L’artificial intelligence (AI) and climate change have emerged as top priorities for insurance industry executives around the world, according to research he conductedInternational Insurance Society (IIS).
The ILS 2024 Global Priorities Survey aims to identify the most critical issues for industry leaders and gather insights to shape the stakeholder agenda for the coming year. The survey asked respondents to select their top three problems from six categories: economic, political and legal, social and environmental, operational, technology and innovation, commercial and financial.
For the first time, AI emerged as a top priority in the technology and innovation category, with more than half of respondents highlighting its importance. ILS attributes this increase to executives reporting that their companies are not ready for the rapid development of AI. Among the key problems, executives cited slow adaptation to technological change and the need for extensive retraining as the workforce ages.
In the survey, one executive wrote, “Regardless of technological advances…machine learning or the integration of AI, the industry remains slow to change and adapt internally,” Reinsurance News reported.
Climate change continues to dominate the social and environmental category for the fourth consecutive year, with 60% of executives considering it a priority for 2024. The increasing frequency and severity of natural disasters presents significant challenges, such as the difficulty of predicting future losses and rising costs that could destabilize insurers, governments and consumers. A quarter of those surveyed admitted that their companies are not ready to deal with this issue in 2024.
Inflation, which falls under the Economy category, remains the top priority for 2024, expanding to all internal and external categories for the third consecutive year. While inflation fears remain, recession fears have eased from a peak of 44% reached in 2022.
The research also analyzed the key growth opportunities that executives plan to realize in 2024.
Product innovation is the biggest opportunity, and two-thirds of executives say they expect their company to continue to do so this year. Sixty-one percent of respondents also said they will seek to identify new customer segments this year, while just over half (55%) said their companies will focus on building trust and improving customer engagement. Overall, executives believe their companies are ready to pursue these growth vectors, with an average of 95% saying they are somewhat or very ready to address them.