Are You Ready to Adapt?

Three simple questions can offer a new perspective on the future of insurance and insurance companies:

• What role does a customer need to play in product development?
• Where will the enormous growth in data quantity and quality lead to?
• What does trust and security mean in the digital world?

As different as these questions are, they touch upon a common core. We see signs that could lead to a new normal in the insurance industry within the next few years. At the heart of this new normality lies adaptive insurances.

Adaptive insurance products are flexible, data-based and therefore capable of automatic adaptation whenever the situation of a particular customer changes.

Majority of insurance solutions are still static

Price comparisons and, even more so, coverage comparisons Data shows that customers in the older age group usually have comprehensive insurance coverage. And younger customers find it increasingly difficult to commit to classic insurance policy contracts. Many of these customers experience their life circumstances as volatile, which adds an additional hurdle in picking a policy with defined criteria. One consequence we see in the market is that the product ranges are well stocked with products which are increasingly smaller and more precisely tailored to the needs of customers. However, the majority of insurance solutions are still essentially static or unchanged.

Adaptive insurances offer a clear advantage

Adaptive insurances offer a clear advantage in these circumstances. They integrate the permanent change of the product. This is not simply limited to the concession to adjust the sum insured without a separate risk assessment. The step, rather leap ahead, goes much further. Take telematics as an example. Adaptive is the insurance company’s promise to be able to determine the optimal balance between risk dynamics and premium at any time during a contract and to implement it contractually. Adaptive insurance policies thus open up a double advantage; they are more precise and can therefore promise a considerable performance advantage. And based on this, an equally considerable price advantage.

Adaptivity – a key factor

Adaptivity has the potential to become a key factor for insurance companies in the course of  this century. An insurance company that cannot credibly offer its customers adaptive products will therefore, given market demands, run the risk of a disadvantage. Any insurance company that wants to do more than just compensate its customers financially for any claims made, is dependent on its ability to make a differentiated assessment of the situation of individual customers.

The dynamics are in the data

The dynamics are visible in the data. Highly detailed real-time information that can be fed directly into the backbone of the IT platform is crucial for developing the right adaptive products. This is the point where any insurance company determines how comprehensively and quickly it can take up customer requirements and automatically implement them in ever new configurations. Thus, the IT platform directly defines which adaptive promise an insurance company can make. The platform forms the basis for customer confidence in the digital age and, from this perspective, becomes the core of every excellent digital insurance.

Advantages of new adaptive insurance

By following this perspective, internal challenges may arise for insurance companies. The advantage of new adaptive insurance solutions lies in their reduction to what is essential at any given time. So it is time for a model calculation: How does one’s own insurance company perform economically if the insurance packages contain only the bare essentials These developments on the product side also blur the boundaries between the different lines of business in insurance companies, at least where those boundaries primarily describe a provider logic. Mapping this development in new structures will be a challenge of its own in the coming years, both to promote internal communication and cooperation and to ensure the necessary transparency vis-à-vis supervisory levels.

Conclusion

Customers today are used to exchanging their data for improved services. A solution for the insurance industry to consider, in this age of transformation and customer centricity, with regards to customers’ needs, is adaptive insurance.