Forbes: Insurance, a fintech laggard, hints at change

25 January 2016

The year ahead will probably not be a year of big change for the insurance industry, although optimistic experts profess to see some carriers experimenting with fintech innovation. Still, industry experts at Capgemini are cautious.

“We keep expecting the better mousetrap will be invented at some point,” said Shane Cassidy, vice president and head of property and casualty insurance at Capgemini. “I think we will see a lot of really big change by 2020. Insurance is the last data-driven business that hasn’t been disrupted, except around the edges.”

“Insurers are such laggards in general,” agreed Bill Sullivan, head of global financial services market intelligence at Capgemini. “They are really burdened with legacy systems and lack of agility,” he added. “We could have had this same conversation 10 or 15 or 20 years ago, although I think we are starting to see a turning point where they have to become more agile.”

Sullivan said that Capgemini does an annual survey and interviews with insurance executives and one of the biggest threats they see is Google and Amazon “because they know their access to the data allows them to do something insurers would struggle to do.”

“Everyone recognizes they need to move to modern architects system if they are going to have any chance,” said Cassidy.

Full article


© Forbes