Insurtechs often promise the ultimate competitive edge with AI, Robotic Process Automation, Chatbox, Blockchain, device specific insurance products- you name it you'll find it!

CIO from IDG (see link below) graphically highlights the pitfalls - caveat emptor!

Take AI

"Perhaps your company is like others that believe Artificial Intelligence (AI) can contribute to their business. But you’ll find that as soon as you start to think about AI, you start to think about data and data sources. That unleashes a substantial amount of work in building data warehouses. You may encounter a hurdle that many companies often find: data sources are less reliable and less precise than you had hoped. As a result, your company will need to build new data sources or improve the existing data sources. That effort will likely move your company to implement cloud technologies, along with the analytics software and data-management software that comes with cloud."

Peter Bendor-Samuel CIO from IDG 

The lesson is to get those ducks in line and set priorities. Like all "solutions" AI is no panacea and there are many simpler digitally transforming technologies that will deliver significant benefits to customers, claimants, the insurance teams, contractors and supply chain partners. 

Combinations of Digital Customer Engagement Platforms that:-

  1. Reform analogue processes into Amazon style digital ones
  2. Orchestrate all participants from customer to supply chain
  3. Communicate effectively in real-time
  4. Provide real-time analytics for better decision making and execution
  5. Fight off digital disrupters
  6. Don't cost the earth and deliver 10 times financial returns and more.

Of course they won't so everything, and you may need multi-vendor partnerships. But they can 

  • Start pragmatically and fast- first digital claims in 3 months.
  • Iterate fast- constantly improve
  • Make significant digital transformation happen over the year- beat your competition
  • Be the platform to include AI, RPA, and even over more years blockchain as and when a compelling problem is solved  

Read the full article- its on the nail.