Digital Dominates But Doesn’t Have to be Daunting
Digital was already a dominant trend in insurance (and across all verticals) and COVID-19 (coronavirus) has strengthened it. Sapiens and its ecosystem partner, Lightico, conducted a joint survey of 1,000 insureds on March 29, 2020 to determine how COVID-19 has impacted the insurance market. Digital is more important than ever!
- 71% prefer to fill out and send documents digitally to their insurers
- 89% prefer online offerings to digital agents
- A whopping 90% prefer digital/remote interactions with their insurance provider vs. face-to-face meetings
No one knows how the coronavirus epidemic will be resolved, but we rarely see digital conveniences recalled once they have been introduced to the wider public.
Too Daunting?
Many insurers want to go fully digital, but they are scared that the switch from their legacy systems will be too time-consuming and costly. As my last blog post explained, that doesn’t have to be the case.
Insurers can quickly and painlessly deploy a flexible digital solution on top of their current legacy and policy administration platforms. By bridging the digital gap, they’ll be able to offer a modern customer experience and open the door to innovative ecosystem partners.
This expanded ecosystem will organically accelerate 
opportunities for customer engagement, create underwriting efficiencies and optimization, and reduce costs across the organization. A digital layer will provide a measure of flexibility that will help heal some P&C carrier pain-points.
As an added bonus, putting a digital layer in place is much faster than replacing all legacy systems. With a well-designed digital layer, you can safely change out your legacy system later, or modules of it, without disruption to your consumers.
Save or Spend?
Insurers’ natural reaction to a crisis such as coronavirus is to begin cost-cutting and saving. But Laura J. Hay, Global Head of Insurance at KPMG International, says the counter-intuitive move may be the way to go:
“While it is tempting for insurers to suspend investment and cut costs in such a challenging financial year, I believe the crisis creates an incentive for them to do the reverse – continue to invest in how they operate and create a more agile, digitally-enabled business. In other words, now more than ever insurers should keep investing forefront in their minds so that they can be prepared for the future.”
Insurers cannot wait to make their digital investment, but replacing all legacy systems may seem costly and formidable at the moment. A digital layer could be the best option for today’s climate…
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Colleen Wells Colleen Wells is responsible for Product Strategy for Sapiens North America P&C, as well as Sapiens’ Digital Product Suite globally. She possesses expertise in professional services, customer success, running product teams and her true passion — understanding market trends and providing valuable solutions to carriers and customers.