While the first quarter saw a downturn in insurtech funding, the social and economic disruption caused by COVID-19 may present tech firms with opportunities amid the shift to digital commerce and online interactions, sources say.
“This is exactly the right moment, the right excuse, for insurance companies and brokers to push digital transformation,” said Dogan Kaleli, New York-based co-chair, global facilities/programs practice group, and head of programs business, North America for Allianz Global Corporate and Specialty, a unit of Allianz SE.
“It’s now been proven, you have to support a remote working force,” he said.
Insurers’ increased dependence on technology to maintain operations during the pandemic may hasten further adoption.
“If anything, it accelerates the urgency,” said Marie Carr, principal of global growth strategy and U.S. financial services practice in Chicago for PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC.
Changes due to be made in three to five years had to be done sooner or immediately, she said. “They had to pay claims digitally, had to get those bills out,” she said.
There is a lot of focus on insurtech now, said Andrew Lerner, managing partner of IA Capital Group Inc.
“It’s more important than ever because people are not meeting face to face,” he said. “It’s accelerating the trend. Some pivot to digital we thought would happen over five years will happen in 2020.”
