Wearable technologies to be widely adopted by global insurers within two years, new survey suggests

Nearly two-thirds of insurers expect that wearable technologies will be adopted broadly by the insurance industry in the next two years, according to a global survey released on Tuesday by Accenture, a management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company.

 The report, Accenture Technology Vision for Insurance 2015—Digital Insurance Era: Stretch Your Boundaries, highlights emerging developments in IT that will significantly impact the insurance industry in the next three to five years. Accenture Research conducted the survey of 2,000 business and IT executives across nine countries and 10 industries, and used a sample of 221 respondents. Respondents were mostly C-level executives and directors at companies with annual revenues of at least US$500 million, with the majority of companies having annual revenues greater than US$6 billion.

The survey found that 63% of respondents believe that wearable technologies, or wearables, will be adopted broadly by the insurance industry within the next two years, while nearly one-third (31%) said they are already using wearables to engage customers, employees or partners.

“While insurers have traditionally based their underwriting and pricing processes on a limited view of certain customer variables, emerging technologies such as wearables and other connected devices can help insurers break from their traditional business models and provide outcome-based services for their customers,” said John Cusano, senior managing director of Accenture’s global Insurance practice, in a press statement.

The survey also found that nearly three-quarters (73%) of insurers said that providing a personalized customer experience is one of their top three priorities within the organization, and half (50%) claim to already see a positive return from their investment in personalized technologies. [click image below to enlarge]

However, access to large volumes of new data is also causing insurers some challenges, as the survey found that most insurers struggle to fully use their existing data. More than half (56%) said that managing data is “extremely” or “very challenging” considering the changes in volume, variety and velocity. At the same time, nearly nine in 10 respondents (86%) said they believe that “software intelligence will be integral to simplifying their IT function.”

Another 66% of global insurers said that they experiment with “intelligent technology,” and three quarters (76%) said that said they believe that successful businesses will soon manage employees alongside “intelligent machines.”

In addition, insurers plan to engage with business partners on digital initiative in the next two years. Half the respondents (51%) said they plan to partner with major digital technology and cloud platform leaders, nearly two-thirds (64%) plan to engage with new digital partners within the insurance industry, and 45% aim to find partners outside the industry.

“The next-generation insurance company will benefit from human and technology collaboration, with workers leveraging new technologies such as wearables to augment their abilities and help them make better decisions,” suggested Thomas Meyer, managing director of Accenture’s Insurance practice in Europe, Africa and Latin America, in the statement.