Disrupt or be disrupted, insurers

The insurance industry, as it emerged during the premier East Africa InsureTech Forum organized by CIO East Africa and Zep-Re in Nairobi, Kenya is ripe for disruption.

Alan Lule, Master Principal Solution Engineer at Oracle could not articulate it better that disruption is all the industry needs to remain relevant. In his presentation on ‘Building the Insurance for the 21st Century‘, Lule noted that insurers in the 21st Century are completely different from what they were initially.

“The millennials, key buyers of insurance in this century, do not believe in car and house insurance products. They want phone insurance products so they are assured of new phones every time they lose them,” said Luke Adding; ” Sitting down with the younger generation to understand their insurance needs will steadily revolutionize insurance products portfolio for the 21C clientele.”

He further noted that 50percent of insurance firms fear that they will lose business to disruptive insurance startups that have and continue to embrace technologies into their operations, driving home the hard reality facing the industry of a possibly face-out in the event they do not comply to  technology advancements.

The industry captain mentioned ideas that when innovated and re-innovated, will assist the industry to further develop new products and generally increase penetration and profitability.

The insuretech forum was themed to ‘Connect the Digital Future of Insurance Today’, was hosted for the first time in Nairobi and attracted industry creme’ dela creme’ from both the the insurance and technology industries.

In his conclusion, Allan pointed out that the insurance must not cower to digitize operations and disrupt its modules. He assured the industry that all tools were available for the disruption and that if they dint self disrupt, then someone else will heed the opportunity.

Watch out for the next East African InsuranceTechnology (Insuretech) summit in 2020.