In the last months of 2017, I wrote - together with my friend Andrea Silvello - “All the Insurance Players Will Be Insurtech,” and the book was published in the first days of 2018.
See also: Is Insurance Really Ripe for Disruption?
I included all the foundations of my insurtech thoughts; the elaboration of many discussions I have had since I published my article “Will fintech newcomers disrupt health and home insurance?” in August 2015; and a review of my five insurtech predictions from a year ago. Here is that look back, followed by a prediction on the hottest discussion at the start of this year: whether Amazon will enter the insurance industry:
Prediction: Exit
Not everyone will prosper. Although many amazing insurtech companies are seeing great results and scaling up—and many will continue to enter the field—some will surely leave the game, as well.
Result
I was dreaming of an insurtech unicorn’s exit. Well, dreams become reality sometimes: Well Zong An – the Chinese full stack insurtech – made its IPO with a $10 billion evaluation in fall 2017. Also, Travelers acquired Symply Business for $400 million.
On the other hand, Guevara left the game in the second half of the year. This winnowing down, a Darwinian “survival of the fittest,” should ultimately strengthen our industry.
Prediction: Reconversion
This is the other side of the moon. I saw many initiatives doing a great job putting together a fantastic team and a sexy equity story, and some raised relevant capital, but their business models look (to me) not sustainable from an insurance perspective. I don’t want to claim that no one of them could succeed, and history has already shown how skepticism can be wrong. But I’m expecting to see some players use their great skills and the funding raised to change radically their business models.
Result
In spring 2017, Trov did a round of financing of more than $40 million with a valuation higher than $300 million, but, from what we heard from the CEO at different conferences, the company is focusing its efforts on a back-end system that insurers can use on their customer base rather than on growing its customer base and portfolio of on-demand risks. Also, Zenefits went through a difficult 2017, stepped back from the brokerage business and started to license its technology as an SaaS (software as a service) player.
Prediction: Connected Insurance
My two cents are on any insurance solution that uses sensors for collecting data on the state of an insured risk and on telematics for remote transmission and management of data on the insurance value chain. A crazy prediction: Let’s consider the most mature use case, auto insurance telematics in Italy, which represents one of the best practices globally. In the country, I’m forecasting more than 7.5 million cars connected with an insurance provider by the end of 2017 (compared with 4.8 million cars connected at the end of 2015).
Result
In line with the expectations, Italy’s insurance telematics policies had reached 7 million by the end of third quarter 2017, according to the IoT Insurance Observatory.
Prediction: Culture Shift
Incumbents are becoming always more interested in debating innovation and concretely testing new approaches, including collaboration with startups. I expect to see this new breeze surround old-style insurance institutions, with a growing awareness on how all the players in the insurance arena will be insurtech players.
Result
A board member at one of the largest global reinsurers recently summarized the essence of insurance as assessing, dealing and accepting risks using the latest technologies. That’s one sign that the industry is coming around. We saw 3,800 more signs at InsureTech Connect, the world’s most prestigious insurtech conference. In 2016, the conference had 1,200 participants; in October 2017, it sold out with more than 3,800 attendees. Andrea and I were there on the stage and witnessed the incredible energy of those insurance professionals, regulators and startups.
Prediction: Sustainability
Many value propositions are bundling risk covers and services, thus allowing the insurer to influence behaviors and prevent risk, contributing to the sustainability of the sector. In the next months, I expect to see some insurers becoming more relevant in the life of their clients and act as partners and not only as claim players.
Result
The speeches of top insurance executives show the sector’s ambition to go in this direction. A slide projected on a wall is just that, however: in the field, we see very few examples of implementation.
What will happen in coming years?
Unfortunately, I damaged my laptop a few days ago so my crystal ball for the 2018 predictions is also not working...but I want to provide my middle-term view about the issue most-discussed at the end of 2017: Amazon activity in the insurance sector.
I predict Amazon will not disrupt the insurance sector. I believe it will do something – especially around insurance coverages on the products it sells – but will not be able to touch the core of the insurance profit pool on either commercial lines or personal lines (auto, property, life, health). My view is based on two main beliefs:
- One of the key elements to be a successful insurer is underwriting discipline, as highlighted by Mario Greco recently or some famous Warren Buffett sentences in the past. Well, I believe that underwriting discipline conflicts with the culture of any tech giant. Amazon could buy an insurance company or hire talented people to close the gap on insurance knowledge, but the corporate culture doesn’t fit with the insurance business fundamentals.
- In insurance, each market has its particular characteristics. One size doesn't fit all -- the opposite of how things work in social media or in internet businesses. I'm speaking about what the customers want (need) to buy in the different markets and how they want to buy it. In life insurance - the usual push product, which needs to be sold – digital channel at global levels represent less than 1% of new sales. But even look at auto insurance. The U.K. auto insurance market is controlled by online distribution, and, 10 years ago, insurance executives assumed that all Western European markets would follow the U.K. path within a few years. But auto insurance distribution in Europe continues to be dominated by traditional channels. You can argue that local carriers executed poorly, but even branches of U.K. insurance groups, with their great expertise, couldn't duplicate the success that was had in the U.K.
