Pete Smyth, Vice President Ebix Europe, shines the spotlight on the demand trends developing as the London and Global re/insurance markets continue their modernisation drive heading into 2023 and beyond

As one of the largest providers of electronic trading solutions and innovative insurtech products to the global (re)insurance sector, we know that communicating with the market is critical to addressing the challenges and opportunities companies face.

Which is why along with talking to the market and reacting and adapting to feedback, it is important to listen, and to keep our fingers on the pulse of the changing nature of demand.

Throughout both the large commercial and specialty markets, adoption of the right technology at the right time has been a key factor in helping the industry to update its processes and streamlining the way global re/insurance business is done.

In the commercial sector, the quest for automation has led almost instinctively to the widespread use of AI and machine learning, for instance, while the thirst for connectivity has encouraged the emergence of electronic trading and placement solutions in the specialty market – one of the biggest evolutions in ways of working that the specialty space has ever seen.

But as with all aspects of the commercial insurance lifecycle, demands are constantly changing, and only by modernising, digitising and streamlining insurance processes can one expect to not only survive, but thrive. It’s all about keeping pace with the living, evolving nature of digital transformation.

Evolving platforms

As any insurer will know, there are two key elements crucial to a digital transformation: communication and data. From underwriting and policy pricing, to making business decisions, data and communication are vital, so to make the most of implementing any digital strategy, insurance software solutions need to have these elements at their core.

We are seeing increased demand for the next evolution in electronic placing tools for the global specialty market, with the current electronic placement platforms the baseline for minimum requirements. There is so much scope to transform and build on the excellent progress already made in electronic placement for the London Market, but the pace of change has been too slow and there is room for major upgrades to the user interface to provide a more intuitive experience that allows insurance practitioners the flexibility to adjust to a remote/office working environment, as well as other workflow enhancements. We are hard at work addressing this demand with the development of PlacingHub – watch this space.

Post-bind tech demand

As well as demand for the next phase of insurance placement technology, we are also seeing renewed enquiries about post-bind technology, in particular services that standardise the accounting, settlement and claims process.

We have responded by developing a new post-bind insurance exchange platform that is capable of drastically speeding up and digitising the often time-consuming manual post-bind process, all with an end aim of reducing costs and paper usage.

The market tells us they want complexity distilled into simplicity – and that is exactly what we have done with EbixExchange. It’s an elegantly simple solution that allows brokers and carriers to digitise closings, statements and claims notifications to the relevant ACORD standard.

In addition to this, we provide a platform with a comprehensive suite of web services to allow interaction with these messages, leading to simple adoption for the global insurance market – directly addressing demand for global streamlined communication in post-bind processes.

Exposure Management

Advancements in technology are also producing data that is helping re/insurers understand their exposure to risk like never before – but in order to properly harness the insights from this data, we are seeing increased interest in a robust and configurable exposure management platform that can deliver instant data and integrate easily with existing systems, including catastrophe models.

Data is priceless, and we are listening closely – our mission is to provide a best-of-breed exposure management platform with exceptional processing speeds that truly harnesses the invaluable data that re/insurers have at their fingertips to empower business decisions.

Ecosystems

All of these innovations must plug into the wider insurtech ecosystem that looks set to flourish ever further in 2023. AI and automation will play a big part in enabling insurers to move multiple lines of data from one source to another, and to address everything from product distribution and quotations, to document production through fully integrated web-based systems that talk to each other.

And integration is going to be a keyword in 2023 – a high level of interaction is expected between systems to provide brokers and insurers with the insights and functionality they need to process business as efficiently as possible.

Future proof solutions

The constantly evolving demands of the global specialty market will always require reliable and future-proof solutions – and more than anything else, this is at the forefront of every technology investment decision as we head into 2023.

As noted in a recent McKinsey Global Survey on digital strategy and investments, to succeed, businesses need a combination of bold digital strategies, proprietary assets (such as AI), and a focus on bringing “tech-savvy” executives into the fold.

Quite simply, digital transformation is a mindset thing, as well as a technology thing.

We are looking forward to working with the market in 2023 and beyond as we continue to listen, learn and evolve our leading technology to meet the changing nature of demand. Get in touch to find out more.