China’s first fully online insurance company has teamed up with KPMG China to produce a new report on insurtech that sees big data and artificial intelligence as having the biggest impact on sector.
The report from ZhongAn Insurance and KPMG China entitled “InsurTech: Building the Infrastructure for a New Insurance” (保险科技：构筑“新保险”的基础设施) points out that China’s online insurance market has seen near 20-fold growth during the four-year period from 2013 to 2017, expanding from 11.1 billion yuan to 183.5 billion yuan.
According to the report this explosive growth in internet-based insurtech has created a form of key infrastructure for the creation of a “new insurance” which is driven by emerging technologies such as big data, cloud computing, AI, the Internet of Things and the blockchain.
The report conducted a survey of 200 professionals in the sector which found that 98% believe that technology is the key infrastructure or support for the future development of the insurance sector.
90% said that big data and artificial intelligence will be the two technologies that have the biggest impact upon the sector, while over half also expect cloud computing, biotech, the blockchain and the Internet of Things to also have a positive impact.
Respondents generally expect insurtech to have an especially strong impact upon the two areas of sales and product development in China’s insurance sector.
70% believe that insurtech will have a major impact within the next five years, although 64% of respondents said that current insurtech investment levels are lower than those required for growth of the sector, with respondents from insurance companies considering this to be an especially urgent issue.
89% of respondents believe that future insurtech investment levels will exceed those at present, while 82% believe that the model for sourcing technological applications in the insurance sector should involve a combination of independent R&D and external procurement.
