Digitization is the name of the game for insurers looking to onboard millennial and Generation Z clients, according data from Digital Insurance — and artificial intelligence seems a key tool to accomplish that goal.
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Roughly 75% of respondents from all company types agreed that customers from younger generations wanted or expected a more digital experience from their insurance providers. Transparency was another factor high in demand, according to 79% of health insurers/payers and 66% of those at carriers.
It follows then that technologies like AI and machine learning were the No. 1 trend anticipated to impact insurers over the next three years, garnering support from 55% of respondents. Changing customer behavior and demands was close behind with 35%.
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Robin Gordon, a strategic advisor for Omnus Law and the former global chief data and analytics officer for MetLife, said many companies struggle with deciding where to begin an AI journey and setting the right pace for adoption.
"There is such rapid change in the AI space that, at the very least, every company should be experimenting, testing and learning," Gordon said. "On the flip side, going too fast can also be harmful, as companies may spend a lot of money developing something that a few months later is available commercially for a fraction of the price."
Outside of AI, no-code technology providers seek to expand beyond client-facing applications to also reshape internal functions like recruitment and talent management.
Insurtech firm INSTANDA works with carriers and managing general agents through its no-code software-as-a-service platform to help spin up products in a shorter time when compared against traditional methods.
"As insurers move toward digital-first models, the demand for coding expertise is decreasing while the need for cognitive skills, analytical thinking and cross-disciplinary expertise is growing," Sara Shipley, chief human resource officer of INSTANDA, told Digital Insurance's
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Learn more about the technologies changing the workplace and how they could help influence the attraction of new waves of talent and clients.
Insurtech is helping rising professionals improve skillsets faster
Artificial intelligence and tools powered by AI models have boomed in popularity across the insurance space in recent years, but many executives still question how to best use the technology — and how it can influence recruitment efforts.
In speaking with Digital Insurance's
"Insurtech is not just transforming technology, it is transforming the industry's workforce," Shipley said. "By lowering the tech barrier, enabling AI-driven insights and diversifying hiring strategies, insurers can attract a new generation of skilled professionals who are ready to shape the future of the industry."
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What can insurers do to attract future generations of tech talent?
The talent struggle for new tech-savvy professionals is growing in the insurance space, as recent college graduates and seasoned IT experts vie for roles with giants like AWS and Microsoft. Insurers aren't out of the race, however.
Ekine Akuiyibo, chief operating officer for the insurtech platform Socotra, told Digital Insurance this month that while insurance firms once dominated the enterprise IT space, "especially in the 1970s and 1980s when they built their own systems and operated on mainframes," complacency and aversions to risk have held many firms back.
"The technologies that attract today's developers, [such as] cloud and AI, are not the ones insurers have been investing in. … Instead, they often seek expertise in languages seen as outdated, such as COBOL, PowerBuilder, or Visual Basic," Akuiyibo said.
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Benefits are a growing priority among the next generation of insurance talent
The talent shift across the insurance industry is tipping the scales towards millennials and Generation Z, forcing employers to rethink the status quo when it comes to benefit packages.
This ranges from new policies around
"[Companies] can focus on clearly communicating the value of their benefit offerings by connecting them to the real-life challenges employees face and demonstrating how different benefits can help employees achieve their personal and financial goals," Kristina Welke, head of strategy, solutions and marketing for New York Life Group Benefit Solutions, told Employee Benefit News'
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What digitizing the employee benefits experience can mean for staff
Employers are working to solve the issue of disjointed employee benefit experiences by combining them into a singular portal for easy access, better understanding and simplified engagement.
Firms like the Tuscon, Arizona-based insurtech provider Genius Avenue help clients do just that. Genius' end-to-end tech platform for supplemental insurance and benefits carriers starts with supporting the initial benefit onboarding process and continues into future enrollments with communications, payments processing, compliance and more.
"[When it is a] fully digital experience [and] mobile-friendly and laden with lots of education so employees understand their options, there's a direct correlation to more usage and adoption," Megan Wood, the president of Genius Avenue, said in an interview with Employee Benefit News'
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2025 will see HR dive deeper into AI
According to Ben Eubanks, chief research officer at HR consultant Lighthouse Research & Advisory and author of "Artificial Intelligence for HR," 2025 will be the year more human resource departments add AI to their toolboxes.
One specific application for AI is recruitment, helping HR teams wade through sizable pools of applications to pull qualified candidates that are best suited for the open roles. Mass applications are "creating more clutter for employers" and leave many companies to realize "there's no amount of human input that's going to keep up with that kind of volume," Eubanks said.
Other HR use cases extend to monitoring employee performance levels for signs of struggling, forecast employee retention trends against work stressors, training managers on best practices for talking to staff members and more.
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