Five Forces Reshaping Insurance And How to Stay Ahead

The industry is shifting fast. New risks, rising expectations, and operational pressure are forcing carriers to rethink how they work. The question is simple: are your tools keeping pace?

Here are the five pressures shaping the market – and how AdvantageGo helps you stay out in front.

1. Unearthing Gold: Tapping Data for Powerful Insights

We now have vast data, but need ways to turn it into usable underwriting insights. That is no easy task. Firms needs all the tools of augmented underwriting – AI, machine learning, data analytics. Speed, accuracy and optimal risk selection are the requirements of the day. Furthermore, underwriters must have real-time integrated data at their disposal. Increasingly, scoring is being applied to this data – essential for data standardisation and price efficiency.

At AdvantageGo, we talk to the market continuously, optimising our systems to ensure the latest demands of insurance are met. 

A large insurance company partnered with AdvantageGo, aiming to extract the most from their rich sources of data.

They had formed a Political Violence and Terrorism team. In this line, it is imperative to understand the precise insured location when rating the risk.

They used our Exact exposure management platform to integrate granular geocoding, location data and even modelling. Siloed data was turned into actionable intelligence, allowing real-time data monitoring and faster underwriting decisions. 

• Unlocking Potential: Modernising the digital infrastructure

Many insurers still use outdated systems that make innovation slow and risky. 

They still have legacy technology that leaves data in siloed and outdated systems, limiting data insights. These legacy systems are also not well aligned for the implementation of modern systems. Modern systems allow for product driven technology – platforms that insurance companies can configure to their own needs. One that is also ‘low code’ – allowing adjustments without needing expert programmers. Ultimately, firms shackled by legacy systems will lose competitive advantage as rivals gain a significant edge by adopting newer technologies and strategies more quickly. 

A Managing Agency chose AdvantageGo’s Navigator policy administration system to replace outdated infrastructure and improve automation. This modular, quick deployment approach let them modernise with minimal disruption. The key was a layered approach that reduces the risk of complications arising. 

• Navigating Climate Change and Emerging Risks

The world is increasingly unpredictable. New and complex risks – climate change, litigation, inflation and social trends – are hard to model and price. Escalating climate risk is causing insurers to reshape underwriting and pricing across the world. Class actions lawsuits, and a rising trend of litigation action from policyholders in many countries, are escalating casualty concerns for underwriting portfolios. Correlated risks, such as a financial crisis and social upheaval, are well known. Systemic risk, for example, a global cyber attack or world outage, is a major cause of concern. 

AdvantageGo provides integrated, independent hazard-specific data to align exposures with risk appetite. This helps insurers model complex events and adjust underwriting strategies in real time, strengthening resilience in the face of uncertainty.

Our software is specially tailored to address these challenges. Insurers and MGAs underwriting renewable risks turn to our bespoke software for solutions. 

• Managing margin pressure 

Forward-thinking insurers and MGAs are embracing best-in-class technology to drive efficiencies, productivity and better returns. To maintain and expand margins, companies need accurate risk assessment. Under-estimating risk can lead to an erosion of profit margins as poor underwriting and pricing leads to losses. Over-estimating risk results in insurers missing out on business, negatively impacting revenue, which can lead to a lower margin. 

Trend analysis is key: it helps insurers adjust pricing or reserves before profitability gets hit. Finally, insurers model probability outcomes. Accuracy in modelling probability outcomes is what underpins an insurers’ risk appetite. The bottom line: it’s all about precision, something AdvantageGo knows and understands. 

Our tools can help companies align themselves accurately for risk. It allows in-depth understanding of exposures. This provides the bedrock for sharper pricing and optimal capital allocation. Ultimately, this supports decision making which needs to be highly optimal in a competitive field. Competition is fierce, especially in mature markets, meaning even being slightly uncompetitive can put pressure on margins.

• Automation: The great challenge of our times 

Agentic AI is transforming the way insurance companies do business. The potential is vast. Already insurance companies are using it to prioritise submissions, request missing data from brokers or clients, and suggesting renewal terms or cover changes. Cycle time is being cut as forms are pre-filled, compliance checked instantly and renewal options flagged automatically. It’s efficiency at scale without a matching rise in headcount or cost. It’s a win-win for client and company. 

The technology sits at the heart of this transformation. The challenge for insurance companies is making sure they have the right technology for a fast-paced world, one that will not need the constant grind of fixes or the major complications that lead to a rip and replace of technology every few years. AdvantageGo understands this challenge because we are equipped with technology expertly created for the modern times. 

A global insurer wanted a partner that could deliver these modern applications. 

The insurer used AdvantageGo’s Underwriting platform to digitise and automate parts of its underwriting peer-review process – a workflow that was previously manual, time-consuming, and required multiple systems.

With the new platform, the reviewers could carry out around 20% more reviews in the same time. They no longer had to switch between spreadsheets or re-key information, because everything they needed was integrated and automated.

The right approach

Competition is fierce in the insurance industry, while the challenges are ever increasing. Tackling the challenges of today and remaining competitive does not require absolute perfection. But it does mean being able to adapt quickly enough.

It’s why having a flexible and modern technology system is critical. Technology is the foundation on which insurance companies can address the risk challenges of our times.

As Charles Darwin commented: ‘It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.’