Life insurance underwriting reimagined: Investing in a new breed of talent
Differentiated products and services are essential to the growth among surviving and annuity carriers. Underwriting agents are ready to help drive this new growth, but they need the right tools and training. Insurance companies have already invested in a range of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence and automation. Now they need to invest in the people who use those technologies. In short, insurers need to reimagine the role of insurers by merging technology with human ingenuity so they can add more to the insurance value chain. What would reimagined insurance companies look like? They will be data masters who are knowledgeable about technology. They will know how to use New subscription platforms Which includes embedded data analytics and predictive models. They will leverage their skills to provide deeper insights and improve underwriting efficiency, without compromising robust risk management.
Preparing a workforce ready for future subscription
But they’re not there yet: the underwriter’s skill sets lag behind the new technologies. The value of technology is limited if people do not know how to use it properly. Insurance companies must find ways to make their workforce fit their reimagined roles, ready to work in a new era of smart insurance dominated by data, artificial intelligence, and automation.
There are various ways to invest strategically in a talent offering strategy Future-ready workforce. The first is to adopt a comprehensive four-point talent sourcing model that includes:
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- Investing in the existing workforce
- Borrow talent from external talent pools
- Automate tasks using bots and artificial intelligence
- Buying talents, whether individuals or acquiring organizational functions
The good news is that insurance companies are eager to learn. More than 90 percent of insurers surveyed late last year cited improving training and skills development as a priority.
But insurers will need to reassess their current training models. The current apprenticeship model helps junior underwriters build their competencies by working alongside experienced underwriters on simple life cases. As AI and automation increasingly tackle these easier cases through a direct-to-consumer sales channel, insurers will need to find new ways to train the next generation of underwriting talent.
One way is to combine human and machine learning, training guarantors in data analysis capabilities so they can better understand how data models work and use them to train machines.
Investing in talent acquisition
Investments in training can generate benefits beyond upgrading the skills of the existing workforce. It can also be a powerful recruiting tool. Millennial and Gen Z groups, in particular, are seeking employers who will provide them with marketable and in-demand skills. They also value stability, security, and some of the more traditional signs of career success accordingly Universum 2021. Add to all this their positive views on technological innovations in the health and wellness space, and L&A companies are in a strong position to attract qualified candidates from these talent pools. And what kind of new technologies and IPOs might these new employees expect to encounter? Some of the technologies identified as top priorities to drive underwriting efficiency today and over the next three years include the following: Modern policy/underwriting platforms; external data, data cleansing and data quality to improve risk selection, and fraud prevention/detection; data analytics and management reports; Robotics process automation.
As AI and automation spread across the industry, insurers must also consider their talent strategies in the context of business agility. Technology alone is not enough: Insurance companies must also understand how human ingenuity and empathy can best serve their businesses. They need to understand where AI and automation can enable human ingenuity to flourish.
Ultimately, to extract the most value from these many changes, carriers must successfully integrate technology and human ingenuity, allowing both to thrive together and independently for the benefit of the customer and the business.
undertakers from our survey They said they are optimistic about the technologies Their companies embraced because they saw direct improvements in underwriting. Let’s make sure these investments reward their optimism By developing business strategies to achieve top and bottom line results as well as improving skills and retaining underwriting talent. We Invited Have a conversation About investing in an underwritten workforce ready for the future.
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