Key Takeaways London InsurTech Insights
Europe’s largest InsurTech conference, InsurTech Insights, took place in London on the 15th and 16th of March at the InterContinental London. More than 4000 participants, 1200 InsurTechs, and 200 speakers attended the conference to share their learnings and perspectives on the future, trends, and growth opportunities of the InsurTech industry.
Lorenz Graeff, CEO of bsurance, Hermann Fried, Managing Director at bsurance, and Martijn Meijlink, Insurance Product Manager at bsurance had the opportunity to participate in the event and engage with like-minded peers at the bsurance booth. Additionally, Hermann Fried participated as a speaker on the discussion “Is embedded insurance the future of consumer distribution?”, where he got to showcase embedded insurance as the future of consumer distribution.
Scroll down to learn more about our main takeaways and the main trends discussed at Europe’s largest InsurTech conference.
Embedded insurance: to be the change or be changed
We can say that embedded insurance was the main buzzword at the event, with participants reaching out to us to know more about it and the opportunities available in the industry. Embedded insurance is gaining more and more interest, with thousands of participants at the event joining panels discussing the role of embedded insurance on the future of the insurance industry.
What we can see and compare to 3 years ago is that insurers are becoming more interested in the idea of embedded insurance due to the increasing digitization of industries, business models shifting to platform ecosystems, the modernization of IT systems with the migration to cloud-based technology, and the different behavior of consumers as a result of the pandemic.
InsurTech Insights event gathered more than 4000 participants all over the world.
Nowadays, insurance carriers are realizing that the point of contact with customers is often changing from offline to online, meaning that they must also follow the customer if they want to stay up to date. To do so, insurers are becoming more and more keen to work with insurtechs as enablers of the technological capabilities necessary to interact with consumers through an online setting.
Consumer distribution and peace of mind
As part of the event, bsurance’s Managing Director, Hermann Fried, took a stand in the panel “Is embedded insurance the future for customer distribution?” alongside industry leaders from iptiQ, wefox, and Arma Karma.
During the debate, moderator Megan Bingham-Walker questioned panelists on various topics ranging from society’s understanding of embedded insurance, risks, and opportunities to improve insurance products, to regulatory challenges, and other captivating questions.
Interestingly, during the panel, one of the audience questions was related to fears of class action lawsuits against insurers because of the misinformation during the insurance selling process.
bsurance Managing Director Hermann Fried participated in the panel discussion ”Is embedded Insurance the future for consumer distribution’?’
Hermann Fried remarked that a few years ago, he was responsible for more than a thousand sales staff and three thousand brokers as a member of the board of a large insurance company. However, he had concerns about the risk of mis-selling, since he didn’t have complete information and control over all actions while selling insurance products. As brokers and sales staff are paid only commission there is an implicit tendency to sell rather than to consult.
Thanks to embedded insurance, today, all parties have full access and control over the insurance selling process and the opportunity to define what information and offerings are delivered to the client. In addition, all processes are documented, and in case of an issue, the documentation can be shared with authorities or clients right away, having peace of mind for every involved party and especially for individuals in roles like Chief Insurance Officer.
Concluding remarks
The insurtech community is back with a bang, bringing with it a more mature conversation about embedded insurance than a couple of years ago at the last in-person event. Now, insurers are becoming more interested in what insurtechs have to offer now that consumer behavior has changed due to the digitization of the past years accelerated by the onset of the pandemic.
The idea of embedded insurance is gaining momentum, and industry players are starting to realize that “in the insurance industry, you can’t stop the change. So everyone needs to make a decision – to drive change or be changed.”