Almost all respondents in a survey on InsurTech believe that insurance technology offers important infrastructure or support for the future development of the insurance industry. Among interviewees, 68% believe that InsurTech offers important infrastructure for the future development of the industry; and 30% of interviewees, mainly those from traditional insurance companies, believe that InsurTech offers important support but is not a decisive factor for future development. Only 2% of respondents indicated that InsurTech had little impact or importance.

These findings are published in the report “InsurTech: Infrastructure for New Insurance” produced jointly by ZhongAn Fintech Institute and KPMG China. They conducted a survey of approximately 200 industry professionals who hailed from various industry institutions, including traditional insurance companies, Internet insurance companies, Internet companies, technology companies, and university research institutions. The departments from which the interviewees came included marketing departments, actuarial departments, product departments, financial departments, investment departments, and underwriting and claims departments.

Technology type

The survey found that 93% and 87% of interviewees respectively believe that big data and artificial intelligence will have a great impact on the future development of the insurance industry. AI, in particular, is beginning to flourish and is creating a great imagination space for technology oriented development in the industry. Nearly 90% of interviewees regard it as the second most impactful technology affecting the industry.

Additionally, more than half of interviewees indicated that cloud computing, biomedical technology, blockchain, and the Internet of Things will have a great impact.

However, compared to other technologies, the number of interviewees who think that 5G will have a big impact was relatively small.

Processes

In terms of industry processes, interviewees generally indicated that all value chain processes would be changed by technology to various degrees. Specifically, the views are:

• 87% said marketing and channels would be impacted,
• 81% said the claims process would be impacted,
• 81% said the product design process would be impacted, 79% said the underwriting process would be impacted,
• 77% said the customer service process would be impacted,
• 75% said the pricing process would be impacted.

These results are fairly consistent with current technology utilisation levels in the insurance industry.

ZhongAn, an online-only InsurTech firm, listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, is seeking to position itself as a global provider of insurance but geopolitical reverberations, and rapid changes in technology including AI, big data and fragmented regulatory environment, are currently a significant hurdle.