Oliver Lang, CEO of ONE. Source: ONE
The “ecosystem” and “blockchain” technologies, which have been hyped in recent years, are evidently disillusioning. “As an insurer, it is ridiculous to want to become a center. You are hated more than the dentist. Even an alliance will never see it become a center. ”This said Oliver Lang, CEO of One Versicherung at a video conference in which the “InsurTech Study 2020” by Sum.Cumo and HSBA Hamburg School of Business Administration was presented.
Rhineland Board of Directors Arne Barinka reminded that insurance is above all a means to an end and that “we have to go to the right place and act quietly and efficiently”. Ingolf Putzbach, Managing director of Sum. Cumo, which has been part of the Israeli tech company Sapiens since 2020, expects insurers to “integrate more smoothly” into economic activity than before. For certain special areas – such as health or legal protection – he can certainly imagine that insurers operate ecosystems that dissolve industry boundaries.
The discussion round turned out to be skeptical Florian Elert, who is a professor for insurance management at HSBA, talks about the use of blockchain technology. “It’s pure theory, but difficult on the pitch,” said so Philipp Knott, Founder and CEO of Freeyou AG. He does not see any broad business models for the private customer business. Nevertheless one has to watch the development. Lang even describes blockchain as “gross nonsense”. He has not yet seen a business idea that cannot be realized with other technology.
According to Elert, the InsurTech study provides “a deeper insight into the business models of 26 selected tech providers for the insurance industry”. The providers were selected among other things according to use cases and technology orientation. The study gives an overview of the sector focus of providers, the technologies they use, the requirements for working with an insurer, their payment models, customer references and the like.
For the majority of the study participants, data analytics and machine learning are the most important technologies both now and in the future, both for their own business models and for those of the insurers. In contrast, the participants rated their own business model Distributed / Blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT) or Augmented & Virtual Reality significantly lower. In their opinion, IoT and blockchain could at least play a role for the business model of insurers in the next five years.
The use of data analytics is seen primarily in claims processing, risk & fraud, scoring and the analysis of customer data in marketing. For machine learning, the application is essentially in the recognition of images, text or handwriting in customer communication and in claims management. The study can be viewed on the Internet at sumcumo.com/studie.
Author: Monika Lier
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