenture found that 74% of global executives said that the number of IoT or edge devices deployed in their organizations significantly expanded over the past three years. With that data in mind, insurers need to understand how their products and customer interactions can stand out in an increasingly digitalized reality.

If insurance leaders want to pull ahead, they need to focus on functionality rather than novelty. A truly programmable world will rely on robust technology that drives efficiency and engagement while measurably reducing cost and effort. The question isn’t, “How do we develop new offerings to show that we can keep up with the latest technology?” The question needs to be, “How do we design or adapt products and processes to deliver the most value to customers through a programmable world?”

There are two insurance use cases that I believe will be heavily impacted by innovation towards a programmable world: customer interactions and embedded commercial insurance. The implications of augmented reality (AR) and technology like programmable materials may change the way both personal lines and large commercial carriers do business.

Reimagining customer interactions

For personal lines carriers, AR and IoT technology offer new opportunities to personalize the customer experience and improve the claims process. We’re already seeing automotive insurance carriers adopt IoT technology such as connected telematics devices to offer more personalized, usage-based insurance. This application sets a precedent for the rest of the industry with property insurance not far behind.

Innovation in this area is already happening with offerings like Allianz Partners’ Visi’Home, which the company launched in France back in 2020. Visi’Home is a video diagnostic service that supports customers remotely in the event of damage to their home or possessions. Support personnel can assess damage and connect customers to repair resources without having to dispatch anyone directly. They can also initiate the damage settlement process based on the video assessment.

With AR glasses technology, for example, this process could happen in real time, potentially without the intervention of a human agent. AI could scan for damage and make recommendations to the customer, giving a list of resources or initiating a phone call to a nearby technician and letting the customer know what their policy covers, all in the moment.

IoT solutions and innovations that break down barriers between real-world behaviors and digital data collection could also enable insurers to understand and support their customers on an increasingly personal level. Computer vision, speech recognition, and wearables can enable the environment to respond to individuals as they move through it. One example given in the Technology Vision report is a set of stairs flattening into a ramp as a wheelchair user approaches. Technology like this could make spaces safer, changing the ways we insure things like homes, vehicles and small brick-and-mortar businesses.

Understanding how customers interact with the environment is also meaningful for life insurance carriers, though data ethics and privacy needs to be at the forefront of this type of innovation.

Customers are used to what Tech Vision refers to as a “virtual lifestyle” during the pandemic—interacting with coworkers, friends, and brands often exclusively online. The metaverse will allow us to engage in a virtual lifestyle in new ways, similar to the rise of social media which enabled us to build virtual lives in the first place. Carriers should focus on extending the convenience and personalization of the virtual world into customers’ everyday lives: enhancing customer wellbeing and streamlining interactions through new technology.

Embedding insurance in enterprise operations

After the publication of last year’s Insurance Technology Vision, I discussed how digital twins can help insurers with distribution, underwriting, operations and claims. Through data from IoT and 5G connected devices, digital twins can provide data and context about the environment in real time.

In my previous post on this topic, I gave an example of digital twins giving deeper context around auto accident claims. I see a similar application for digital twins in commercial manufacturing and warehouse settings. With digital twins, each piece of machinery in a factory or vehicle in a fleet could continuously generate data around risk like wear and tear and let workers know when equipment needs to be serviced.

For workers, digital twins coupled with AR and IoT technology can also increase safety on the job, changing the way carriers underwrite worker’s compensation insurance. Another compelling example from Tech Vision: a worker moving through a factory can see an overlay of potential hazards using AR glasses and machines can be shut off and turned back on remotely as they walk past, reducing the chance of on-the-job accidents.

However, outfitting entire factories and workforces with IoT hardware will be a costly endeavor. This is where computer and machine vision come in, allowing insurers and their customers to “leapfrog” ahead by eliminating the need to fully equip spaces and individuals with physical hardware. Advances in machine vision make it easier to leverage visual data to run diagnostics and assess risk. Rather than relying on wearables and integrated sensors, commercial operators can use a network of cameras to perform similar work. Companies like Basler and Qualcomm are already developing plug-and-play solutions with powerful cameras and integrated machine learning systems that conduct advanced object classification and facial recognition.

With continuous risk-related data  made available to both commercial customers and carriers at all times, underwriters have far greater insight into risk, enabling more customized and cost-effective premiums and products. In the programmable world, insurance risk assessment can be baked into every part of an organization’s operations.

Looking to the future

A programmable world presents a host of opportunities for insurers to get closer to their customers and the assets they’re insuring through more direct, real-time access to data. It will also empower insurers to respond to customer needs faster and process claims much more efficiently. Overall, a programmable world might be a safer and perhaps more predictable world. With that in mind, insurers can think about how they can be pioneers of this safety-enhanced, reduced-risk reality.

If you would like to discuss your digital strategy and enhancing your capabilities for a programmable world, get in touch with me.

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The Qorus-Accenture Innovation in Insurance Awards prides itself on celebrating the world’s leading innovators in the sector. The awards’ ultimate accolade – the Global Innovator 2022 – recognizes an insurance business that not only manifests innovation in fresh, exciting ways, but lives innovation through its strategy and day to day practices. This year, there was no doubt that Discovery embodied what it truly means to be a Global Innovator in insurance. Its innovation practices hold inspiring lessons for all insurers and related businesses as they navigate a changing economic landscape.

Setting a foundation for innovation

Discovery is well-known for its shared value model, most notably its Vitality product that is built on the idea that if a health or life insurer focuses on making people healthier, and changing their behaviour, their risk profile will be changed for the better.

Gareth Friedlander, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Discovery Life says, “As the Vitality product has grown and matured in our business, it has become apparent how powerful this shared-value model is across different financial industries. It truly challenges the idea of risk as a static indicator. Rather, risk is highly influenced by behaviour and eighty percent of morbidity in healthcare risk is driven by factors such as smoking, drinking alcohol, physical activity and diet. In the case of driving, 60 percent of fatal accidents are a result of behaviour alone. If insurers can change customer behaviours and help them make better choices, then the risk curve shifts.”

This core idea of the Vitality shared-value model has proven to be powerful and replicable across geographies and industries. By building a business that is centered on a clear sense of purpose, continuous innovation and customer need, the opportunities for future innovation are infinite.

While it certainly helps for insurers to innovate according to shifts in the market, that shouldn’t be the raison d’être for innovation. Friedlander says, “Our view is that innovation is proactive and not reactive. Innovation within Discovery is institutional rather than event-based or spontaneous.” This is reflected in its disciplined innovation cadence across the business, where employees from all areas of the business are incentivized to regularly contribute innovation ideas.

Being prepared for change as it happens

In Accenture’s recently-released Digital Health Technology Vision for 2022, ninety-seven percent of healthcare executives believed that continuous advances in technology are becoming more reliable than economic, political or social trends in informing their organization’s long-term strategy. In the case of Discovery’s innovation within the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s existing technology and innovation infrastructure meant that it was well placed to respond to some of the unique challenges brought about by the global pandemic and shifts in technology use in the industry.

Discovery’s Vaccination Max PayBack product, a silver winner in the Social, Sustainable and Responsible category, is a case in point. While it was conceived in response to a global event, the innovation was made possible by Discovery’s existing shared-value model and infrastructure of innovation. “The initiative was conceived in a context of a slow vaccine rollout and heightened vaccine hesitancy, owing to lack of awareness and education on the vaccine. As a business, we felt a social responsibility to drive behaviour and increase vaccination rates quickly. This social responsibility aligned perfectly to our business objectives, reducing risk dramatically and rewarding people for vaccinating,” Friedlander says.

Vaccination Max PayBack guarantees clients up to 100% of their first year’s premiums back in cash when they are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 to aid South Africa’s vaccination program, leveraging the shared-value model to return up to R182 million in premiums at the end of the first policy year, and enhance the underwriting capabilities in the process.

He adds, “When we began the initiative, we had to move quickly and find solutions without the normal checking against the market. It felt good for us, for society and for our customers, even if we did not quite know the quantums yet.” It turned out that they were right. There was an extremely positive uptake from clients, with eighty percent completing their vaccinations, a number that is in excess of most developed countries.

Shared value – what the data says

As a life insurer operating in the eye of the pandemic storm, it was natural that Discovery turned its focus wholeheartedly to innovations that would help its customers shield against its risks and weather its impact. Products such as Discovery Hospital at Home gave customers access to world-class telehealth capabilities, digital tools for members and doctors and remote monitoring devices to enable real-time tracking of clinical progress and fast delivery of care. The Discovery Strength in Unity supported South Africa’s COVID-19 vaccination program, setting up nine vaccination sites to supplement capacity.

Prior to the pandemic, Discovery knew that incentivizing clients helped to reduce health risks linked to behaviours within their control. However, this has not been widely applied in the case of a widespread infectious disease. What they found it is it had even more powerful potential in the context of COVID-19.

Friedlander says, “When COVID-19 emerged, it was a new risk that nobody had data on and people were scrambling to understand. As Discovery has possibly one of the biggest integrated datasets in the world, our actuaries were able to lean into the challenge, analyzing the triggers and levers required to change death rates. Throughout the pandemic, it was a priority for us to get our hands dirty in the data to try drive better outcomes.”

Wellbeing as part of a broader ESG agenda

At the heart of Discovery’s innovation is the idea of what it means to be well – as an individual and as a society. This wellbeing extends beyond healthcare to finance, infrastructure and the environment. Discovery’s other winning innovations in the Qorus Innovation in Insurance Awards included the Healthy Futures Calculator, Motion Alert and Pothole Patrol. The Healthy Futures calculator analyzes an individual customers’ unique biometrics to give them a basic overview of their health (including predicted lifespan and healthspan), and provides personal, science-based recommendations and insights to improve both measures. Motion Alert uses telematics technology to detect when a vehicle may have been stolen, alerting the owner and initiating vehicle recovery services automatically. Pothole Patrol, in partnership with Dialdirect Insurance and the City of Johannesburg, manages and repairs potholes to make roads safer, using an app for pothole reporting. Each of these innovations helps Discovery customers to live improved lives and make better, more educated decisions on different aspects of their welfare, as well as create further value for the society at large.

What’s next

Looking to the future, Discovery’s commitment to innovation shows no signs of slowing down. “We have successfully created a disruptive mindset throughout the business. Innovation is the heartbeat of our business and has been institutionalized across all touchpoints with ongoing and enthusiastic support from management,” says Friedlander.

In the near future, Discovery will continue its focus on technology and personalization. Friedlander adds, “Technology continues to be a wonderful enabler to gathering data on behavioural change. As humans, we need feedback to change behaviour, and wearable devices give us this rich and relevant data in real time. Compounded with our wider insight into health data and trends, the impact is powerful.

People are motivated by different things, so we continue to endeavour to design products that are personalised to each of our clients.”

Discovery is an example of what can be achieved when innovation is imagined, lived and applied across an insurance business consistently and with purpose. We congratulate them on being our Innovator of the Year for 2022.

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Customer experience can be a competitive differentiator for life insurers, and many of them are making strategic investments in customer experience across the enterprise to bolster business growth. These investments in people and technology are providing the 360-degree view of their customers that’s needed to uncover new opportunities. At the same time, they’re enabling a better experience for customers and employees, which is helping to drive business results.

Transforming customer portals into digital customer engagements

The customer portal is an insurance staple that’s long overdue for an overhaul, especially now as consumers embrace digital technologies. Specifically, it needs to shift from transactional to experiential and personal if insurers are to meet the rising expectations of this next generation of insurance buyers. And whomever is first to meet the needs of these potential and existing policyholders, will win their business and perhaps even their loyalty.

One way to quickly transform the portal is by investing in today’s data-driven, intelligent core insurance platforms. Many of these platforms come with out-of-the-box integrations to best-in-class customer experience providers. They offer a powerful way to transform the portal by accelerating time to value for the new and differentiating capabilities their solutions provide such as faster, easier onboarding for policyholders. But portals alone cannot drive greater digital engagement. Advanced customer engagement requires data and analytics capabilities to provide the personalized experience consumers expect.

Data analytics: a must-have capability for advanced customer engagement

Data analytics is the driving force behind advanced customer engagement solutions. You needn’t look any further than conversational AI to see how data analytics is transforming the way we sell and service life insurance. Together, these technologies provide the personalization and seamless experience consumers expect across all channels whether it’s directly answering customer inquiries or connecting them to a human agent for assistance.

And core insurance platforms play a key role here too. These modern digital life and annuity platforms offer a powerful way to leverage your portal to drive more engaging customer experiences and uncover new opportunities. They bring together the data and back-office functions like underwriting, integrating them with ecosystem partner capabilities, to provide more relevant, engaging front-office customer experiences. For example, life insurers are increasingly using straight-through processing and external third-party data in lieu of paramedical exams to speed issuance of some life policies in the competitive direct-to-consumer market. They’re also turning to machine-generated video experiences that onboard new policyholders in a seamless and engaging way.

These advanced customer experience capabilities make use of the data within insurers’ data lakes as well as from external sources. Insurers that master this level of data management will be well-poised to improve the customer experience along the entire insurance value chain, particularly as even more intelligent technology platforms emerge.

Cognitive platforms: a better experience for human agents and the customers they serve

Cognitive platforms connect portals to advanced customer experience capabilities that combine the following: machine learning, sentiment analysis, natural language processing for speech and text, vision analysis and human plus computer interaction. This mimics the function of the human brain and helps to improve human decision making. For example, advanced chatbots augment self-service capabilities by freeing up human agents to focus on more complex support issues and proactive next-best actions. We call this “human + machine collaboration.” And we think it can also help mitigate the effects of talent shortages by directly supporting policyholders or by indirectly assisting customer service staff, automatically providing information they need to support the customer.

Investment in cognitive platforms can profoundly advance differentiated customer experiences. Such platforms will be instrumental in enabling the omnichannel, multiproduct experience customers expect, and do so without placing a heavier administrative burden on short-staffed support teams.

Further, as more intelligence is built into human + machine collaboration, we’ll expect to see product lines blur and organizational silos dissolve, exposing new opportunities to invest strategically in customer experience solutions that benefit the entire enterprise. Leveraging the best of human ingenuity and technology affords insurers greater freedom to reimagine the insurance experience to one that is more customer-centric and omnichannel, keeping insurers ahead of customer expectations. Therein lies the competitive advantage—insurers unlock efficiencies and value through differentiated experiences that improve both employee and customer satisfaction, driving top- and bottom-line growth.

Let’s have a conversation about how you can use customer experience to drive growth. 

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Over the past few years, the Insurtech sector has established itself as a vital catalyst for innovation in the insurance industry. Insurtech is a term that comprises a new group of technology-based start-ups that are disrupting the insurance industry. Agile, technology-centred and adaptive to emerging customer needs, they fulfil an important need for refreshed insurance products and services. The winner in our Qorus-Accenture Innovation in Insurance Insurtech category, bolttech, illustrates how insurtech solutions can not only affect change, but work harmoniously alongside traditional insurers.  

Accenture defines the insurtech ecosystem is defined as being made up of B2C Digital Disruptors and B2B Operation Enablers. bolttech is a compelling example of a B2B operation enabler, that embeds itself within traditional insurance, providing data, software, and/or hardware supporting both traditional as well as new insurance business/operating models across the insurance value chain such as distribution, underwriting, policy administration, claims management, reinsurance.  

Click-to-Protect (CTP) is a white-label B2B2C remote diagnostics tool that uses smart technology to diagnose the condition of any smart phone – whether brand new or used. It’s designed for partners that sell device protection, offering an engaging, real-time user journey that customers can easily undertake from home, delivering results at high speed with hyper-accuracy – under just one test. 

This product helps insurers to transform their value proposition through the offering of an immediate, digital service model, which in turn gives customers easy access to digital assessment of their smart phone. With a smart phone specific solution that caters to both new and used devices, it also helps insurers access potentially untapped markets and embed a new value proposition.  

Insurtech’s such as bolttech have the technology and ability to create simple digital customer experiences. They bring fresh, entrepreneurial insight and a focus on the modern customer. Click-to-Protect, a seamless computer vision-based screen diagnostic tool, requires minimal customer-to-purchase effort. The simple digital process helps bolttech and its partners understand device health when offering device protection for a wide range of devices. 

It works as follows: The customer holds their smartphone in front of a mirror. The tool then guides the customer through feedback coming from its machine learning model in order to take photes from the front camera of the smartphone. These images are then analysed by the backend model to ensure the smartphone screen is uncracked. A range of diagnostics are covered in one test, and the tool is the most accurate in the market, with 80% precision and 95% accuracy. 

As I mentioned at the start of this article, insurtech companies can partner with traditional insurers by embedding their value propositions within existing insurance offerings. In this case, Click-2-Protect can be fully integrated with its partners’ existing websites and apps for a seamless customer journey. This includes non-insurance companies that wish to add insurance to their non-insurance product offerings with device protection products. With device protection offered on their insurance and other platforms, customers can purchase protection any time. Offering protection for used devices also means bolttech’s partners can acquire more customers than before, when they were only limited to customer acquisition at the point of sale of new devices. Looking to the future, bolttech plans to launch Click-2-Protect for smartwatches as well.  

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With all the connectivity that cloud enables, and complex dynamics at play in determining who has the responsibility to process and protect PII, insurers need to work with their ecosystem partners to protect the data of their customers and employees.

In this Insurance News Analysis, we were delighted to welcome Aaron Davidson, Global Head of Insurance at ServiceNow to discuss how insurers are adjusting to the demands of technology and operations and offering customers the products and experiences they expect.

We discuss how convenience and security are often trade-offs in a more connected world as evidenced by this story of how a bank executive’s personal information, and material non-public business data, were retained in hardware resold from a total loss vehicle.

As insurers are looking at these complexities and trade-offs, they still need to be sure they are offering customers the coverages they need. We discuss how factors like inflation and supply chain disruption are changing the risk landscape and in an industry where retention is key, how insurers need to help firms to understand the coverage they need. 

In cyber insurance, where there’s less data to go on in terms of loss history in order to accurately assess risk, we discuss how insurers can navigate these uncharted parts of the risk landscape.



See more Insurance News videos.

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The recent 2022 Qorus-Accenture Innovation in Insurance Awards are a powerful, practical illustration of the trends shaping the insurance industry. Sustainability and workforce transformation are becoming central to insurers for retaining relevance in a changing market. Insurers need to embed sustainability into their strategy and value proposition, and they have to embrace workforce transformation in the light of factors such as a tight labour market, skill shortages, rising human-machine interactions and hybrid work arrangements. Both are also becoming key considerations for people when selecting their insurance carrier of choice and/or a place where to forge a career. 

Social, sustainable and responsible  

Accenture’s 2021 Insurance Global Consumer Study illustrated that sustainability in all forms has become increasingly important for consumers, with 67 percent of millennial and younger generations saying that sustainable products and services are appealing. This interest stands to have a double benefit to insurers, who can build sustainable risk management model, while at the same time demonstrating to younger consumers that sustainability is a shared value.  

In a previous series on sustainability, I discussed how we now engage with a wider definition of sustainability within insurance. Sustainability not only relates to protecting the planet, but protecting our future through positive socio-economic practices, caring for underserved and vulnerable communities.  

Integrated, proactive sustainability will not be possible without implementing the right technology. As our latest research Uniting Technology and Sustainability discusses, technology is a key enabler for developing holistically sustainable businesses and for that sustainability and technology strategies need to become tightly aligned. In fact, in Accenture’s Perception to Reality: Closing Stakeholders Consensus Gaps to Shape Sustainable Organizations we illustrated that 43% of executives mention accessing the right technology at the right cost as a key barrier to developing sustainability goals. 

In this year’s awards, we saw how insurers are overcoming these challenges by connecting sustainability to their purpose and vision and using technologies such as AI to track their own ESG requirements or build innovative products that add value to customers, as well as to society and the wider environment.  

Category winner – PZU (Poland) 

This was certainly the case with this year’s winner of the Social, Sustainable & Responsible 2022. PZU won the category for its AI Skin Cancer Prevention tool, which empowers customers to access skin cancer pre-screening quickly and easily through an AI-enabled mobile app. 

Marcin Kurczab – Head of Innovation Lab at PZU explains how the tool came to be: “When implementing the project, we identified the challenge of low awareness of skin cancer risk among the employees of our corporate clients. For this reason, we offered them a simple and quick solution that automatically reminds them to perform regular self-examinations.” 

Over 3,000 people registered in the app in the first months of the pilot programme, with five skin cancer cases identified by the app and being confirmed by dermatological assessment so far. PZU received positive feedback from users, who shared that the tool made skin cancer prevention easier and more accessible.  

Kurczab adds, “Two people told us about their medical consultations, during which doctors were impressed by the effectiveness of the app, which proves its reliability. That’s our mission as an insurer – we have the unique capability to protect and support people in living better and longer. It takes only takes a minute for PZU customers to check their skin condition at home and, if there is a concern, to escalate this by seeing a doctor. Diagnosis at such an early stage increases the chance of a successful recovery.”  

PZU saw an increase in customer sentiment as a result of the tool, noticing a statistically significant difference in the evaluation of PZU’s innovativeness (+13 p.p. in comparison with the control group) and the perception of the company as modern (+10 p.p. in comparison with the control group) in their annual marketing survey.  

“It is commonly known that healthcare services are overloaded, and patients often have to wait a long time for a doctor’s appointment and treatment. New technologies such as AI have a huge potential for revolutionizing healthcare by addressing its main pain points. AI-based tools can address a wide range of challenges by checking symptoms, optimizing healthcare processes, conducting triage but also predicting risk of a given disease (like cancers) or enabling early detection of such illnesses which will result in lower mortality rates. Modern AI tools can act as a support of doctors during examination (there are already applications with medical certification that are prescribed by doctors just like medications or other forms of rehabilitation) or enable self-examination options as part of prevention – just like our project. AI does not feel fatigue, it is better in avoiding biases, and can see what is not always noticed by humans. These features may make AI an inseparable element of medical diagnosis in the future.”  

Workforce transformation  

Talent is the lifeblood of the insurance industry. It is only with the right resources and knowledge that insurance carriers will be able to transform and realise their vision.  

However, talent and skills shortages are a rising concern within the insurance industry. Skill gaps resulting from the introduction of new technologies and increasing digitization of operations, coupled with an ageing workforce and massive retirement looming are particularly worrying. For example, talent management (succession, planning, recruiting, retention, and training) was highlighted as growing issue by underwriters in The Institutes-Accenture’s 2021 underwriting survey. 

A key emerging challenge and opportunity for insurers is the rise of the remote workforce. On the one hand, the remote workforce opens up new opportunities for efficiencies. In Accenture’s 2021 Technology Vision for Insurance 88% of insurance executives shared the belief that the remote workforce opens up the market for difficult-to-find talent and expands the competition for talent among organizations. On the other hand, optimizing the resources that ensure a healthy and productive workforce, regardless of physical location, can be challenging. Working remotely also makes a cohesive and collaborative workplace culture more difficult.  

Category winner – Zurich Insurance Company 

Zurich addressed the particular challenges that have come about through the hybrid workforce, with an all-in-one mobile application for Zurich employees that simplifies the day-to-day experience whether they are at home or in the office. 

Oscar Escudero Sanchez, Head of Digital Delivery, Zurich Insurance Company discusses how the team approached the creation of the app, “Zurich has about 56,000 employees globally and they deserve the best and easiest tools to help navigate their work life. We initially launched the app in several Zurich business units with a focus on workspace booking but have come very far since and are going global this year. With One Zurich, we are turning our old model of functional-based digital experiences on its head. Where we previously had different platforms for, let’s say, HR or IT support, now our employees have it all in one place.”  

Liz Oswald, Head of Technology Transformation, Zurich Insurance Company adds, “One Zurich aims to provide our employees with a holistic digital experience. We regularly engage our employees through multiple channels such as focus groups, interviews, polls and in-app feedback forms to understand their wants, needs and preferences, and use these inputs to define and prioritize a backlog of app features and user-experience flows. Once these are in production, we observe their usage and follow up with employees to understand what is working well for them or what they would like to see improved – and then we take these changes and enhancements into our backlog.”  

This approach aligns to a hybrid way of working. Escudero Sanchez explains, “Zurich has embraced the new post-pandemic way of working, including offering expanded flex and remote working options to employees. This model creates many opportunities for both the company and employees on how to stay connected in a hybrid working world. At a tactical level, the One Zurich app supports employees in managing their on-site days with user-friendly, visual tools that allow to see when their colleagues are planning to come into the office, book nearby workspaces and manage their reservations. More broadly, One Zurich serves as a channel for engaging employees with relevant updates and actions when they matter most and to help them feel connected no matter which workplace model they choose.”  

Workforce transformation does not happen in a vacuum, but as part of a deeper strategic commitment. Oswald concludes, “At Zurich, our ambition is to be one of the most responsible and impactful businesses in the world. We know that a key element of achieving this will be providing our customers, agents, and brokers with modern, streamlined and intuitive tools and user flows that engage and delight them, and that are tailored to their individual needs. But it’s not enough to focus on innovating for our external audiences – it all has to start at the core! Our employees make Zurich. With One Zurich, we are providing an example for our employees by transforming their own experience and sharing our findings to inform our organization’s broader digitalization journey.”  

As these two winners show, a holistic commitment to sustainability and workforce transformation from the inside can have a widespread, powerful impact.  

See the full 2022 Qorus Accenture Innovation in Insurance list. 

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Despite continuing market volatility and uncertainty, we are fundamentally optimistic about the future of the insurance industry, which has demonstrated resilience through the pandemic and in the face of inflation, losses, and reserve capital requirement headwinds. 

As COVID-19 became a global pandemic in March 2020, the resulting economic slowdown caused insurance industry valuations to drop suddenly, but those declines were brief. With customers seeking safety in uncertain times, insurers saw increases in demand in many lines of business, particularly in Asia Pacific, Middle East, and Africa markets, which all experienced outsized growth. By April 2021, the global insurance market cap average was back to its pre-pandemic level. 

The industry’s resilience was also reflected in its financial performance. Thanks in large part to a strong equity market, insurers grew their retained earnings to new heights. And insurers in both North America and Asia Pacific markets achieved more than $1 trillion in surplus for the first time.  

This growth in capital has since offered insurers the capacity to deal with an evolving risk landscape in an increasingly complex and volatile world. But market dynamics are shifting, and insurers will have to shift their strategies to remain resilient. 

Inflation impacts the whole value chain 

The impacts of prolonged inflation loom large, and insurers will need to prepare. For example, the high cost of repairing a vehicle after an accident or a building after wind or water damage is increasing claims cost for insurers. In parallel, fierce competition for workers drives up operating costs everywhere, but compounds the challenge in lines of business like disability and long-term care that depend on a shrinking pool of care workers.  

These rising claims costs flow through to underwriting—driving further rate increases and continuing hardening market conditions. Those rate increases may keep combined ratios where they need to be short-term, but they won’t keep pace as claims costs exceed what the market will tolerate in premium increases. 

It’s not all dark clouds 

There’s one silver lining in the dark cloud of inflation. As equity markets weaken, interest rate increases driven by inflation may provide insurers with much-needed investment income they can use to buffer underwriting results. 

We also see in our research that the investor community is bullish when looking at the top 50 insurers by segment. Expected normalized earnings per share (EPS) are currently seeing a rebound and growth trend to 2024 compared to 2021, with P&C insurers at +10.6% CAGR, Multi-line insurers at +4.3%, and Life and Health insurers at +0.5%. 

We remain optimistic about the insurance industry’s operational and financial strength and continuing resilience in the face of market volatility. With heightened awareness of risk and underinsurance across the globe and growing concerns related to health and mortality, demand for insurance products that offer holistic protection increases. Insurers who innovate in these areas help to safeguard their own future and that of their customers. 

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