Insurance is a relationships business, and technology is a tool.
That’s my major takeaway from Celent’s latest executive roundtable, which we hosted in New York City last week for some 35 senior executives from the Celent Executive Panel.
We had the pleasure of spending the whole day with some of the leading minds in insurance technology, and the conversation was deep, detailed, and engaging. Sessions ranged from data enablement to IT budgets to artificial general intelligence. And at the end of the day, I’m left with one abiding theme: insurance is about relationships, and technology is the best way to build and support them.
Which might seem slightly counterintuitive. Collectively, the insurance industry (not to mention Celent specifically) spends a lot of time strategizing around new technologies, how to use them, where best to spend IT time. And rightly so: technology can support every way an insurer can make money, and insurers are (again, rightly) spending more than ever on tech after years of treating IT as a cost center.
But as we learn about these new tools, it’s vital to remember that they’re just that: tools. They’re enablers. They’re labor-savers. They’re AI widgets that can track more data than a human can or notice patterns we might miss. They make it easier to and faster to rate business, price policies, fill in applications, or report claims.
What they’re not are ends in and of themselves. As one CIO put it, “whenever you’re innovating, you have to first know the problem you’re trying to solve.” Technology applied to the wrong problem or in the wrong way can actually be more damaging than doing nothing. Ultimately, it’s about supporting the people you do business with. Insurance is about the relationships.
That’s also, perhaps, a challenging conclusion this year. The key themes for P/C insurance in 2025, according to our Dimensions study, are going to be growth and efficiency. The path forward is to treat operating cost control and process improvements as the engine that fuels growth, improves customer experience, and draws in new business.
Our executive council guests spoke to this too, as they discussed using AI tools and modern system capabilities to save time for their underwriters and claims adjusters—and, just as importantly, looking ahead to what they would like them to spend time on instead. After all, as one CIO observed, it doesn’t make sense to invest in systems that save thousands of hours and then lay off your skilled employees. Instead, that efficiency and those easier processes can create growth. As another CIO put it, “we want to be the easiest company to do business with, we want profitable growth, and we want to be a trusted advisor.”
That trust and advisory role is key. It’s been, to put it mildly, a tumultuous year, and we’re only in March. The North American business environment is looking especially uncertain, with government layoffs and will-they-won’t-they tariffs on the horizon. In a moment like this, insurers are selling expertise and assurance at a time when people really need and want it.
My colleague Nate Golia spoke to this in a session on customer experience and small business insurance sales, which echoed a conversation I’d had the prior day with a commercial lines CIO. Paradoxically, people who buy small business policies online think they spend too much time on the transaction; in many cases, they’re happier when they can talk to an agent. Business insurance can be complicated and most people don’t understand it well. They need an expert to walk them through it. And the role of insurers should be to make that expert available, conveniently, whenever the sale process begins to break down because the customer is getting bewildered.
Because at the end of all these policies and claims adjustments, there are real people who need real help. One CIO panelist recounted an experience that’s stuck with him over the years, of being able to tell a claimant that his company was going to help her in a time of need, and how they were going to do it. We’ve all had that moment, where we can see the relief in the eyes of a person who needs it. I’m not alone. I have help. This person knows what to do. It’s going to be okay. As Celent’s Karlyn Carnahan put it when summing up the day, “This is a business where the people matter and the culture matters.”
Insurance has had a rough couple of years. Premiums are up, even for policyholders who haven’t made claims. That’s led to understandable frustration on the part of consumers, who can’t be expected to know the inner workings that insurers are having to navigate. Instead, it’s on insurers to support them, to be as clear and transparent as possible, and to make their buying experience painless and their lives as easy as possible. Technology can provide the tools to make all those things happen. But it’s up to insurers to sustain and support the relationship. That’s not just good business—it’s part of making the world better for everyone.
The good news is there’s lots of passionate people in insurance technology who are committed to making it happen. I hope you’ll join us for the conversation here, and at our next executive roundtable. After all—relationships matter!
