2022 has been a crucial and challenging year: as COVID has been slowly moving into the background, many other impactful influences linked with the global socio-economic market have emerged, causing uncertainty and offering new challenges for the next year. Among these are inflation, which is already rising all over the world; geopolitical influences – from the war in Ukraine to political elections in different countries – which will surely impact the global market; and climate change, which has undoubtedly a direct impact on our industry and on the insurance sector overall.
However, our industry continues to evolve thanks to new business models, technological advances, and innovations. But what will mark our sector in 2023?
Among the many different analyses and research about 2022, as well as trend forecasts about the next year, I want to highlight some of the trends which are relevant for us as a leading company and which we need to keep in mind as we continue on our path towards transforming the insurance sector in Europe thanks to digitalisation and technology.
According to Capgemini, the keyword for 2022 was “wellness” – something which needs to be front and centre in future actions, too. As presented during the Insurance Summit 2022 – you can find our perspective on the event here – Capgemini’s World Life and Health Insurance Report 2022 Report indeed highlights how consumer behaviours have become more and more wellness-driven.
As part of the report, Capgemini carried out a study based on a set of roundtables and interviews with CEOs, CTOs, product officers, health officers and other C-suite profiles from Insurance and Tech companies across the world. These contributions clearly showed how the current uncertain social-economic environment made policyholders more aware of the importance of physical and financial wellness. In order to be successful, forward-looking life and health insurers need to rethink their value propositions and add wellness among the cornerstones of customer engagement, moving towards the implementation of the so-called “Wellness-as-a-Service” models.
Thinking about the future actions and services to introduce on the way forward, the leading global market research company Forrester just published a report highlighting the trends for 2023.
According to Forrester’s latest report titled European Predictions 2023, business leaders will have to ensure that all actions implemented will have to be focused on gaining consumer trust and be effective in the long term, without being tempted by short-term gains. From inflation to climate change, the interlocking market dynamics of 2023 will require business leaders to adhere to a long-term strategic vision while operating within “an unknown territory”.
Celent – a key player in advisory and market research for financial institutions that has also been among RGI’s partners over the last years – presented its outlook for financial services technology trends in the annual Provisory Report.
Among its trend predictions for 2023, there is a series of main points that are particularly relevant for our company and our industry overall:
• Adaptability: Insurers have to adapt to market conditions and to do so, they are willing to be more and more creative and flexible to be ready to respond promptly to internal and external elements disrupting the business
• Innovation: Insurers are continuing to work in order to bridge the innovation gap, thanks to new insurance models; as a consequence, they will have to adopt new, holistic and consumer-centric distribution models
• Sustainability: climate change and the sustainability targets imposed by global institutions are offering the opportunity for our sector to be impactful. For instance, ESG has become a real opportunity in terms of product innovations, with green products and services, as well as with the creation of virtuous partnerships and ecosystems
While addressing our clients’ needs, priorities and requests, we have developed a privileged viewpoint on the insurance market over the years. As market observers, we have increasingly been noticing three main trends: customer centricity, an evolution in the distribution channels, and the need to make product advancements more frequent.
As I mentioned at the Insurance Summit last month during my interview session “The Innovation of Insurance Platforms”, insurance companies are steadily committing themselves to shifting their perspective from a product-based to a customer-centric one. Additionally, they have also been expanding their distribution channels, while also developing partnership ecosystems that are progressively more complex. For us at RGI, this means that, going forward, we must work on all these new trends and the related needs. Thanks to our modular solutions, we can support insurers and their innovation strategies by helping them manage easily the evolving complexity linked to their new relationships with their customers and to their customers’ ever-changing demand for tailor-made products.
It is now up to the various players in the insurance and IT industries to leverage existing and emerging trends when implementing new business models and technological innovations to make them drivers for growth and further accelerate the evolution of our sector.
