Digital transformation in the insurance industry

Digital developments are moving at lightning speed, and that applies to the insurance industry as well. We left the days of retyping forms by hand behind us long ago; with today's technology we have apps that consumers can use to report a claim. More and more information from outside has to be processed. This means that organisations have different needs when it comes to digitisation. What does modern data exchange look like at our insurers?

Electronic communication with smart tools

Communication between insurance companies and their customers is increasingly electronic. Applying for a policy, changing it and reporting a claim can all be done quickly and digitally. A good example of a new smart tool for the insurance industry is an app that can replace the accident report form for traffic accidents. Using such a tool as an example, it is easy to explain what exchanging standardised messages, or, put more simply, communicating digitally, can deliver:

It is practical: everyone has a mobile phone, but you do not always have pen and paper at hand

User-friendly: details can be filled in in advance or stored

Higher efficiency for the organisation: the amount of “polluted” data decreases when a digital form is used

Digitisation goes hand in hand with standardisation

By now we are used to communicating digitally; it makes many services faster and easier to use. But for organisations it means standardising data, and that is often a challenge. They need to have, or acquire, the right knowledge and capacity to meet the wishes of their customers and users.

In the insurance industry there is a body that specifically supports companies in achieving digitisation. SIVI (the Dutch standardisation institute for insurance in the intermediary sector) supports the insurance industry and takes up all questions about digital standardisation. For years they have worked with our tool EC-Design, and they have developed standardised models to facilitate digitisation in the insurance industry from a central point. Our colleague Jan Vrijenhoek worked as a senior consultant for SIVI until December 2015, and he confirms that this organisation is a valuable initiative that keeps enabling the insurance industry to take new steps in its digital development.