If 2018 was the year of disruption and startups rose to agitate an ageing industry, 2019 is the time to reflect and make it work.

Robin Merttens (Co-Founder and Partner at InsTech London), Matthew Grant (Executive Director at Abernite), Paolo Cuomo (Principal at BCG focused on Insurance and InsurTech) and Mark Geoghegan (Editorial Director at Insurance Insider) set the scene in a panel discussion on what was to be the overall theme for the evening.

2018 was a great year of promising disruptive influence. But looking back, it seems some of these promises are yet to be fulfilled. The event provided the stage to debate: Is there a fundamental motion/intent missing or is this the beginning of meaningful changes?

Stop trying to ‘put lipstick on a pig’

 Scratching the surface will not change what is below, the fragmented, ageing process. If last year was the year of new ideas and poking the beast, this year is the year to make it work. Look beyond, not just around and change the rut from inside. The focus has to be on finding solutions for problems and not the other way around.

Focus on customer-centric solutions 

 It is now easier than ever to get insurance. You can customise it, pay monthly, weekly, hourly in a few clicks. More than ever the concept of adding less hassle more value is there. Insurers have got the message, they need to listen to their users. And from listening to users, it emerged that there is non-insurance related value that they can add.

Cross-sector collaboration in an innovation ecosystem

Of course, insurers will not start to provide car maintenance but instead they can collaborate with a brand that can, that being a start-up or else. Believe it when you see it? Look at Milan Sud’s (AXA) example, Fixter, fruit of a partnership with AXA. 

This is not the only industry where we see cross-sector collaboration trending.

Getting more value out of data

Adoption of advanced analytics, automation and data-driven applications are creating new opportunities. Can they be integrated into the current large-scale workflow or will they feature in stimulating organisational changes?

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