Insurance Portal

I am encouraged to see ever-expanding ecosystems in the life insurance space. They’re helping insurers bring in more diverse data, specialized skills, leading-edge technologies and new ideas that spark innovation. Moreover, these benefits are accessible through trusted partners, rather than insurers making costly and time-consuming investments to build the capabilities themselves. In fact, ecosystem collaboration is one of six insurance innovation trends our Generative AI model uncovered from this year’s entries in the Qorus-Accenture Innovation in Insurance Awards.

I see this trend accelerating as the insurance industry continues to undergo rapid changes, sparking the need for insurers to be even more agile, customer-centric and efficient in their operations. These needs require a flexible core digital insurance platform that connects partner platforms and technologies through a service integration layer. This notion of “loose coupling”—the adaptability of platforms to readily integrate with any partner you choose—provides further opportunity from the ecosystem.

We envision the future insurance ecosystem as an even more dynamic space than previously seen in the industry. As integration becomes democratized, it provides another way for insurers to mitigate risk from technology changes resulting from M&A activity among tech partners. It also helps insurers capitalize on opportunities from new data sources as well as emerging new insurtech partners and the capabilities they offer.

Further, we see a rise in cross-industry collaborations resulting in new ecosystems that leverage emerging technologies and data-driven insights to deliver better outcomes for insurers and their customers. A good example of this is in digital customer engagement where I’ve seen cross-industry solutions and best practices enable insurers to accelerate and improve their call center customer-to-agent conversion. Today, genAI, once an emerging technology, now powers this cross-industry capability.

So, when you consider the top three innovation trends from our award nominations—digital customer experience, health and well-being convergence, and advanced analytics and personalization—it’s clear that ecosystem partnerships could help insurers accelerate innovation in these key areas.

Let’s talk about how insurance ecosystems can ignite innovation in your organization.

The insurance industry and public sector both play a critical role in helping to mitigate risk for customers and constituents. But, as costs to insure property and long-term care in the U.S. rise, states increasingly become the insurers of last resort.

In this Insurance News Analysis, we focus on the U.S. market and the areas of risk that more states are assuming. There has been a lot of news about the role of the public sector in property risk—especially after Hurricane Ian left many customers in Florida questioning how wind and flood damage would be covered. As we begin Atlantic Hurricane Season 2023, we talk about what forecasters are predicting and how insurers can help customers to understand their risks and how coverages are provided.

States are also assuming a bigger role in risks beyond property. The State of Washington just launched its public long-term care program, and Missouri and California are poised to follow. We discuss what this means for customers and the long-term care products the industry has traditionally offered.

We also talk about the data insurers are using to better understand the risks their customers face. There are moves at the state level to limit what kinds of data carriers can use to underwrite and price risk. We consider what impacts such limitations may have as insurers augment the workforce with AI capabilities.