The future of insurance is here! With the rise of AI, predictive analytics, and chatbots combined with cutting-edge tech like drones, blockchain technology and IoT taking center stage - even the FBI has taken notice. Get ready for a revolution in how we use technology to secure our futures. Then came 2022, when insurers focused on pandemic recovery and meeting customer expectations for digitization and personalization. While adapting to the latest insurance technologies was a challenging experience for many carriers, those who did are selling more benefits faster and smarter than ever before. From underwriting and claims to the customer journey and distribution methods, here are the top insurance technology trends our team believes will be beneficial to carriers in 2023.

In my blog series on how to boost your Artificial Intelligence Quotient, I looked at different ways to apply AI along the insurance value chain across the entire enterprise. In this post, I'll look at the role the future workforce will play in creating AI-driven companies, using insights gleaned from our Future Workforce Survey for Insurance . Accenture research suggests, by the year 2035, AI will grow productivity in key economies by up to 40 percent. AI offers its greatest value by augmenting the work that people do and improving the way they consume and interact with their communities. AI also presents the opportunity for business transformation by creating intelligent processes in the value chain and intelligent products and services in the market.

Who will be doing the industry's work in the months and years ahead? It can't all be done by AI systems and robots. If anything, there will be more people working in the industry than ever before. That's why insurers are increasingly relying on contingent workers and services as they move forward into the digital world. That's the word from the authors of a recent study of 800 organizations conducted by SAP Fieldglass, in conjunction with Oxford Economics.

Insurers can seize major growth opportunities by redesigning work, bringing in new talent, and pivoting their existing workforces to work with artificial intelligence (AI), according to a new repot by Accenture. The report, Future Workforce Survey – Insurance: Realizing the Full Value of AI, maintains that insurers that invest in AI and human-machine collaboration at the same rate as top-performing businesses could, over the next five years, boost their revenue 17 percent and their employment 7 percent, on average. According to the report – based on two surveys, one of 100 senior insurance executives and another of more than 900 non-executive insurance workers in 11 countries– the insurance workforce needs to be trained to collaborate effectively with AI. For instance, the executives surveyed believe that only one in four of their workers are ready to work with AI, and more than four in 10 (43 percent) cite a growing skills gap as the top factor influencing their workforce strategy. A majority (61 percent) of the executives surveyed expect that the workforce of the future will be a blend of humans and machines.

Insurers must increase their efforts to integrate artificial intelligence efforts with an evolving workforce in order to take best advantage of the new technology, according to a report released Thursday by consultancy Accenture P.L.C. The report, Future Workforce Survey – Insurance: Realizing the Full Value of AI, said that artificial intelligence "is likely to transform the world of business." Artificial intelligence, the report said, must be seen as more than just a set of tools to make operations more efficient. "We believe AI, when synthesized with human ingenuity across the enterprise, will achieve exponentially more," the report said. Insurers which invest in such an AI and human-machine collaboration at the same rate of top-performing businesses could boost revenue by 17% and their employment 7%, on average, between 2018 and 2022, the report said.

Data and analytics are and always have been at the very heart of the insurance industry. Successfully setting insurance premiums depends on being able to accurately analyze the risks involved. And as digitalization takes hold, data and analytics are becoming even more important to the industry. In addition to the plethora of data that insurers hold in their own systems, the Internet of Things, social media, and insurers' increasingly large ecosystems of partners and suppliers offer a wealth of structured and unstructured information that can be used to drive new business models, greater efficiency, and increased competitiveness. This is also highlighted in a recent report, "Insurance Megavendors Shift Focus to Digital Platforms," where Gartner compared some of the top vendors in the industry on their data and analytics capabilities.

Earnix, a provider of analytics solutions for the financial services industry, today announced the results of a global survey of insurance executives, which shows wide adoption of Machine Learning across the globe, and the expectation that ML will bring "significant" change to the industry over the next three to five years. Over half (54%) of the almost 200 insurance executives surveyed said that their organization was using Machine Learning for predictive analytical modelling. Of those deploying the technology, 70% said they were using it for risk modelling; followed by demand models (45%) and fraud detection (36%). Although nascent, most companies using Machine Learning have realized measurable benefits. Over half of the respondents (57%) said that Machine Learning has made their analytical models far more accurate, which has led to better risk assessments, and ultimately better decisions.

Together, the last two responses add up to 71 percent of respondents, and Accenture reports that insurers are investing in AI in several areas of the business, including distribution, claims and underwriting. They are looking to empower agents, brokers and employees to enhance the customer experience with automated personalized services, faster claims handling and individual risk-based underwriting processes, Accenture said in a statement. Separately, Carrier Management interviewed representatives of four global insurance groups--XL Catlin, Allianz, QBE and Zurich--who described some of the AI initiatives already underway at their firms. They range from condensing lengthy engineering reports for swifter underwriting, reassigning some of the claims administrative services handled by offshore humans to robots, interpreting crop risk information delivered by drones, and deciphering communications from customers with heavy accents using natural language processing. Also detailed is Zurich's use of a multilingual natural language processing product called Cogito from Expert Systems that mines complicated, voluminous claims data to rapidly provide more refined information to claims adjusters for faster decision-making.

Tel Aviv, Israel, Thursday 1 June 2017 – Earnix, a leading provider of analytics solutions for the financial services industry, today announced the results of a global survey of insurance executives, which shows wide adoption of Machine Learning across the globe, and the expectation that ML will bring "significant" change to the industry over the next 3-5 years. Over half (54%) of the almost 200 insurance executives surveyed said that their organization was using Machine Learning for predictive analytical modelling. Of those deploying the technology, 70% said they were using it for risk modelling; followed by demand models (45%) and fraud detection (36%). Although nascent, most companies using Machine Learning have realized measurable benefits. Over half of the respondents (57%) said that Machine Learning has made their analytical models far more accurate, which has led to better risk assessments, and ultimately better decisions.

Insurance executives believe that artificial intelligence (AI) will significantly transform their industry in the next three years, with insurers investing in AI to empower agents, brokers and employees to enhance the customer experience with automated personalized services, faster claims handling and individual risk-based underwriting processes, according to Accenture's Technology Vision for Insurance 2017. At the same time, however, the report found that insurers face challenges integrating AI into their existing technology, citing issues such as data quality, privacy and infrastructure compatibility. Titled "Technology for People," the report is based on the insights of a technology advisory board, interviews with industry technologists and a survey of more than 550 insurance executives across 31 countries. According to the report, three-quarters (75 percent) of insurance executives believe that AI will either significantly alter or completely transform the overall insurance industry in the next three years. One-third (32 percent) believe that their own company will be "completely transformed" by AI within that timeframe, and an additional 39 percent believe that AI will "significantly change" their company.