Insurers must win trust before fully leveraging big data

Insurers must balance the way they use the increasing amount of data available to them with a commitment to winning consumers’ trust in the way it is used.

That was one of the key findings of a panel discussion called Data Analytics for the New Digital Insurance Enterprise at the Intelligent InsurTECH Europe conference, which took place in London today (November 16, 2016), under Chatham House rules.

The panel of experts, chaired by Farhana Alarakhiya, vice president at RMS, and which included a panel of senior executives from BUPA Global, Generali, AXA and AIG, agreed that while big data represented a big opportunity there would also be challenges ahead.

The panellists said that although analytics is nothing new to insurers in many senses, the industry is at a very early stage in its ability to use and leverage big data.

They agreed that the challenge will differ for each company tackling this challenge but also said that the expertise around data science would become increasingly core to insurers and the future success of many companies would depend on their ability to leverage it.

They also noted that the industry has very successfully used data to master and accurately price other types of risks, including many natural catastrophe risks.