What are the issues hindering digital transformation?

Victoria Mills, Director of International Product at Duck Creek Technologies, reflects on the results of Insurance Post’s survey of the P&C insurance sector about the challenges of digital transformation.

Digital transformation is a topic that is paramount for everyone working throughout the insurance ecosystem. Some insurers have pulled ahead on innovation in the new, digital-first world, and others are having to rapidly identify the pain points impeding their progress in the same direction.

Duck Creek Technologies recently partnered with UK insurance trade publication, Insurance Post, to conduct a survey within the P&C sector looking at some of the key issues hindering insurance providers’ transformation efforts across a number of areas – namely the length of time it takes to implement a fully evergreen digital transformation; the biggest blockers to change; employers’ appetite for digital transformations; and the biggest drivers. The key highlights from the survey were as follows:

• Over 60% of respondents believe it would take between three and five years to perform a fully-fledged greenfield digital transformation within their companies.
• Existing technology teams and middle management were cited as the two biggest blockers in terms of progress relating to greenfield at 28.6% each.
• Interestingly, almost two-thirds (60.3%) of respondents stated that their employer’s digital transformation appetite has increased since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, with 9.5% seeing a massive increase. 28.6% of respondents said it had remained unchanged.
• In terms of the biggest drivers to perform a greenfield transformation, the customer was unsurprisingly the top response at 73%.

The results of this research reinforce the feedback we consistently hear from businesses across the insurance market. There is a huge appetite for implementing effective change, increasing customer focus and innovation – but knowing where to start and how to fully embrace transformation can be daunting. When insurers look at replacing legacy systems, they need to clearly identify and understand what they are trying to achieve at the outset and which of their strategic goals are being hampered by their existing platforms.

Duck Creek’s successful partnerships with insurers across the world helps them to understand the potential for genuine transformation – for the benefit of each and every one of their key stakeholders. In particular, we are helping clients to realise that modern low-code systems can enable them to harness innovative technology to achieve all of their transformation goals in parallel.

A copy of the full survey results and commentary titled Agile InsurTechs and Middle Management Stump Digital Transformation Progression can be found here.