As we move further into the digital age, with new start-up companies and innovators developing more intricate technologies, there’s a greater need to raise the question—who benefits from this tech?
During the Insuretech Connect Conference held in April, we learned that in many parts of the insurance industry, technology is vastly undervalued or used inefficiently. Contrasted to many other major industries where paperless billing, email/app notification and other automated systems are taking over, the insurance industry is very far from the technologically advanced, automated processing that one would imagine in a modern company. The insurer’s core product hasn’t changed fundamentally since its start. However, with the explosion of technological advances, it’s undoubtedly going to look different in the future— a future where changes in technology and data, changes in societal trends and changes in behaviors open up amazing new possibilities for the industry.
Insurance companies already began to utilize some of the remarkable advantages in technology in areas that include: computer vision, conversational Ai, blockchain, robotics, and sensors.
Plumis Limited, a tech start-up based in London built a product for fire safety innovation that relies on a pivoting sensor to find the room’s hottest point and activate water mist sprinklers to that target area. Plumis’ product, Automist Smartscan, gives insurance underwriters a chance to “see” inside the risks their firm covers. Automist uses a black box to record every aspect of a fire breakout, offering claims managers the chance to understand the damage’s scale, causation, and any preventative measures for the future. More importantly, Automist Smartscan addresses a fire in less time than a traditional fire sprinkler system, and with only one-tenth of the water supply. The value of which would mean far less time spent on the claims and compensation process.
Similarly, connectivity between the Smartscan system and insurers give Plumis and insurers the opportunity to create many more relevant services as the very nature of risk in homes begin to change. For example, this could open the door for a smartscan watermist system that also functions as a security system using some of the aforementioned areas of technology.
Changes in the world, and by extent the insurance industry, can seem scary. A future resulting in the elimination of human involvement, in addition to the increased connectivity and use of real time sensory controls like Automist Smartscan, will have consequences that will need to be addressed. The tech industry cannot face them alone. It is fundamentally important for insurers to be more involved with these tech companies, asking the relevant questions, testing their abilities and moving forward together in a world that will evolve with or without the industry’s input.
Click here to see Plumis’ founder, Yusuf Muhammad, speak about Automist Smartscan at the Insuretech Connect Conference in Las Vegas, NV 2017.