A Study on Adapting Insurance Business Models to Technological Disruption

To face the radical changes that characterized the competitive scenario over the last ten years, the insurance industry is turning to digital transformation, adapting innovative business models like those increasingly seen in other industries. The paper explores the impact of ongoing digitization that is greatly affecting the insurance industry and forcing radical change upon corporate culture, products and processes, customer relationships and relations with the sector’s various competitors. By addressing key research questions, the paper contributes to a nuanced understanding of the relationship between InsurTech start-ups and traditional insurers, the transformative effects of technology on the insurance value chain, and the evolving dynamics of customer relationships in the digital era. Several media articles and studies, mostly by practitioners and fewer by academic researchers, attempt to investigate the impact of digitisation applied to the insurance sectors. The study provides valuable insights for academic researchers and insurance managers and raises important questions for future research, including the potential benefits of greater personalization in service delivery and communication strategies, the creation of customer needs, and the management of reputational dynamics in the digital landscape. The study also reveals that the increasing lack of human relationships due to the dissemination of digital distribution must move towards new digital-ready models of insurance intermediation which require customer-centricity and continuous market research. The open-ended inquiries invite further exploration and collaboration within the scientific community to advance understanding and develop new digital-ready models of insurance intermediation.