Important reading for Insurers in Nigel Walsh's review of his 2016 Insurtech forecasts and new 2017 ideas.

I would add one other major impact.

The industry standard insurance ERP platforms like Guidewire, SAP, 1Insurer, Systema etc I liken to the legacy CRM products now displaced by Salesforce.com.  They do anything you want but complex needing:-

  • armies of consultants to deploy and maintain
  • large capital and revenue budgets
  • maybe worst of all just so slow to deploy and iterate.  

What's required is a Salesforce.com equivalant that can be implemented fast without having to throw out the current legacy systems. 

Simple, secure, scalable URL linkage between the new cloud platform and the legacy back-office systems.

 Not just for the niches, like Lemonade, but for the bread & butter insurance like:-

  • Vehicle Insurance- private, business & commercial
  • Building & Contents- private and commercial
  • Pets
  • Travel

All on a transaction based licensing model e.g. per claim processed so as to be commercially viable. 

I predict some of the largest global insurers will implement this strategy in 2017 whilst laggards will wait on the sidelines only to dive in during 2018.