Forward
Digital insurers continue to enhance the insurance value chain with more intelligent and automated decisions. 2018 saw many able to improve their combined ratio through analytics-driven process optimization, operational improvement, and predictive capabilities. For 2019, we expect this trend to further accelerate as digital transformation continues to gain momentum and priority, resulting in more focused strategies with access to more resources and budget.
Outlook
In a recent Gartner survey conducted with more than 150 insurance CIOs, “digital transformation has emerged as the most common top strategic business priority among global insurance CIOs”. This is up from second place reported in the same survey conducted a year ago. For the last few years, many stakeholders have witnessed this trend unfolding, but the excitement and momentum has been accelerating during the last 12 months. According to the Gartner Survey, “data and analytics continues to be the most commonly mentioned game-changing technology among insurance CIOs; however, artificial intelligence (AI) has moved to second on the list for 2018 and 2019. Focusing on how to build data mastery throughout the value chain is a critical strategic priority for most insurance CIOs.” The report further states, “During the last 12 months, Gartner has seen great interest in the use cases and application of AI for many tasks, including chatbots for customer service, underwriting assistance platforms, and AI for no-touch claims processing.”
2019 will be a year of innovation across the insurance sector, with many companies accelerating their digital maturity despite cultural challenges or technical challenges associated with legacy systems. With digital maturity will come the better use of data and more advanced analytics that provide better insights for decision making. We will also see the pockets of innovation found throughout insurance companies start to converge, such as scoring algorithms for usage-based insurance (UBI) extending beyond the auto insurance vertical and product line. Ultimately, increased digital maturity and innovation convergence will help insurers meet their underlining objectives for the year.
Enablement
At Octo, we continue to support insurers through their digital transformation. No matter what stage the insurer is in their digital maturity, our insurance-focused breadth of services significantly reduce the time-to-market and increase return on investment (ROI).
Octo’s insurance IoT platform is built on four pillars:
- Insurance-specific: Enable the application of IoT data to critical insurance-specific uses, including risk management, claims management, and customer management.
- Fully modular: Every aspect of the platform can be leveraged individually or as part of a comprehensive solution, allowing insurers to leverage in-house solution or platform capabilities as needed.
- Extensible: Platform development tools, extensive APIs, and our partner ecosystem allow insurers to extend the value of the platform, explore new use cases, and connect new lines of business.
- Device agnostic: Respond to customer needs and market trends through the platform’s open architecture and sensor-agnostic plug-and-play device model, allowing us to ingest data from any source.
Octo’s insurance IoT platform, uniquely links the characteristics of a horizontal IoT framework with pre-built vertical use cases for insurance, helping insurance companies accelerate their digital evolution, drive revenue growth, and minimize claims. Octo’s insurance IoT platform has been cited in Gartner’s paper “How to Achieve Digital Business Excellence by Mastering the Pervasiveness of Integration” published in December 2018 (ID G00373656).
Octo’s insurance IoT platform is designed to be truly device agnostic, supporting Octo devices, third-party and mobile devices, and multiple data sources that continue to develop with our enlarging partner ecosystem. Complexities and compatibility are fully maintained by the platform through sensor normalization, before value propositions such as data management, advanced analytics, CRM & Digital (including smartphone as UX) service multiple vertical business lines (see Figure 1).
About Octo Telematics
Octo is the number one global provider of telematics and data analytics solutions for the insurance industry. Founded in 2002, Octo is one of the pioneers of the insurance telematics industry. Today, Octo is the largest and most experienced insurance telematics company in the world, transforming auto insurance through behavioral, contextual and driving analytics for more than 100 insurance partners. Octo has more than 5.6 million connected users and the largest global database of telematics data, with over 228 billion miles of driving data collected and 456,000 crashes and insurance events analyzed.
Octo is headquartered in Rome, with offices in Boston, London, Stuttgart, Madrid, and Sao Paulo. To find your local office, please visit www.octotelematics.com.
Research Attribution:
Gartner 2019 CIO Agenda: Insurance Industry Insights, Kimberly Harris-Ferrante, 15 October 2018