Insurers Set to Embrace Wearable Technologies, Which They Believe Will Have a Significant Impact on Their Industry, According...
May 05 2015 - 5:03AM
Business Wire
Insurers expect wearable devices to be broadly
adopted by their industry within the next two years
Nearly two-thirds of insurers expect wearable technologies to
have a significant impact on their industry, according to a survey
of more than 200 insurance executives as part of Accenture’s
(NYSE:ACN) annual Technology Vision report.
The insurance industry report, “Accenture Technology Vision for
Insurance 2015—Digital Insurance Era: Stretch Your Boundaries,”
highlights emerging developments in IT that will have a great
impact on the insurance industry in the next three to five years.
The survey found that 63 percent of respondents believe that
wearable technologies (“wearables”) will be adopted broadly by the
insurance industry within the next two years, while nearly
one-third (31 percent) said they are already using wearables to
engage customers, employees or partners.
Nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of insurers said that
providing a personalized customer experience is one of their top
three priorities within the organization, and half (50 percent)
claim to already see a positive return from their investment in
personalized technologies.
“While insurers have traditionally based their underwriting and
pricing processes on a limited view of certain customer variables,
emerging technologies such as wearables and other connected devices
can help insurers break from their traditional business models and
provide outcome-based services for their customers,” said John
Cusano, senior managing director of Accenture’s global Insurance
practice. “For instance, one leading insurer recently announced
that it will provide new policyholders with a free fitness band to
track their health progress – and then reward their healthy living
with a reduction in life insurance premiums.”
However, access to large volumes of new data is also causing
insurers some challenges, as the survey found that most insurers
struggle to fully use their existing data. More than half (56
percent) said that managing data is “extremely” or “very
challenging” considering the changes in volume, variety and
velocity. At the same time, nearly nine in 10 respondents (86
percent) said they believe that software intelligence will be
integral to simplifying their IT function.
The Accenture insurance industry report concludes that as the
“intelligent enterprise” is making machines smarter – embedding
software intelligence into every aspect of its business – these
machines can help insurers get more value out of the scale of
information in big data and discover associations among the data
that an individual might not be able to make. The survey found that
two-thirds (66 percent) of insurers said they experiment with
intelligence technology, and three-quarters (76 percent) said they
believe that successful businesses will soon manage employees
alongside intelligent machines.
“Companies are starting to recognize the value provided by
advances in language processing and speech recognition, which are
making it easier for people to interact naturally with technology
and machines,” said Thomas Meyer, managing director of Accenture’s
Insurance practice in Europe, Africa and Latin America. “The
next-generation insurance company will benefit from human and
technology collaboration, with workers leveraging new technologies
such as wearables to augment their abilities and help them make
better decisions.”
The Accenture report also discusses how the majority of insurers
are working to strengthen their business by taking part in open
innovation initiatives, using application programing interfaces
(APIs) to exchange data, and leveraging technology platforms to
deliver better outcomes to partners and customers. Three quarters
(75 percent) of insurers surveyed said that industry boundaries
will dramatically blur as platforms reshape industries into
interconnected ecosystems, and the same number (75 percent) said
they believe the next generation of platforms will be led by
insurance players, not technology companies.
In addition, insurers plan to engage with business partners on
digital initiative in the next two years. Half the respondents
(51 percent) said they plan to partner with major digital
technology and cloud platform leaders, nearly two-thirds (64
percent) plan to engage with new digital partners within the
insurance industry, and 45 percent aim to find partners outside the
industry.
“Platform-based ecosystems are the new plane of competition
emerging as part of the ‘platform (r)evolution’ that’s taking hold,
and insurers that create meaningful ecosystems with the right
partners will be best-placed to thrive in the future,” Cusano said.
“Insurers will have to decide, in short order, whether to create
their own platform ecosystem, partner to develop a new platform
ecosystem, or join one or more established ecosystems.”
Methodology
Accenture Research conducted a global survey of 2,000 business
and IT executives across nine countries and 10 industries to
capture insights into the adoption of emerging technologies.
The insurance industry report, “Accenture Technology Vision
for Insurance 2015—Digital Insurance Era: Stretch Your Boundaries,”
is based on the sample of 221 respondents from insurance companies
across the world. The survey identified key issues and priorities
for technology adoption and investment. Respondents were mostly
C-level executives and directors, with some functional and
line-of-business leads, at companies with annual revenues of at
least US$500 million, with the majority of companies having annual
revenues greater than US$6 billion.
About Accenture
Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services
and outsourcing company, with more than 323,000 people serving
clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled
experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and
business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most
successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help
them become high-performance businesses and governments. The
company generated net revenues of US$30.0 billion for the fiscal
year ended Aug. 31, 2014. Its home page
is www.accenture.com.
AccentureMelissa Volin, + 1
267-216-1815melissa.volin@accenture.comorFrancois Luu, + 33 660 538
428francois.luu@accenture.com
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