Innovation in Latin American Insurers 2016: A Current Snapshot

Celent has released a new report titled Innovation in Latin American Insurers 2016: A Current Snapshot. The report was written by Juan Mazzini and Mike Fitzgerald, Senior Analysts in Celent’s Insurance practice.

Over the past four years, Celent has been researching what practical steps insurers are taking to manage innovation. This report extends these efforts by examining the trends in Latin America in detail.

Practically all of the insurers that responded to a survey about the innovation of Latin American insurers identified innovation as critical to meeting customer expectations. However, a large group continues to identify innovation as important but not critical to their strategy.

A large group observed that, as a whole, insurance continues to lag other industries in its successful implementation of innovative technology and processes. In contrast to findings in other regions, top-level leadership is cited as the main barrier for innovation.

“The data suggests a certain level of complacency in Latin American insurers regarding the need to change the status quo and a possible reluctance to criticize the current business model. Most efforts continue to focus on incremental innovation; the implication is that the insurance industry believes they still have time to adapt and adopt the myriad of changes flying over them. Disruption is not a looming threat,” Mazzini said.

“The survey underscores that there are opportunities for Latin American insurers to brand themselves as innovators and position their company, in the minds of consumers, as one that is responding to new preferences about customer engagement. It remains to be seen who will accept this challenge,” Fitzgerald said.