Going fully digital to meet increasing customer expectations

Top macro trends cited by executives include technology and digital acceleration, changing social demographics, and climate change. Rising customer digital expectations are driving the need for technology and digital acceleration, while a shortage of IT talent is the most impactful social demographic change. Climate change initiatives focus primarily on making buildings and operations greener; however, executives are beginning to pursue greener investments as well.

Digitisation for life and pension organisations accelerated during the global pandemic. Even traditional firms realised their need to transition to remote customer contact, digital document exchange, and other digital ways of working. Executives also are investing in the customer experience, modernisation, and supply chain reconfiguration to drive change, compete with insurtechs, and future-proof their businesses.

Further, the increasing number of ransomware attacks has led to an increased focus on cybersecurity, while regulatory compliance dropped in importance, indicating firms are in line with regulatory requirements and focusing on other priorities.

View key findings from our conversations with life and pension insurance executives in 2022 below, or download our report.

For more insights on macro trends, including social demographics, climate change, deglobalisation, technology acceleration and supply chain reconfiguration, read our summary.

Top trends and priorities

Top macro trends
  1. Technology and digital acceleration, notably rising customer and citizen digital expectations

  2. Changing social demographics, including aging populations and talent shortages

  3. Climate change, including the energy transition and the acceleration toward decarbonisation

Top industry trends
  1. Becoming digital to meet customer expectations

  2. Managing shifting consumer product and digital servicing expectations

  3. Responding to widespread concern of cyber attacks

Top business priorities
  1. Drive differentiated, seamless customer digital experience

  2. Continue to drive end-to-end process automation

  3. Derive value from data to improve customer evaluation

Top IT priorities
  1. Rationalise, simplify, modernise applications and infrastructure

  2. Protect through cybersecurity

  3. Establish plan for digital transformation

 

40%
are producing results from their digital strategies, compared to 27% last year
55%
are moving to PaaS and IaaS providers over the next 2 years, while 54% plan to migrate to SaaS providers within the same timeframe
81%
report difficulty in finding the right IT talent

What digital leaders do to accelerate results

Among the 25% of life and pension insurance executives who report achieving expected results from their digital strategies, some common attributes emerge. Our table compares responses to questions from these digital leaders to those from executives whose organisations are still building or launching digital strategies (digital entrants). Learn more about the attributes of digital leaders.

Common attributes of digital leaders

Digital leaders

Digital entrants

Have highly agile business models 47% 10%
IT and business operations are highly aligned 79% 50%
Have deeply integrated IT and business operations 63% 40%
Are facing significant legacy challenges 37% 53%
Are modernising more applications 60% 43%