John Hancock announced John Hancock Aspire with Vitality, the first of its kind life insurance designed specifically for Americans living with diabetes, in collaboration with Verily, an Alphabet company, and Onduo.
Now, there’s a movement in the insurance industry to leverage new forms of surveillance to assess risk during the underwriting process of life insurance policies (the process of assessing a potential customer’s risk).
Life underwriting professionals are experiencing a paradigm shift in modus operandi, driven by the introduction of automation initiatives. Multiple consulting studies and analyses indicate that automation in underwriting is a valid business need. The coevolution of humans and technology must be supported by business strategies that focus on identifying necessary underwriting skill sets. The convergence of the art of underwriting and the science of technology presents many challenges. Insurers and reinsurers must plan accordingly.
Life Insurance Industry Trends Insurtech Survey 2019
Lest anyone think the previous exchange is fanciful or seems a bit paranoid, it is already happening. It is known as using accelerated underwriting using external data and over two dozen U.S. insurers are currently using it.
The pressure is on for carriers to provide the best customer experience, while implementing consistent, comprehensive and accurate underwriting policies. Advanced e-underwriting systems can help insurers respond.
Epigenetics is poised to improve the underwriting process, moving beyond deep venous puncture blood collection and a lengthy approval process that takes months to complete.
Perspectives magazine checked in with several BGAs, carriers and technology vendors to see how we sit on the learning curve, as well as discovering what lies ahead in technology to help you make the grade.
The Life Predictive Analytics Survey Report from Willis Towers Watson
There was a time in the very early days of life-insurance underwriting, somewhere actually in the 1700s, when the only useful and predictive piece of data recognized was age. And using it affected a simple equation: as the certainty of death approached year by year, so was risk duly assessed. It would take another two hundred years or so before we began to understand that gender also directly impacts the science of mortality. We now utilize a wealth of information to analyze and quantify risk, and yet, it appears, we may have still only scratched the surface. Today, we could be standing at the precipice of a quantum leap in how we understand, interpret and eventually underwrite an ever-expanding inventory of exposures.
