Digitally Challenged Insurance Companies Missing Out on Opportunities if AI Not Embraced

PR Web

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (PRWEB) January 12, 2021

There are many things that have changed since the 1970s and '80s but the way insurance companies evaluate and determine the coverage consumers get isn't one of them. Paul Ford, co-founder and CEO of Traffk, says that insurance companies could face insolvency if they don't modernize their practices. "Most insurance companies don't use a lot of data to create their products. They rely on demographic information that is 40 years old, and older. They are struggling to price policies correctly and many will miss out on huge financial opportunities because of this."

Insurance is an essential safety net but often the industry relies on outdated legacy business models and systems some based off of mortality tables that were developed in 1971 and 1984.(1) At the same time, industry leaders have refused to embrace technology so much so that now insurance companies rank outdated technology as the greatest threat to their business.(2) According to a McKinsey report, nine of out 10 insurance companies identified legacy software and infrastructure as barriers of digitization.(3)

The current status of the insurance industry is broken and antiquated with many not using cloud-based technology but instead relying on the mentality of, "it's worked for 100 years so why fix it." This became even more evident during the COVID-19 pandemic when many consumers, quarantined at home, turned to digital channels to find solutions to their insurance needs but found a lack of high digital adoption. This doesn't just prevent companies from gaining new clients but also alienates existing ones as consumers who encounter problems in their digital interactions tend to give their insurance provider lower loyalty scores.(4)

As the current landscape shows us, insurance companies who embrace technology will be the ones who succeed in the future. Insure-tech companies--like Traffk--can help companies price products more competitively, create products that consumers want and improve the insurance-buying process making it easier for both the client and the agent.

Most insurance companies analyze dozens of different variables to arrive at their numbers, based on outdated actuarial data. Traffk's cloud-based AI assisted software can process 20 years' worth of mortality, demographic, health and government trends resulting in a totally different, more dynamic algorithm--in fact, they look at thousands of variables simultaneously. With more data comes the need for new and better ways to analyze and process it. To get the most out of the plethora of data, insurance companies need to have a robust data management plan in place.(5) A Data Science-as-a-Service (DSaaS) platform can help insurance companies more precisely determine risk, create better, more appropriate products for their clients and improve customer experiences. This enhanced data can also help insurance companies price products more accurately, be able to understand the demographics of who is ready to buy and get the right risk on their books--making them more profitable in the end.

Data can also help create better products that people need. Traditionally, insurance companies create new products based on already existing ones. Traffk's model, which can work with any insurance carrier, incorporates agents' input. After developing products based on demographic and risk data, Traffk invites agents to help curate and design products ensuring that it is something policyholders need.

In a digital world, data, and the ability to fully analyze it, is critical to insurers' survival. The businesses that will succeed will be the ones who can quickly analyze and adapt to data to make better business decisions and serve their customers better and faster.(6) "Correct data used the right way is essential to a business' survival," said Ford. "But agents will not be left out of the equation. They develop relationships and build personal networks--an agent serves as a place of trust. The startups who are doing this can compete and best traditional insurance carriers. The future of insurance is a hybrid where consumers can choose a digital experience or traditional and move between the two."

About Traffk
Traffk is an innovative insurance underwriting and distribution platform designed to build and launch modern insurance products and brands that scale. With more than 25 years combined leadership in insurance and AI, Paul Ford and Glenn Hibler co-founded Traffk as a solution to the problems of inefficient, assumption-based underwriting and slow processing in the insurance industry. Traffk's goal from the start has been to comprehend the risks and modernize the insurance underwriting process by leveraging modern-day tools. Traffk enables risk bearers to leverage the underwriting process with its data-enrichment technology and integrates and analyzes data to glean insights pertinent to insurance. Traffk works with agents as partners, providing them with the digital tools to work with an efficient sales process and engage consumers with a fast, accurate process for insurance policies, changing the insurance landscape for the better, forever. Visit https://www.traffk.com/.

1. "Growing Number of Lawsuits Claim 'Old' Mortality Tables Deprive Participants of Benefits – An Update." | 6 June 2019; Groom Benefits Brief; groom.com/resources/growing-number-of-lawsuits-claim-old-mortality-tables-deprive-participants-of-benefits-an-update
2. Hilton, Andrew, "Insurance Banana Skins 2019: The CSFI survey of the risks facing insurers." | 12 September 2019; Center for the Study of Financial Innovation; static1.squarespace.com/static/
3. "Insurance Technologies: 13 Disruptive Ideas to Change Insurance Companies with Telematics, Blockchain, Machine Learning, and APIs." | 27 September 2020; Altexsoft, altexsoft.com/blog/insurance-technologies
4. Naujoks, Henrik, Singh, Harshveer, Goosseens, Camille, and Schwedel, Andrew, "A Digital Reckoning for Insurance Companies." | 14 September 2020; Bain & Company Brief; bain.com/insights/a-digital-reckoning-for-insurance-companies
5. Yohn, Andy, "Top 5 challenges facing the insurance industry." | 23 December 2020; InsurTech Center; propertycasualty360.com/2020/12/23/top-5-challenges-facing-the-insurance-industry
6. Katz, Ori, "Explainablity: The Next Frontier for Artificial Intelligence in Insurance and Banking." | 6 January 2021; Unite.AI; unite.ai/explainability-the-next-frontier-for-artificial-intelligence-in-insurance-and-banking