It is the year 2030 and the last decade has seen the insurance eco-system evolve as quickly in 10 years as it had previously done in the last century.

And technology has been omnipresent in these changes, with the introduction of 6000 miles of smart roads across the UK; and a number of major UK population centres deemed smart cities, creating a more holistic digital eco-system in which insurance companies work as part of an interconnected collection of service providers.

This has facilitated the ability for non-traditional insurance players to take a greater interest in the opportunities to market, sell and distribute insurance and risk management products and services.

Indeed many insurance customers now buy these offerings through apps used to manage their wider needs; whether it is a motor app that allows them to manage their road tax, smart travel tolls, MOT and insurance in one place; or a property app that covers everything from energy bills, wi-fi connectivity, grocery shopping and insurance.

Insurance is often not seen as a stand-alone product any more, especially among younger people who want to simplify their lives. And that includes commercial business owners too. And many insurers and brokers that have accepted their role as either a partner in a broader non-insurance eco-system; or have built their own eco-systems by forging their own relationships with non-insurance businesses.

Insurers might have had white label deals before with notable brands, but these relationships are now so much deeper. Insurance companies have also had to get smarter in the adoption of technology to enable them to make the most of these digital eco-systems, by collaborating with insurtechs established and new, to be able to understand these customers better by getting a 360 view of them. As one marketing campaign by a well-known telecom boasts: “Our smartest customers want smarter insurance”

Indeed the old tired excuse of “we cannot do that because of legacy systems” no longer holds weight, and thankfully has been relegated from most insurance conferences as the decade wore on as digital technology got cheaper and more accessible.

Sure businesses still have heritage architecture, but they have access to so much new and exciting kit they are no longer beholden to the past. Among the positive results of this is that the amount of leakage and fraud insurers suffer has been significantly reduced due to the access to better data at the underwriting stage.

The insurance industry has also thankfully consigned the concerns over pricing practices the regulator had at the start of the 2010s with dynamic pricing and real time data commonly used by companies selling insurance.

Based on this hypothesis, Post content director Jonathan Swift sat down with Vivek Vasudeva, CIO Insurance Solutions, Verisk, to discuss the possible road map between now and 2030. This includes the evolution of collaborations, the involvement of insurtechs and non-traditional insurance players and how data flow is key to the success or otherwise of insurance eco-systems.

They also discussed how important the penetration of 5G – and then maybe 6G and 7G – is to help insurance eco-systems flourish and how these deep partnerships can help customers in the event of a Nat Cat or surge.

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