Do you want to know what the insurance industry will look like in 2022?

Continue reading to stay ahead of competitors, keep your premiums low and maintain a strong business?

It’s 2022 and even though the year spells differently, there seem not to be a huge difference. Especially with the unsteadiness of the Coronavirus pandemic. Nobody knows what it will metamorphose into - from “Omicron to what?”!

The second month of 2022 is already upon us and many insurance companies are already driving at full throttle towards the end of the year, following in detail their roadmap with the KPI’s and OKR’s boldly stuck to their walls.

There’s no gloom - depending on what you are reading. For instance, AXA Mansard report recently their 2021 financial year report. The difference in headlines but the content is the same: 

• Axa Mansard’s annual profit shrinks by 22% amid soaring insurance claims - Premium Times

• AXA Mansard Insurance reports 24% growth in premium - Business Day

Talk about half full and half empty. 😂

Looking at the report, instead of dwelling on the numbers, I’m looking at the future. What is AXA Mansard promising its customers in the future? Anyway, 2022 is part of that future. 

The AXA Mansard Insurance CEO - Kunle Ahmed, said it best in the report statement:

“ The increase in our claims paid further emphasize our financial strength and capacity to protect businesses in a very challenging economy. As we wrap up the year 2021, we will continue to improve our distribution channels, refine our service delivery and horn our underwriting and technical capabilities for the ultimate benefit of our customers”

Its CFO - Ngozi Ola-Israel also buttressed further;

“The fundamentals of the business remain strong and we remain committed to continuous improvement in our technical and operational performance as we approach the end of the year.”

**Disclaimer: AXA Mansard is Curacel’s client.

This is 2022…

The insurance industry is positioned for a period of purposeful growth, despite the unnerving economic and structural challenges, the increasingly intense competition and ongoing tech-driven disruptions.

Despite the continued uncertainty, the economic recovery also continues with global GDP expected to grow by 4.9% in 2022. The GDP growth suggests that a sizable demand for insurance products and services will happen this year - 2022.

Insurance Trends - 2022 

We followed insurance trends (and this here and here) every year. This year we are bringing trends from reports provided by 3 big firms and their take on how the industry is likely to fair this year. 

Before we plunged in, know this 👇🏽: Two big things jumped out at us - increased technology investments and talent attraction, development and retention in the industry. 

• Insurers are buckled up to accelerate growth in 2022

• Attracting (and retaining) talent in an evolving hybrid work environment will be key

Read also: Driving Innovation and Transformation in Insurance with AI

The Insurance 2022 Trends Breakdown:

EY.

Platform: 

- Ecosystems, open insurance and customer-driven competition are driving profound business model shifts.

- Carriers will look to partner with or acquire the most promising InsurTechs, and banks and asset managers will offer more protection products and seek to differentiate on holistic financial wellness value propositions, forcing insurers to choose between collaboration and competition.

Talent: 

- In the age of AI and automation, human capital is a differentiating source of value for insurers with the right talent and an attractive employee experience.

- Not that long ago, the conventional wisdom in insurance held that workers would lose their jobs as insurers adopted more technology and automated more processes. Yet a profound shift was underway even before the COVID-19 pandemic, with business leaders working to address skills gaps, update their talent practices and instil more dynamic and agile ways of working. Now, competition has intensified for the most talented workers, who are more empowered to work when, where and how they want.

Leadership: 

- COVID-19 demonstrated why the insurance industry is essential – not only to global economic health and increased financial wellness but also to protect what people value most. The decisions and actions leaders take today can meaningfully influence the future of the industry and the lives and livelihoods of billions of people around the globe.

- Today, however, leading insurers are taking tangible steps and adopting hard metrics to address the full range of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues and opportunities. 

Technology: 

- Insurers must continue to address their technology debt by digitizing core processes, migrating to the cloud and embracing flexible sourcing models.

- Insurers must retool their platforms around APIs and microservices to enable secure and seamless connections among partners.

Customer Support: 

Insurers had to be there for customers and undertake large-scale change quickly to make sure they could serve people in need – and they must continue to do so, particularly if they are to help the world prepare for increasing climate risk.

Regulation and Policy: 

Rather than waiting for regulators to define the rules, insurers should join the discussions about open insurance to ensure a level playing field as they seek to engage consumers in new ways.

In the age of AI and automation, human capital is a differentiating source of value for insurers with the right talent and an attractive employee experience.

EY

DELOITTE.

The global economy is projected to grow 5.9 per cent in 2021 and 4.9 percent in 2022, 0.1 percentage points lower for 2021 than in the July forecast. The downward revision for 2021 reflects a downgrade for advanced economies—in part due to supply disruptions—and for low-income developing countries, largely due to worsening pandemic dynamics.

Talent:

- Insurers expect to increase headcount in most of their functional areas in 2022. Insurers are preparing for even greater economic recovery and a boost in their own business volume.

- The big question: "where will all that talent come from? And how will they be able to recruit and retain the skills set to maintain and advance increasingly digitized operations?

Technology:

- Technology budget is expected to rise by 13.7% in 2022. Emerging technologies with increased spending will be on AI, cloud, data privacy, data acquisition/processing as well as for analytics.

- While digitization is an important priority, insurers also should not neglect the value of the human touch, given product and process complexities embedded throughout the insurance life cycle.

Trust distinguishes and elevates companies such as insurers, connecting them with the common good - "linking trust with economic prosperity"

Deloitte

Accenture.

Revenue & Growth. 

As we stated in our Insurance Revenue Landscape 2025 report, we expect global insurance industry revenues to grow to $7.5 trillion by the end of 2025. 

Digitization. 

The digitization of cross-border trade and the proliferation of sensors and other IoT and connected technologies across supply chains allow for real-time access to risk data. Advanced analytics and AI now enable insurers to offer risk mitigation and management solutions and to automate payment of claims when necessary.  

Talent. 

- In 2022, the pressures and shifts they create will force insurers to disrupt long-standing apprenticeship models that the industry has relied on for skilling in essential functions like claims and underwriting. They also exacerbate ongoing struggles to attract and retain talent in roles critical to insurance workforce transformation like technology, analytics, and actuarial. Insurers will always need humans.

- But with fewer workers, they increasingly need humans enabled by machines, transforming how work gets done regardless of who’s doing it or where.  

Technology. 

- Insurers are ready to see their digital transformation and cloud platform investments of the last two years pay off in the form of cost reduction and new business. In 2022, we will see transformation programs aimed at reducing expense ratios and boosting profitability through increased process efficiency and decision effectiveness in underwriting.

- While efficient and effective underwriting processes and decisions are critical, most insurers’ underwriting platforms cannot handle the volume and complexity of the data required. 

Advanced analytics and AI now enable insurers to offer risk mitigation and management solutions and to automate payment of claims when necessary.  

Accenture

The global economy is projected to grow 5.9 percent in 2021 and 4.9 percent in 2022, 0.1 percentage points lower for 2021 than in the July forecast.

As you continue to plan for your business growth in 2022, you should build resilience. The resilience that will allow you to be brutal in delivering amazing products, an amiable customer delight culture and a place where talents can be nurtured, grow and thrive. 

We greet the year ahead with hope. But hope is not a strategy.  

The risk landscape is changing. Specific impacts will vary for insurers based on their book of business and market positioning. But scenario-based planning is essential to making your business strategy resilient in the face of uncertainty in 2022 and beyond. 

Insurers need to make efforts to invest those resources into growing their business – especially in technology, talent and distribution - which could be the key for them to thrive.

Visit EY, Deloitte and Accenture to read the full insurance trends for 2022 to understand more about what's coming up. 

Find out how your organization can succeed over the next five years. Visit curacel.co for details.