Top insurtech trends to look forward to in 2022

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the healthcare and insurtech arenas in an unprecedented manner. In some ways, it has merely exacerbated certain existing challenges, such as the absence of seamless access to patient health records—which automation can solve, while, in others, irrevocable changes have been introduced, such as our burgeoning dependence on artificial intelligence (AI) enabled monitoring gadgets as the first step to preventive healthcare.

It is small wonder then that health insurance has exited the pile of optional annual expenses and landed at the top of the necessary expenses list now. In fact, as per India’s 2021 annual budget, our healthcare expenditure was approximately 1.2 percent of the GDP, and this marketshare is projected to grow three-fold to about Rs. 8.6 trillion by 2022 . Since 2020, technology firms have also been enabling insurers to adapt better to the curveballs thrown at them by COVID-19 and its ramifications.

Seamless patient experience brought about by digitisation and automation

During the pandemic, telemedicine was endorsed as the consultation of choice since it ensured cost and time effectiveness, and guaranteed safety.

The government too launched the eSanjeevani telemedicine service in September 2021, which, in a short span of three months, has offered over 12 million teleconsultations. Such remote medicare is so convenient, especially for the mature or co-morbid population, that it’s unlikely that they are returning to OPD consultations anytime soon.

Hence, digitisation of patient health records led by automation is necessary to offer insurers access to the necessary data at the click of a button and provide a wholesome client experience across multiple platforms, in a way never possible before. This seamless experience, a gift of automation, will be a trend to watch out for in 2022.

The arrival of Omicron just as the world was preparing to put the pandemic behind is a clear indicator of just how deep the virus’s reach might be. And this understanding will help insurtech firms accelerate the change to digital transformation sooner than later. Apps deployed henceforth will need to improve upon the core competencies of insurers by offering customers easier insurance purchase and service options, and be the first AI point of contact for them. Competent virtual assistants and chatbots will be important going forward.

At the peak of the pandemic, the industry observed AI leading the war on diverse fronts such as infection screening and detection, and facial recognition without the removal of masks, among others. Take the example of the BlueDot app. A trailblazer in the early days of the pandemic, this proprietary software-as-a-service (SaaS) published the original study about the global reach of the virus by checking more than 100,000 media sources in above 65 languages every day to determine in real time its true extent—a feat beyond imaginable human abilities. Similar feats will continue to be performed by software in the insurtech area.

Then there’re several kinds of AI-fuelled thermal screening methods such as infrared thermometers that aid classification of people by their high or low body temperatures without personal contact. This’s a big step in identifying symptomatic individuals without endangering care providers.

Likewise, during the process of vaccine development, machine learning (ML) offered answers at a speed and efficiency that’s impossible for humans to match.

Immunologists have been heavily aided by ML in all areas, and this trend is only going to grow for prompt scientific advancements.

There’s also the case of deep learning-based Facial Recognition Technology that can help identify masked individuals with the highest accuracy rates possible. In this fashion, AI affords detection and identification necessary for accurate results, without the intervention of human error or danger.

Most insurers are borne down by legacy technologies and they realise an upgrade to cloud technology is overdue. This shift will enable firms to become quick at delivering new, personalised products and also better user experience. This is because clouds are adept at sorting large data sets and making sense of them, and mining results right back to insurers. As infrastructures evolve worldwide, cloud-first firms will be in better positions to work flawlessly.

The inroads digital technologies have made into healthcare have deeply impacted its future and the subsequent future trends. So, the truth is out in the open—insurtech startups are lending a much-needed hand to insurers and going forward the insights of the former are going to be valued even more by the industry.