5 insurtech trends 2019

El insurance sector is in full transformation and is going to undergo multiple changes over the next few years. Traditional insurance companies are adapting to a new technological environment, in which the startups play an important role. changes What we have seen so far are mainly due to three reasons: a change in mentality of users associated with the technological innovation, the appearance of different economic models, such as the collaborative economy, and the need to start ensure lifestyles and not just objects. In the Spanish market there are more than 150 Startupsinsurtech that collaborate with classic insurance companies. The term Insurtech has come to stay and throughout this publication we will tell you why.

What's new in insurtech for 2019?

1. Collaboration between startups and large companies

In September 2018, Calculation and Sngular presented the results of the Insurtech Observatory, created to analyze the impact of startups on the insurance sector and show how they can act as accelerators in the innovation and evolution of the sector. One of the conclusions was that the cooperation between startups and companies is going to be of great importance this year. The Observatory mentioned Santalucía IMPULSA, among others, as an example of a program of support for entrepreneurs and innovation.

2. More comprehensive and personalized policies

Thanks to this collaboration between large insurance companies and startups, companies will be able to offer increasingly comprehensive and personalized policies. Some examples to highlight are the following: simple and customizable microinsurance, pay-per-use insurance, new retirement products, cyber insurance and policies for the needs of the sharing economy.

3. New items to insure

El Internet of Things or Internet of Things (IoT) involves a wide range of new objects connected to the Internet that need protection and assurance. As The Economist points out in his Monthly magazine for January 2019, “there are more and more industrial tools that can be connected to the network or via Bluetooth, with the cyber risk that this entails”. Therefore, the insurance sector must continue to innovate and adapt to new needs that arise.

4. New ways of marketing insurance policies

Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google, leading companies with a large amount of data about users thanks to the use of big data, could be future ways of marketing policies. According to the global report on insurtech (World Insurtech Report 2018) prepared by Capgemini and Efma, insurers that deal with insurtech feel less threatened in the face of technology giants and other new competitors.

5. Automation and more agile and accessible models

The objective is to be able to offer the customer the possibility to communicate with the company and make complete transactions from any contact channel, what we call omnichannel. From insurance agents or brokers, through the web and email, to instant messaging applications such as WhatsApp or Telegram. In this last field, special relevance will be chatbots and virtual assistants. Regarding the automation, although this trend does not only apply to our sector, it will significantly affect it. Many companies are still working on a model prior to the possibilities offered by the Internet, and for this reason many processes are being automated. Customers, increasingly, demand a digital experience and relate to companies in an agile, fast and simple way. It is therefore a question of transform companies to improve the experience of customers.