Significant news just after I quoted the following from Rick Huckstep on LinkedIn.
"Analysis by market data and research firm Timetric a couple of years ago predicted that “new technological innovations coupled with the challenges of the digital era are expected to put significant pressure in this (bancassurance) channel over the coming years”. The underlying reason for this prediction is that achieving scale on a human level is very difficult. It is also difficult to maintain competitive levels of pricing, coverage and features when new digital players are able to move more quickly."
Rick uses Friendsurance to show how technology delivers benefits for banks, insurers and customers e,g,
Cash Flow Analysis
Customers can hold all their insurance policies in a single place on the Friendsurance platform, even those from other insurers. To make it easy for customers, Friendsurance uses an API to scan a customer’s bank account and look for insurance contracts. From this, they can identify policy details and add them to the central folder. This is all enabled because of PSD2 and the finAPI, which has licence to scan customer data.
The final word from Tim, “Through the cooperation with Deutsche Bank and R+V Versicherung, we can reach a customer base of around 35 million customers in Germany. The next partnership is already in the making and includes conversations in the German market as well as other European markets.”
Allianz and Deutsche Bank seem to be leading the way.
German insurance giant Allianz is seen as the favourite to invest in the bancassurance business of Spanish lender BBVA, according to a Reuters report. The report follows news earlier in the week that Italian insurer Generali is no longer in the running after its board had doubts concerning the profitability of the investment. However, Reuters reported that Allianz still faces competition in the form of a possible bid from US insurer Liberty Mutual.