Alexander Cherry

If the complex renovation of systems at many insurers casts a cloud, then the silver lining is the greater scale that it will enable.

The greatest improvement is to be wrought at the back end, by achieving transparency and straight-through processing.

Disruption in North America – while certainly present – has not yet reached the fever pitch that it has elsewhere.

Innovative distribution is only part of the story for European insurers seeking to engage digitally savvy and ever-more-demanding consumers.

Disruption has definitely arrived in Europe, and the European market may be marginally ahead of the North American market.

Here is a look at the insurance and insurtech trends in the world's seven key regions.

It has become clear that product development can no longer occur in silos, with one function creating products for another function to sell.

Some 15% of the workforce is dedicated to governance, risk management and regulatory compliance--posing a huge opportunity for efficiency.

"Insurers don’t have the skillset to produce what customers want to buy; cyber products don’t cover the risks that clients are concerned about."

The cost of fraud is 5% to 10% of insurers’ annual revenue, and it takes firms a median time of 20 months to detect continuing fraud.

Claims represents the most important customer touchpoint in the entire insurance journey. Nothing affects carriers’ bottom lines like claims.

Over the past few years, we have seen direct-to-customer channels, insurtech propositions, aggregator sites, affinity partnerships and more.

There must be a bridge, a forceful individual who can drive the agenda of the new team/tool into the host company and vice versa.

The widespread dissatisfaction with current levels of customer engagement, while obviously showing our shortcomings, bodes well for our future.

The possibilities of the IoT for insurance are boundless, from turbocharging underwriting models to dynamic pricing.

In the past, the back end (the product) largely constrained the front end, but now the digital needs of the customer dominate.

While insurers have had more data than they’ve known what to do with, they can now reap the heralded rewards of the big-data revolution.

A look at some bellwethers for industry health: where services are being consumed, how investments are faring and how job roles are changing.

Digital innovation tops the list internationally, as well as in North America, Asia-Pacific and Europe, with customer-centricity not far behind.

It is interesting to step back and examine the material impacts being felt by today's insurers: Is disruption all it's cracked up to be?

The top three challenges form a clear constellation related to changing consumer behavior patterns, especially the desire for digital channels.