Next-Generation Risk Assessment: Cyber and Beyond

enior insurance executives to explore the AI-enabled personalization of insurance products to increase customer loyaltyCustomer service is undoubtedly important to the modern, connected consumer. The chief differentiator between legacy carriers and the new breed of agile, digital-native insurtechs lies in the superior, efficient and omnichannel customer experience the latter are able to provide. While 2018 saw many legacy carriers conduct a host of pilot initiatives aimed at improving the customer experience, there is an imperative on the rest to act now in delivering interactive and personalized products, communications and experiences. Based on a 2019 Insurance Nexus survey, insurance executives believe that customer experience will see the biggest impact from the implementation of AI. While there are many barriers for carriers to effectively leverage AI, its potential for winning and retaining customers in the future is beyond doubt.

The growth of imagery analytics as a property underwriting tool accelerated through the pandemic is changing the future of risk assessment. These innovations give insurers new data and scalable technology to help capture critical underwriting elements and optimize their use of in-person inspections. The improved information includes roof data that can yield fresh understanding of property risk.

In an increasingly cost-competitive industry, digital technologies are providing today’s insurance carriers with new methods of distinguishing themselves from competitors. Of particular focus is the claims process. As insurance’s ‘moment of truth’, policy-holders’ experiences when making a claim can define whether they become satisfied and loyal customers for life or disgruntled, and unlikely to return. With the majority of insurance executives believing that customer experience will see the biggest impact from technologies like AI, machine learning and advanced analytics, it is no surprise, therefore, that claims should take a special focus.

Underwriting is at the heart of the insurance business. From evaluating individual risks and the exposures to an entire portfolio to assessing the risk, risk appetite, and ultimately profitability is increasingly crucial with rapidly changing risk factors from weather, climate, societal, technology, and more. The underwriting discipline is making major moves not just to automate the workflow but to change the way underwriting is done by providing access to more data sources to gain new risk analysis insights while creating significantly enhanced agent/broker and customer experiences.