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![Why Not Go Direct on Homeowners, Allstate CEO Asks](https://dxj7eshgz03ln.cloudfront.net/production/link/image/836232/twenty_by_nine_extra_large_f6f1cab3-3c36-48f0-8c75-3d5d9f356c8f.jpeg)
Why Not Go Direct on Homeowners, Allstate CEO Asks
When Allstate’s chief executive officer looks at potential growth opportunities for personal lines insurers, he sees an untapped part of the homeowners insurance market—customers that will buy home insurance online.
Speaking at the Bank of America U.S. Insurance Conference yesterday, Allstate Chair and CEO Thomas Wilson, who spends a lot of time talking about repricing and underwriting actions in auto insurance at investor conferences these days, devoted some of his remarks to homeowners instead.
“In the direct space, very few people sell homeowners,” Wilson said, referring to carriers using direct distribution channels to acquire customers rather than through agency channels. “It doesn’t make any sense to me. People buy houses on the Internet, right? They buy cars on the Internet. There’s really no reason why they shouldn’t buy homeowners on the Internet. Yet, right now very few people buy homeowners insurance on the Internet.”
![Global insurers shift from delivering risk coverage to reducing and preventing risk](https://dxj7eshgz03ln.cloudfront.net/production/link/image/836341/twenty_by_nine_extra_large_58b5b54a-7dd0-45fb-82c4-f94f0c1c8a9b.jpg)
Global insurers shift from delivering risk coverage to reducing and preventing risk
Today's consumers want more from their insurance companies. Following several years of turbulence, including extreme weather, the COVID-19 pandemic and disease, significant disruption is radically changing the risk landscape for consumers with more and different risks. With this reality, consumers want their insurance companies to more than just help them when there is disruption, but help them reduce and prevent risk too. Bain & Company's new report, launched today, Customer Behavior and Loyalty in Insurance: Global Edition 2023, gives insight into the changing approaches of insurers and needs of consumers.
![Verisk (AIR) pegs Turkey quake economic loss at $20bn+, insured at $1bn+](https://dxj7eshgz03ln.cloudfront.net/production/link/image/836362/twenty_by_nine_extra_large_3a665ca3-c07b-40af-9fa0-7785ec9e4bf6.jpg)
Verisk (AIR) pegs Turkey quake economic loss at $20bn+, insured at $1bn+
Verisk Extreme Event Solutions, formerly AIR Worldwide, has estimated that economic losses from the devastating earthquakes that struck Turkey will reach above US $20 billion, while the insurance and reinsurance industry faces a bill of above US $1 billion.
![Verisk's Respond MAP Weather Analytics Wins 2023 BIG Innovation Award](https://dxj7eshgz03ln.cloudfront.net/production/link/image/836345/twenty_by_nine_extra_large_c75204fd-dcee-45ce-bce7-08a45800dddd.png)
Verisk's Respond MAP Weather Analytics Wins 2023 BIG Innovation Award
Verisk’s Respond MAP, an interactive weather and analytics platform, has been named a winner in the 2023 BIG Innovation Awards presented by the Business Intelligence Group. The award recognizes organizations, products and people that are bringing new ideas to life in innovative ways.
Respond MAP, which helps users analyze the impact of severe weather, was selected after its impactful contribution to the insurance industry during Hurricane Ian preparation and recovery efforts. When Hurricane Ian approached the Florida coastline, Verisk offered insurers the ability to track the storm and monitor potential impacts to their books of business with Respond Hurricane forecast footprints with the mapping and analytics platform. After landfall, this powerful blend of technology helped insurers to quickly identify damage, connect with policyholders impacted by the storm – many of whom had evacuated – and triage claims in the wake of this devastating event.
IIHS Research Says 7 of 10 Consumers Report Issues with Common Accident-Avoidance Features After Collision Repair
Crash avoidance features have proven safety benefits, but majority of vehicle owners report problems with the technology following repairs. Consumers who had repairs performed at OEM dealers report fewer post-repair problems.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety surveyed owners of vehicles equipped with front crash prevention, blind spot detection or rearview or other visibility-enhancing cameras. Among those who reported that at least one of those systems had been repaired for any reason, about half said they had issues with the features after the job was completed. For respondents that reported they had a repair performed to the systems following repairs due to crash damage, the percentage reporting issues after repair jumped to 70-74% depending upon the system involved.
Viewpoint: Used-Vehicle Prices May Be Cresting but Insurers Still Underwater
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” would be an apt description of the last few years for auto insurers. Immediately after a nationwide, months-long driving hiatus caused collisions to plummet and profits to surge, a toxic cocktail of supply chain disruptions, increases in the frequency and severity of collisions and a complete dislocation in used-vehicle prices drove loss ratios into the red for many auto insurance companies. Through the end of 2022, auto insurer losses and expenses continued to outpace premium growth for major industry players. While some of those trends have now started to change course, the myriad challenges facing the industry are far from solved.
Chief among these is the issue of frothy used-vehicle pricing. Prices for used cars surged roughly 50% through February of 2022 while auto insurance contract pricing systems predicted car values would continue to go down with a constant depreciation – a generally accepted trend for the last several decades of experience in retail used car valuation.
Used-vehicle prices continued to stay elevated throughout 2022 and, just in the past two months, they have begun to recede. However, as the auto industry continues to be transformed by the introduction of EVs and volatile swings in supply and demand become the norm, these once-in-a-lifetime anomalies are likely to happen a lot more frequently.
Marty Ellingsworth, Executive Managing Director, P&C Insurance Intelligence Group, J.D. Power
![Revealing the holes in roof age data and how to repair them](https://dxj7eshgz03ln.cloudfront.net/production/link/image/836130/twenty_by_nine_extra_large_0d2744ac-2c2b-4ae7-843d-409378c20460.jpeg)
Revealing the holes in roof age data and how to repair them
For P&C insurers, knowledge is power. The more you know about a property’s current and historical condition, the better equipped you are to make decisions at every stage of the policy lifecycle. One current significant gap in this knowledge is roof age.
Roof age is difficult to determine with precise accuracy. This is a problem for insurers, as it is a critical factor to consider when evaluating and pricing property risk. A report by Verisk found that inaccurate roof age data costs insurers up to $1.31 billion in premiums annually. In truth, unless you have direct knowledge of the date a roof was replaced, any estimation you make will be imprecise. Insurers have historically made this estimation by directly asking policyholders or by consulting permit data, but these methods return unreliable data.
![AI and ML Use in Insurtech With Tarci, Devron, LexisNexis Risk Solutions, Foresight, and Acrisure](https://dxj7eshgz03ln.cloudfront.net/production/link/image/836002/twenty_by_nine_extra_large_e4a6fc51-8757-42f4-bea1-c7a666bf9925.jpg)
AI and ML Use in Insurtech With Tarci, Devron, LexisNexis Risk Solutions, Foresight, and Acrisure
Two of the biggest game changers in the insurtech industry have been the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). Together, these two technologies have uprooted the traditions of the insurance sector and reworked it completely. Understanding how they have done so, we reached out to the industry:
A move to continuous underwriting
For Leetal Gruper, co-founder and CEO at Tarci, a continuous intelligence engine that generates dynamic SMB data, there have been two big ways in which AI and ML have changed the industry.
“Firstly the impact of continuous underwriting. With the advance of data driven by AI, forward-thinking carriers are moving from one-off underwriting (once a year at the point of binding a policy) to continuous underwriting that changes and adjusts as client needs change
InsurTech/M&A/Finance💰/Collaboration
In Insurance Technology, A Little User Empathy Goes a Long Way
Technologists have the challenging job of providing their companies with holistic technology and data strategies that satisfy needs today while accounting for future growth.
Within commercial P&C insurance, we see two common approaches to tackling this. There’s the “essentials-first” approach, where you seek out solutions to meet basic functional needs like policy or claims management before tackling the big-picture objectives such as increasing your ability to grow the business. More often than not, this leads to a lengthy quest for an elusive “end-to-end” solution that will support the flow of business from ingestion to claims before settling on a policy administration system.
There’s also the “patchwork” approach, where you endeavor to discover best-in-class point solutions for each part of the policy lifecycle and bring them together in a grand strategic vision for a complete tech stack for your business partners. This approach requires a sizable budget and staff, and can take a few years or more to deliver actual value to the business.
In both cases, the long time to value tends to result in losing valuable trust from business users. They continually hear about the promises of the technology, but the longer it takes to deliver, the greater their expectations, to the point that they become unmanageable.
To avoid these issues, we advocate for a third, “user-first” approach where you progress toward the strategic vision while delivering a steady stream of value for the business and the users.
Jeff Tyler, Head of Product, Data Science & Engineering, TSIQ
![Trip Money launches 'no questions asked' travel insurance](https://dxj7eshgz03ln.cloudfront.net/production/link/image/836236/twenty_by_nine_extra_large_25b415c8-2127-40ff-880c-457e6c7dcc43.jpg)
Trip Money launches 'no questions asked' travel insurance
Trip Money has partnered with embedded insurance enabler Cover Genius to launch a 'no questions asked' trip insurance for Indian holidaymakers
Trip Money, the fintech arm of Indian travel website MakeMyTrip, is partnering with insurtech Cover Genius to offer embedded travel protection to its customers.
The embedded insurance offering will make use of XCover, Cover Genius’ global distribution platform, and will include ‘Cancel for any Reason’ (CFAR) travel protection that removes the pain points associated with claims on policies that are otherwise applicable for restricted reasons only.
![AIG to Form Independent MGA to Serve High Net-Worth Markets AIG to Form Independent MGA to Serve High Net-Worth Markets](https://dxj7eshgz03ln.cloudfront.net/production/link/image/836359/twenty_by_nine_extra_large_b0999e8f-9b07-438e-bda2-77bb61302db7.jpg)
AIG to Form Independent MGA to Serve High Net-Worth Markets AIG to Form Independent MGA to Serve High Net-Worth Markets
American International Group (AIG) announced this week that it plans to partner with Stone Point Capital LLC to form an independent managing general agency (MGA) to serve high net-worth and ultra-high net-worth markets.
Stone Point Capital LLC is a private equity firm focused on investing in businesses within the global financial services industry. AIG's Private Client Group (PCG) business will move to this new independent platform and be rebranded as Private Client Select Insurance Services (PCS).
“As previously disclosed, AIG has been exploring structures that, over time, will allow PCG to be supported by third-party capital providers, including AIG and its innovative syndicate at Lloyd's, referred to as Syndicate 2019," said Peter Zaffino, chairman and CEO, AIG. “By partnering with a world-class private equity firm like Stone Point, we can maximize the strengths of this business and improve product offerings to better serve the high and ultra-high net-worth markets."
Truist announces agreement to sell minority stake in Truist Insurance Holdings to Stone Point Capital, valuing the business at $14.75 billion
Truist (NYSE: TFC) announced today that it has agreed to sell a 20% stake in Truist Insurance Holdings, Inc., a subsidiary of Truist and the sixth-largest insurance brokerage in the United States, to funds managed by Stone Point Capital, a leading private equity firm focused on the global financial services industry, for $1.95 billion. Mubadala Investment Company and other co-investors are participating in the investment with Stone Point. The transaction represents an aggregate value of $14.75 billion for Truist Insurance Holdings, including a common equity value of $9.75 billion and $5.0 billion of inter-company preferred equity issued by Truist Insurance Holdings to Truist. Upon closing of the investment, expected in Q2 2023, Truist will own 80% of Truist Insurance Holdings, which will continue to be an important contributor for Truist and its shareholders.
"We are excited for this collaboration with Stone Point, as the investment demonstrates the significant value of Truist Insurance Holdings and strategically positions it, and Truist, for long-term success," said Truist Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Bill Rogers.