The INSURTECH Book

Seamless Insurance: The Time is Now

By Henrique Volpi

Author, InsurTech Entrepreneur and Co-Founder, Kakau

The connected world and digital transformation is impacting every industry. The insurance industry is no exception and encounters its own revolution now. From peer-to-peer platforms, on-demand contracts, and wearable devices, the focus has shifted significantly to the user and the user experience. For hundreds of years the industry was somewhat provider-centric – the concerns centred around loss ratio and profitability. And for hundreds of years the relationship was analogue, bureaucratic, and unfriendly. From the customer’s perspective the system is entirely broken: policies are expensive, claims processes are long and complex, and it takes too long for the customer to get paid. There is no trust between incumbents and their customers. In the case of commercial customers, a significant share of the claims regulation ends up being discussed in arbitration boards.

InsurTechs are starting to change this scenario, providing new products, digital channels, and an approach overtly centred around the user experience. Customers are becoming “users” and benefiting from the digital transformation with blockchain, machine learning, chatbots, and cloud-based solutions such as Lemonade, Trov, and Oscar. What comes next? Seamless Insurance. Deriving from the term “Seamless Banking” first coined in 2015 by futurist Anders Sorman-Nilsson,¹ we envision a “Seamless Insurance” concept, ...