Insurtech Adoption To Accelerate Beyond Pandemic

Insurers increased their use of catastrophe models, drones and mobile apps during the COVID-19 pandemic, and they anticipate growth in such technology to continue once the health crisis passes.

Some growth in what is known as "insurtech" was driven by the social distancing measures and quarantines that accompanied the pandemic, while adoption of other technologies came despite it.

Edin Imsirovic, an associate director at insurance rating firm AM Best, said market pressure from the pandemic advanced innovation by a couple of years or so. "Digitization in the insurance space sort of really accelerated this year due to COVID," Imsirovic said in an interview.

That might accurately describe some advances such as communicating virtually with policyholders, said Serge Gagarin, manager of segment marketing at catastrophe risk modeling firm AIR Worldwide.

But "large-scale systems integration projects," big projects insurers might be undertaking, are developing independently of the pandemic, he said.