With the insurance industry changing and innovating faster than ever, we predict that these four dominant trends are sure to define the field in 2022.
Before we forecast where the insurance industry is headed, let’s first understand where we’ve been. 2020 and the first half of 2021 were pull-back periods across carriers, but financial expectations are more optimistic now that conditions are a bit more stable. In fact, according to a mid-year report from Deloitte, 40% of insurers surveyed reported budget increases and over 50% anticipate higher revenues. Still, 77% of surveyed carriers remain concerned over pandemic-induced changes to the economy and consumer behavior.
What’s next for today’s insurers? Despite the pandemic-driven uncertainty, we can identify four key industry-wide trends that will emerge to dominate the landscape moving forward.
77% of surveyed carriers remain concerned over pandemic-induced changes to the economy and consumer behavior.
4 insurance trends that will shape 2022
1. Rapid digital transformation and legacy modernization
Many insurance companies still rely on antiquated legacy software systems for the majority of their business-critical processes. Although these systems can still get the job done, using and maintaining legacy systems compromises client data security, drives up maintenance costs, and stunts innovation. Plus, buggy legacy systems aren’t agile enough to help insurers remain in touch with ever-evolving marketplace needs. We expect to see more insurers redoubling their digital transformation efforts next year and exploring how they can modernize their legacy systems in order to streamline and reduce operating costs, digitally transform, and enhance the client experience.
With an enterprise-grade platform like Unqork, you can accomplish all of these goals without writing a single line of code. Unqork’s microservices-based architecture makes it easy to break down monoliths and fully transition away from legacy systems and into a code-free ecosystem.
If you need to keep older systems in place until you’re ready to make a full digital transformation, no-code can assist you with that as well. Unqork allows you to integrate legacy systems into your modern no-code application without any scripting and editable code-bases to maintain. This capability helps you modernize without creating more legacy in the process. No matter which approach you take, eliminating or managing your legacy systems with no-code can make your insurance company three times more productive, help get products to market three times faster, and chip away at technical debt.
Hear what the COO of Marsh has to say about partnering with Unqork for their insurance applications.
2. Increased cloud adoption
According to Gartner, end-user spending on public cloud services will reach $482 billion in 2022, and spending on cloud-based application infrastructure services will grow to almost $172 billion. We expect to see insurers turn toward cloud services and re-evaluate their choice of architecture as they adopt more modern digital solutions. Storing data in one (often outdated) database instead of the cloud requires more money, more technicians, and can even result in more errors. With cloud-based operations, insurers can manage real-time data, upgrade policies in bulk, and stay connected to tech-savvy customers.
Unqork blends the power and agility of the cloud with the simplicity and sophistication of no-code. Every application you build on our platform lives in our high-availability cloud-native architecture on Kubernetes and MongoDB. You can scale effortlessly with this highly elastic architecture and adjust automatically in response to shifting demands with zero downtime. Also, securing your applications in the cloud is our top priority. Enterprise-grade encryption keeps your application’s data safe both in transit and at rest, and our platform boasts a Level 5 Veracode rating and a 100% penetration test pass rate. By harnessing the power of the secure cloud, you’ll be ready for whatever the future of insurance brings.
3. A shift to customer-centricity
As insurers today face mounting competition and declining customer loyalty, the customer experience matters now more than ever. 73% of customers note that customer experience is a key factor in their purchasing decisions and high customer churn makes it difficult for carriers to build and maintain a loyal following. Policyholders want fast, reliable, and accessible hands-on services, and carriers must leverage the latest technology to win the customer experience race and differentiate themselves from disruptors. Unfortunately, many carriers have stumbled into the all-too-frequent trap of employing code while attempting to digitize customer service solutions.
With the power of no-code, you can get to the very heart of what customers want. Unqork’s drag-and-drop components, visual interfaces, and intuitive flows mean you can build high-quality applications in a fraction of time, helping you quickly adapt to shifting customer needs. Also, our numerous self-service portal solutions offer customers the 24/7 access and convenience they crave from a digitally-savvy carrier. By minimizing friction and amplifying user-friendliness, no-code helps you deliver.
4. Automation
It’s not surprising that the insurance industry is notorious for being paper-based—there are forms to be signed in triplicate, profiles to be processed and updated, and much more. A single underwriting task, performed manually, can travel back and forth between multiple agents and a single customer nine times before completion and take up to 40 days to finalize. Automated flows can cut down on paperwork by 80% and speed up claims processing by 50%—we expect to see more insurers taking advantage of automation in 2022.
Unqork’s no-code platform disproves the myth that AI is too complex and expensive for insurance carriers to leverage. Our machine vision functionality scans paper documents to extract information and then translates them into machine-readable data points to which your business logic can be applied. Intelligent APIs then cross-reference that data across external verified sources to reduce the risk of data entry errors. If a discrepancy is found, the system will automatically reach out to the application and indicate what’s missing or ask for clarification. Strategically applied no-code AI saves your agents a lot of back and forth, keeps your clients from having to re-enter the same information across forms, and maximizes time and effort all around. We call that a win-win!
Prepare for the future of insurance today
Nobody knows what the future holds, but an enterprise no-code platform like Unqork can help you build high-quality insurance applications that are ready for anything. You can power a rapid digital transformation, create applications that give your clients more of what they want, and automate routine tasks all while leveraging the agility of the cloud. These features (and more!) will support your insurance company for years to come.
To learn more about the Unqork platform, request a personalized demonstration with one of our in-house experts today. Also, make sure to subscribe to the Unqork newsletter!
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