With more consumer data available now than ever before, simply having access to this data isn’t enough to drive performance for insurers. They need to have a strategy for harnessing the power of this data through advanced analytics to uncover tangible insights that can impact their bottom line.
Especially for an industry like insurance that is built around accurate risk modeling and predictions, data analytics provides a key way for insurers to augment their risk assessment abilities with real-time data.
Let’s take a closer look at how data analytics is transforming the insurance industry and how insurers can leverage these advanced capabilities to their advantage.
The Power of Data Analytics in the Insurance Industry
Data analytics is playing a transformative role across the insurance sector. Insurance has always been a data-driven industry. However, access to such data wasn’t always as convenient and comprehensive as it is today.
From enhancing insurers’ ability to offer personalized pricing and coverage options to bolstering their fraud detection abilities, data analytics can help insurers make more informed decisions based on the available information. It allows insurers to streamline their back-office operations while still leveraging the latest technology and innovations to mitigate risk and provide policyholders with more relevant coverage recommendations.
Especially when it comes to predictive insights, data analytics is what makes it possible to transform vast amounts of data into tangible takeaways that can drive an insurer’s strategy. In other words, it can help insurers predict future claims based on historical data to more accurately assess the risk of providing coverage to a specific policyholder.
Learn more about Data Analytics and Insuresoft’s Diamond Platform.
Understanding the Data Deluge: Challenges and Opportunities
As we mentioned above, there is more data available today than ever before, with approximately 328.77 million terabytes of data being created each day! To put this into perspective, it is estimated that 90% of the existing data in the world has been created in just the past two years.
Thus, data is being generated at an exponential rate. This means that despite the increasing amount of data available today, it can still be challenging for organizations to manage it successfully and efficiently, which is the definition of data deluge.
The Challenges
For insurers, managing a vast amount of data can be overwhelming, and they need to ensure they have the proper infrastructure and tools to process and store such large volumes.
In addition, simply having access to just any data isn’t what will help insurers glean valuable insights. They need to have access to high-quality data that is accurate and reliable in order to use it in decision-making. Plus, insurers typically store sensitive consumer data due to the nature of their operations, putting them at risk for costly and devastating breaches that are becoming more frequent nowadays.
The Opportunities
With these challenges come plenty of opportunities, some of which we have briefly discussed above. Having access to great volumes of data can help insurers enhance their underwriting process and risk assessment capabilities. This can help them get a better idea of their risk exposure and be more strategic to whom they extend coverage.
Together, data analytics and automation can streamline workflows and speed up the claims management process. This also allows insurers to segment policyholders with more targeted marketing and policy recommendations, leading to better satisfaction and retention over time.
Key Components of Successful Insurance Data Analytics
There are a few key elements that contribute to successful insurance data analytics initiatives, which we will explain in further detail below.
Data Quality
Again, the quality of data that insurers rely on in their data analytics practice is highly important. Having good data quality is the foundation for successful and useful data analytics and should not be overlooked. This means utilizing data sets that are complete, accurate, and up-to-date. Otherwise, poor data quality can lead to inaccurate forecasts, poor policyholder targeting, and wrongful predictions that can be costly for the insurer and detract from the policyholder experience.
Modeling Techniques
Effective data analytics also depends on the modeling techniques that are utilized. As technology advances and innovations emerge, data analytics capabilities are only evolving to provide more precise insights for insurers. Put differently, the advent of advanced technologies like predictive modeling, machine learning, and artificial intelligence is how insurers can reveal the valuable insights that power their risk assessment, pricing, fraud detection, and other processes.
Technology Infrastructure
Insurers may also need to upgrade their technology infrastructure in order to support the use of advanced data analytics in their day-to-day operations. For starters, utilizing such techniques requires a large volume of data, which will need sufficient storage space, like in data warehouses, to be effective.
There are also dedicated data analytics tools and software programs that insurers will need. These may require an upfront investment to be appropriately implemented and ensure relevant stakeholders are adequately trained to read and interpret the results of the models.
The Future of Insurance Data Analytics: Emerging Trends and Innovations
Looking forward, the pace of technological advancement and data generation will not slow anytime soon; rather, they are only speeding up. As automation, cloud computing, and machine learning capabilities improve, data analytics models will provide insurers with new ways to interpret data and make informed decisions that drive the business forward.
At Insuresoft, we understand that data and innovation drive the modern insurance industry, and we want to help insurers uncover data-based insights that drive policyholder engagement and boost their competitive edge in the market.
We developed the Diamond Insurance Data analytics hub so insurers can gain real-time access to operational data and dashboards that power strategic business decisions. Using both internal and third-party data, insurers can tap into advanced business intelligence with Insuresoft to track performance and optimize operations where needed. With intuitive data visualizations powered by real-time data, Insuresoft makes data analytics efficient and straightforward for insurers navigating the digital age.
Learn more about Data Analytics and Insuresoft’s Diamond Platform.
