To start off the year, Aite-Novarica Group identified 10 of the most discernable trends that insurers operating in the property/casualty space should watch out for in the coming months. On February 9, our team of experts drilled down on a few of the trends shaping the property/casualty insurance technology space. Here are some of the highlights carriers should focus on in 2023.
The Core Systems Ecosystem
Core systems play a crucial role in insurers’ overall technology footprints. What has changed is that, especially with the explosion of insuretech offerings, many new point solutions have been developed that are helping to extend core systems with interesting new capabilities. We call this web of solutions the core ecosystem. This ecosystem is disrupting how core system solution providers think about their offerings and is providing them with more varied integration choices as well as access to a plethora of different types of data.
Some of the core ecosystem solutions, such as bill review or payments, can be provided by horizontal players, albeit those with an understanding of insurance. At the same time, core insurance business services remain heavily oriented toward insurance-specific providers. Even seemingly general solutions can often be launched more quickly and successfully if they are purpose-built for insurance (e.g., texting capabilities with insurance workflows already built in).
As a result, instead of technology companies entering the space trying to solve an insurance problem, Aite-Novarica Group is now seeing more insurance executives at these companies trying to solve problems that they personally lived through.
APIs
The role of APIs has changed as discussions around them have moved from the strict domain of IT into the rest of the business—right up to the boardroom—as part of company strategies. Many insurers are now getting serious about their APIs, which are often a tangle of siloed legacy connections built with no centralized control. They are moving away from SOAP and, in some cases, even REST APIs toward evolving standards like AsyncAPI, GraphQL, and gRPC.
Based on carrier conversations with Aite-Novarica Group principals and analysts, the accumulation of API-related technical debt means 2023 is going be the year many insurers look at updating and standardizing their APIs to take advantage of newer technologies and approaches to business.
Security is going to be a significant driver for addressing API technical debt as well. In fact, Aite-Novarica Group’s Cybersecurity practice has addressed API security in its own Top 10 Trends report and webinar.
AI and Automation
2022 saw a lot of proofs of concept around AI-enabled automation, especially for underwriting and claims, but many of these did not end up getting implemented. Insurers learned a lot from these proofs of concept, however, and in 2023, Aite-Novarica Group expects these technologies will transition from “emerging” to something a bit more proven.
The most common success stories today center around ingesting and parsing data from submission documents, claims correspondence, and medical bills. Aite-Novarica Group expects further development in automated inspections and claims triage using aerial and mobile imagery and image recognition, along with advanced fraud detection with better self-improving, AI-enabled predictive models.
As some of Aite-Novarica Group’s other Top 10 Trends point out, the speed of business will continue to accelerate in 2023 and innovation will become fundamental for insurers to keep pace with the rate of change. To view the Insurance practice’s property/casualty top 10 trends webinar, click here. Clients can also read our full, detailed report here.
