The insurtech trends making the greatest impact in 2017

A study of Google Trends will show you a huge spike in the mentions of'InsurTech' since February 2016, and that's because people and investors are beginning to take note of how state-of-the-art AI can enhance the insurance sphere and disrupt specific elements of the insurance value chain. Indeed, according to PwC's 2017 Global InsurTech Report, 45% of insurers are currently partnered with InsurTech players, whilst a staggering 94% have aligned their priorities closer to emerging trends and AI-led risk insights and customer engagement. Whilst there is budding support from all camps to evolve the traditionally fairly inertial insurance industry, there is little to suggest that innovation will come from incumbent insurers. The insurance disruption space hasn't seen nearly as much activity as fintech, but 2017 has seen the trinity of technological trends - machine learning, AI and Big Data - cross over and fuel the motor of change within InsurTech. But how fast is the industry moving and how worried should incumbent insurers be?