Embrace technology with a smile
Technology, and the impact of technology on the financial services industry, is currently the most talked about topic in the industry.
Technology has become a major driver of employment as insurers and brokers struggle to come to terms with Big Data and the value that it provides to the industry. FAnews spoke to André Symes, Genasys Technologies Group COO, to talk a bit about technology and why it is an integral part of the industry.
We have seen international insurers making leaps forward by embracing technology, is this the tip of the iceberg?
Absolutely, InsurTechs like Lemonade, and Trov, have really disrupted the market place, or at least created a perception of disruption. Yes, this is just the tip of the ice berg, but not in the sense that you might think.
InsurTech is the tip of the iceberg, and by that I mean it is the visible part of the insurance industry’s technology stacks. Just like iceberg, the real power of InurTech lies under the water. We have seen many InsurTech startups fail because they have no way of taking their disruptive distribution models and efficiently plugging that data into the carriers back end systems.
Is the South African insurance industry innovative enough when it comes to technology?
This is unfortunately a yes and no situation.
We have seen some of the insurers really embracing certain technologies and are leaps and bounds ahead of many of the foreign insurers we engage with, especially in the telematics space.
However, we are behind the curve on data switching and especially on distribution.
IT vendors like to talk mobile apps, we hear it all the time. The problem is not getting the customers to use the apps, the problem is that many legacy systems cannot consume the information generated by the mobile apps. Therefore, it offers no real value and is duly discarded. We also do not see enough true online multi quoting platforms.
How do companies balance technology investment when determining what an acceptable ROI would be?
The technology capital expenditure hurdle is usually a big one, and we understand that most smaller companies, especially the already under pressure intermediaries, cannot always justify a re-platform.
We recently launched a Software as a Service (SaaS) broker solution called SKiHost. This is a monthly subscription based solution, so there is very little initial capex required, making the return on investment calculations a little less painful. SkiHost is a cloud-based hosted solution that offers smaller brokers similar facilities and services to those the larger brokers enjoy, but at a fraction of the cost.
How valuable is Big Data to an insurer and a broker?
The value of Big Data to an insurer and a broker is massive.
Big Data seems to have taken a slight back seat with new buzz words like BlockChain, Artificial Intelligence (AI),and the Internet of Things (IoT) which are currently taking more than their fair share of time in discussions.
While new fancy tip of the iceberg technologies will allow insurers to access the currently uninsured, Big Data will allow them to manage those clients and their risk to a level that will be required for the insurers to stay competitive in product pricing, risk management or even risk prevention.
There is much ground to be made up here, we as an industry must not lose sight of it.
