Once again this year, RGI was the Main Partner of the 23rd Insurance Summit, a landmark event for the insurance industry organised annually by the 24 Ore Group and Il Sole 24 Ore, the most important financial newspaper in Italy. Held on 11th November 2021, the one-day digital event has been a chance to explore trends, opportunities, and challenges of the sector in a post-pandemic world, with many experts and companies from different segments of the industry contributing to the discussion.
Titled “New needs, new markets, and new opportunities: the great transformation of the insurance market”, the event saw the participation of the most relevant companies of the industry, and it was an occasion to examine not only the current trends in the insurance market, but also its future scenarios, also thanks to the collaboration with the companies involved.
The one-day virtual summit provided an overview of the current market through the interview with Maria Bianca Farina, President of ANIA, who shared information on the state of the market in terms of numbers:
• 145 billion euros: ANIA estimates that, after the decline in the market last year, the Italian insurance sector will recover in 2021, leading to a total premium income of nearly 145 billion euros – with an increase of 7%
• +8%: the leap in overall growth is also thanks to an 8% increase in the life sector
• +2,8%: growth in the non-life sector, on the other hand, was 2.8% due to a 4.5% drop in motor TPL and a 7% jump in other lines of business.
Moreover, the summit offered a timely analysis of potential developments of the industry. It addressed some of the opportunities arising from the pandemic, the current “new normal” social structure, the new needs of the market and the strategies to tackle them. The main goal was to understand how the fundamental role of digital transformation matches with essential values such as prevention, protection, and a sustainable vision.
The summit also hosted a live talk between Cécile André Leruste, Group CEO of RGI, and Laura Galvagni, a journalist at Il Sole 24 Ore. The conversation provided valuable insights into the platform economy and the related new business model for the insurance sector, focusing also on its dynamics and its challenges for Insurers.
Digital platforms – increasingly a regular part of our everyday routines – are also growing in importance in the Insurance Industry since they allow insurers to build stronger relationships with their clients. Digital Platforms can indeed translate into a new business model offering improved access to customers and their data; help insurance companies to engage more and more effectively with policyholders, meet their needs and build loyal and trusted relationships while at the same time sharing with business partners their knowledge of the customer.
Consequently, the new business model based on digital platforms opens up new opportunities in terms of product development, as it allows insurers to create new services tailored to the ever-changing consumer preferences and the new digital habits. Additionally, it could offer the chance to create a whole new offering by recombining traditional products and services according to the newly acquired information and embedded into non-core services.
Therefore, thanks to the new models based on digital platforms in the cloud, Insurance Companies can get major customer engagement benefits, multiply their business opportunities, and partner with fintech companies.
Eventually, the challenge to overcome for insurers will be to create an ecosystem of insurance platforms that can generate value in local contexts in terms of consumer behaviour, regulation, and sustainability.
In pursuing all of this, however, Insurers should be aware of the role played by the time factor, as the speed of the definition of use-cases and their implementation is crucial to the success of insurance platform ecosystems.
