Insurers of all kinds have considered or are considering strategies to sell more products online. Insurers need to understand the reasons why potential consumers are increasingly shopping online as well as the forces influencing the online insurance market.
In a new report, The Perils of Success: Rethinking the Maturing Online Insurance Landscape in Europe, Celent analyses online insurance adoption across Europe and defines the generic strategies undertaken by insurance companies to enter this market. The report provides key information for both IT vendors and insurers evaluating the viability of their investments.
“The power of aggregators in the market, and how much time it takes for them to reach a critical mass should be the main variables driving insurers’ investment prioritization into the online insurance business,” says Nicolas Michellod, Senior Analyst with Celent's Insurance group and author of the report. “Insurers should continuously analyse the market in which they are competing and evaluate whether the amount of time required for aggregators to gain importance is sufficient to get investment in front end capabilities to pay off.”
After a discussion of online adoption and insurer strategies, this report draws observations from the experience of the UK online insurance market to predict the future of online insurance and to elaborate on the potential consequences of insurers’ investment priorities. The final section of this report describes the evolution of insurers’ online insurance IT architecture from the early to mature stages of the market.
