This is a preview of the Future of Life Insurance (2018) research report from Business Insider’s premium research service. To get more information on…
This is a preview of the Future of Life Insurance (2018) research report from Business Insider’s premium research service. To get more information on the trends in life insurance and insurtechs, click here. Current subscribers can read the report here.
Life insurance is a fundamentally hard product to sell, as it requires people to think about their deaths and promises no immediate rewards.
Spending trends of millennials show 7% goes to insurance, including life insurance. BI Intelligence
The way life insurance is sold makes it doubly unattractive, as consumers have to go through an paper-based, lengthy application process and a bothersome medical exam, with little guidance from their providers, and often at high cost. The problem is worsened by incumbent insurers’ failure to innovate, even as personalized products and streamlined services proliferate in other areas of finance.
Now, though, a small yet growing niche of insurtech startups is now finding different ways to digitize life insurance to make it more appealing. Life insurance-focused startups are tackling a number of problems with the status quo, including a lack of consumer understanding of the product, inconvenient application processes, weak customer loyalty, and inefficient data management and processing. Some are focused on improving products for consumers, while others are helping insurers to modernize. These startups are giving incumbents a way to revamp this product, either by partnering these companies or using their technology.
But these life insurtechs are shaking up a strictly regulated and sensitive product, and their solutions carry regulatory and ethical risks. That means such companies, and any insurers using their solutions, must take measures to make sure these new services add value to the industry. Nevertheless, life insurtechs are likely to spearhead change in this space, with incumbents following suit. Such startups will set new industry standards and consumer expectations around this complex product. That, in turn, will serve as a catalyst for innovation among legacy insurers.
In a new report, Business Insider Intelligence looks at the major players in the global life insurance industry, the problems (for consumers and providers) in the life insurance status quo, how insurtechs are revamping the life insurance space and giving the product a new lease of life, best practices for both startup and incumbent life insurance innovators, and what the future of the life insurance space will look like as fintech makes its presence felt in it.
Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:
In full, the report:
