BIBA is over for another year. Its always a fun and interesting way to meet like-minded brokers, insurers, and insurtechs as the entire industry makes the pilgrimage to Manchester to attend one of the years biggest events.
Theres always a fantastic atmosphere and needless to say Novidea had great fun at our stand soaking it all in. But, apart from the fact that bacon sandwiches go down well the morning after the night before, what are Novideas three key takeaways from the biggest insurance event of the year?
- Change is necessary but feared
Its fantastic that the majority of industry players acknowledge that current systems, and the insurance ecosystem in general, is just not up to scratch. A lack of useful data insights means that most insurers are still not getting what they need for success or growth. Whilst many understand this, they opt to stay in their comfort zone for fear of change and a lack of resources to take on such a project. Concern over migrating all the data across onto one all-encompassing platform is for many, simply too daunting. However, these people are putting themselves at risk, as the industry is being disrupted and business models are changing, so those who are slow to adopt new technologies risk getting left behind.
- MGAs
Because they sit between the broker and the insurer, MGAs are in a very good position. Brokers need to add value if theyre to avoid the threat of being replaced by direct consumer offerings from big insurers. Traditional providers are no longer the only ones to have access to in-house analytics and so increasingly have to compete on price. MGAs, therefore, benefit from the investment of big insurers, but they have more flexibility when it comes to how they want to operate.
However, to be effective, MGAs need flexibility and data-driven capabilities for their specialties, which Novidea is perfectly positioned to provide. Not surprisingly, many of the new MGAs have received investment on the premise of using new technology to improve risk selection and gain efficiencies. This can create more costs and complexity, particularly if they are dealing with more than one capital provider and multiple systems requiring specialist skills.
- Digital the operative word
The need for a digital solution to serve customers and meet their requirements was a huge trend this year. BIBA CEO Steve White rightly asserted that as all our lives become increasingly digital, customers will expect insurance to follow suit. Only by embracing change and AI can brokers and insurers deliver on customer needs by improving the insurance journey. For example, White suggests that AI can help brokers to identify leads and cross and upsell opportunities more easily, and also reduce the time spent on manual tasks.
BIBA may be over for another year, but the issues highlighted during the event are here to stay so the industry needs to overcome any fears about of change in order to address them. To hear more about how Novidea can help, click here.