Modern Insurance Magazine Issue 65

INSURTECH
The Fastest Fish
in the Ocean
Fresh from Insurtech Insights’ 2024 Europe
conference, one thing is clear. Even in the space
of just 12 months, there has been a marked shift
in the insurance industry’s appetite for digital
transformation at scale.
To use a phrase from a panel discussion that I was part of at
the conference, ‘the industry is in the midst of a tidal shift’. It’s
no longer about being the biggest fish in the ocean; you also
need to be the fastest.
The speed of technological change is unlike anything the
world has seen before. The momentum in machine learning,
and particularly Generative AI, is rapidly changing the way
that insurance companies manage risk, not to mention the
way they think about, or interact with, customers. Insurers
recognise that they must digitise to defend their position,
and then take another step if they want to gain market share!
That said, most of the insurers I know also see immense
opportunity in this challenge. This is why core modernisation,
which involves taking a layered approach to rearchitecting
core systems with cloud-based solutions (like INSTANDA),
is rapidly rising in importance. From a governance and
regulatory perspective, it’s very difficult for large insurance
carriers to change their operating models at pace. That’s
where INSTANDA’s solution is a particularly attractive one.
INSTANDA enables insurers to take a slice of their operating
model and make it much more agile in terms of change. Over
the next few years, larger insurers will see their cost base
reduce as a result of modern technology solutions.
From the conversations we are having with new and
prospective clients, there’s a palpable focus on making
interactions with the customer more meaningful and
frictionless across the value chain. Insurers have always
wanted to do good for their customers (and they’ve done
a pretty decent job over the last 300+ years), but there’s a
pivot happening. Progressive insurers are looking at their
business through the customer lens to meet the customer
where they are with products and experiences that they
want and need, and all at a far quicker pace than what the
insurance industry is accustomed to.
This is not to say that the legacy challenge has disappeared.
Far from it. Operating models are holding insurers back.
Beholden to complex and deeply engrained legacy
technology, many do not have the middle and back-office
functions to consistently reiterate their product offering and
pricing. As a result, they run the risk of being outpaced by
the competition.
Tim Hardcastle,
CEO and Co-Founder, INSTANDA
86 | MODERN INSURANCE