BETTER USE OF DATA
“ Data is vital in helping insurance companies understand their customers and assess risk ”
CHRIS ROYLES EMEA FIELD CTO , CLOUDERA
“ Historically , insurers have relied on their vast quantities of historical data to advise pricing and customer engagement ,” he says . “ However , we ’ re now seeing these incumbents increasingly using unstructured data and new sources of external data such as IoT devices , which offer many more potential opportunities to collect data to inform decision making and risk performance .
“ Collecting and storing this vast amount of data is pointless and expensive unless you can derive insights from it to understand both the risk and the customer better . Insurers will be competing with new entrants to the sector such as hyperscalers , with the winner being the ones able to utilise their insights to price better and provide better service .”
Both Sexton and Royles believe that fitness trackers are a good example of the way that insurers have changed their approach to data , with health insurers now using the data shared through such devices to improve decisioning and encourage less risky behaviours from customers . “ This helps to create lower premiums and reduces the risk for the business – both parties win ,” Sexton says .
Nevertheless , Cloudera ’ s Chris Royles still believes there is an area of opportunity that insurers are generally not exploiting : “ One gap in the current approach is insurers failing to enable customers to engage with them when life and asset circumstances change . By bringing the customer into the loop – in a secure and trusted manner – insurers ensure a better customer experience .”
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