The common practice of disengaging old insurance professionals from their job as a result of ageing is one of the major contributors to the knowledge gap experienced in our industry today.
Indeed these professionals may be ageing, but the quality of industry experience and expertise in important aspects of insurance business which has been acquired over the years by some of them who are sound, brilliant, and willing to render their services remains indispensable to moving the insurance industry forward even as we journey towards the digital transformation of the insurance industry.
However, whenever the subject of digital insurance transformation is discussed, it most times send shivers to the spines of many of these old professionals because they have been made to believe that the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies will advance the campaign of sending the human professionals out of job early, however, contrary to the popular opinion, the human experience and expertise will form the basis that these emerging technologies would rely upon, through a collaborative approach between humans and technology.
Hence, the reason I earlier said our ageing industry professionals are indispensable to the success of the insurance industry in Nigeria. I will shed more light on this collaborative approach under the section of this article that talks about: TECHNOLOGY + HUMAN EXPERIENCE: A COLLABORATIVE APPROACH TOWARDS DIGITAL INSURANCE TRANSFORMATION, but first let me explain the following.
- TECHNOLOGY AS AN ENABLER
The COVID-19 crisis has demonstrated a use-case for the adoption of remote work concept using simple and easy-to-setup collaborative platforms/apps like Zoom for teleconferencing and Microsoft teams for collaboration to mention a few. This remote work concept which is being received as a necessity for survival amidst the current global pandemic in turn is rapidly changing the way we work.
In the same vein, (for example) did you know that many old folks are very comfortable using the popular chat platform (WhatsApp) to chat with family and friends?
So imagine a scenario where similar easy-to-use chat/teleconferencing platform is built specifically for insurance and integrated as a feature into the insurance software adopted by a certain insurance company.
This will allow these old yet valuable insurance professionals offer services like insurance brokerage advisory, underwriting, among others to the insurance customers or collaborate with other team members from the comfort of their homes using the remote/collaborative work concept earlier referred to. Doing so, the insurance industry will be able to keep these old yet valuable professionals creatively engaged to add value to the system.
- TECHNOLOGY + HUMAN EXPERIENCE: A COLLABORATIVE APPROACH TOWARDS DIGITAL INSURANCE TRANSFORMATION
Leveraging emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Blockchain technology amongst others within the insurance space in Nigeria will require a wealth of industry data and professional expertise domicile to the Nigerian/African market. And where do we source such domain expertise if not from our ageing professionals with in depth industry and market experience.
Let me give you a vivid illustrative example of how emerging technologies like AI and ML work.
Imagine the relationship between a toddler and the parent. The parent teaches, trains and guides the toddler till the toddler becomes mature to solve problems on its own, and within the interim the toddler can refer to the parent for help to solves its problem.
Such is also the relationship between the industry professionals, technology experts and these emerging technology systems.
The industry experts provide information sourced from industry insights and customer data coupled with expertise in domain areas like underwriting, claims, brokerages etc, while the technology experts refines these info/data into machine readable format used to train, teach and guide the AI system to solve cognitive or routine-based insurance problems till such system becomes mature or in the same vein where they cooperate towards maturity.
So imagine insurance underwriting rules being configured into an AI based underwriting engine to enable automated underwriting giving results like straight through processing, standard accept, auto decline, or a case where the AI system passes complex underwriting tasks to the human counterpart for manual underwriting.
Similar approach applies to claims and other aspects of insurance business, where the adoption of technology helps achieve operational efficiency, speed and accuracy thereby reducing TAT of insurance business.
In conclusion, the way forward for every insurance company is to adopt insurtech solutions that are human-centric and tailored for their need.
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