“Tech innovation key to overcoming growth challenges” was the headline for 2017’s insurance outlook by Deloitte as the industry continued its quest for top and bottom line growth while looking for ways to experiment with new business and product models.
As we take a peek at this year’s Insurance Outlook, Insurance leadership still has a lot on their plate, with the daunting regulations, evolution in business operations due to changing customer expectations and innovation. And the increasing competition from disruptive newcomers aiming to sweep market share isn’t making the job easier.
There were plenty of roadblocks and major speed bumps throughout 2017:
- US property-casualty (P&C) insurers saw underwriting losses more than double as compared to the year before
- Soaring loss costs, led by higher catastrophe and auto claims, drove net income down 29 percent in the first half, and this was before huge third-quarter disaster claims from Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria
Taking a fresh start this year, the Insurance industry can still take advantage of growth opportunities to improve their top and bottom lines through innovation in operations and cost reduction. How?
Digital Transformation in the Insurance Industry
Tech innovation is still the key to overcome growth challenges for the insurance industry. As the technology upgrade cycles continue to shorten there’s a need to retire the legacy systems. Transforming the business processes are leading insurance institutions towards the adoption of cloud. Recent Research by Cognizant puts cloud among the top three technologies to have the biggest impact on the insurance industry.
Cost Savings
The Insurance industry can leverage the cloud to minimize their operational costs by moving their IT infrastructure to the cloud; this will eliminate the hefty updates, maintenance and free up IT staff with savings on the IT budget. Cloud can help meet the insurance industry’s challenges of achieving profitability in a period of low investment and reduced premiums, while also increasing the speed to market keeping the pressure from competitors in check.
Tapping into Emerging Markets
Cloud can help the insurance industry tap into emerging markets and facilitate in acquisition opportunities, integration of new operations, and collaborative partnerships. Cloud technology enables growth into emerging markets with greater speed, low cost, and low risk.
Mobility
With an increasingly mobile workforce along with expanding competition, insurance companies need to increase employee loyalty and productivity. By leveraging Desktop as a Service (DaaS) insurance institutions can allow access to their employees from anywhere and they are no longer tied to a physical desk.
Security and Disaster Recovery
Cloud technology comes with additional layers of security and also meets the regulatory requirements of the insurance industry. We know that no business is immune to data loss or downtime when it comes to a natural disaster or a disruptive event. Cloud solutions such as DaaS serve as a business continuity and disaster recovery strategy since the data is backed up in the cloud.
Why Cloud?
It’s no surprise that the cloud services market is expected to grow more than 33% in 2018. At dinCloud, we help Insurance institutions leverage the cloud to stay competitive and efficient. If you would like additional information, or to discuss your institution’s environment, contact us via this form.
