By Andrei Skvarsky.
Unresolved issues originating in outdated business organisation systems are the main hurdle faced by insurance companies worldwide in trying to put their business on a high-tech basis, a survey suggests.
Legacy issues were felt to be the main obstacle to innovation by 67 per cent of respondents in the survey, the Insurance Nexus event organisation company, which carried out the study in the run-up to the planned fourth annual Connected Insurance Europe conference in Amsterdam on May 15-16, said in a report.
The survey involved questioning more than 250 executives in insurance companies across the world.
“Some companies are still struggling with legacy systems and struggling to extract important information from those legacy systems,” the London-based event organiser quoted one of the respondents as saying.
The acquisition and retention of talent was seen as a “very important” part of technological modernisation by 73 per cent of interviewees.
“Having the right talent, the right minds and the right skill sets is number one,” one of them said.
“As a chief data officer that works closely with a smallish team of six, one of my greatest fears is a team member leaving,” another said. “This could set us back weeks because of the specialist and in-depth knowledge particular to our current set-up and processes.”
According to 55 per cent of respondents, it is a company’s CEO rather than its innovation manager, its product director or anyone else who should be the source and main engine of innovation.
“For us, it’s a genuine team effort, but the confidence and investment has to come from the top. Once there’s buy-in from there, it’s a case of working through the departments and plugging the gaps in IT and operations with the right guidance, of course,” one interviewee said.
However, 54 per cent believed this should be the role of IT operations managers.
As regards the anticipated roles of various specific technologies in the global insurance industry, the largest single proportion of respondents, 45 per cent, saw health insurance as the field where the Internet of Things would have its greatest impact in 2019.
Proportions of 33 per cent and 22 per cent thought the IoT would have its greatest effect on home insurance and auto insurance respectively.
The venue of Connected Insurance Europe is the Novotel Amsterdam City hotel at Europaboulevard 10, Zuideramstel, 1083 AD Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Sorry, comments are closed for this post.