Insurers prioritise profit over growth
Source: Middle East Insurance Review | Dec 2023
Nearly half of 400 insurance executives participating in a new survey have said their current priorities centre on improving profitability rather than growing their businesses.
The report ‘Insurance Operations in a Changing Industry’, published by SaaS solutions provider Earnix in October 2023 revealed that 48% of the participants reported they are prioritising profitability, as opposed to 13% who stated growth metrics take precedence.
The survey was conducted in June 2023 and the 400 participants represented insurance companies from the US, Canada, Europe and Australia. The participants were from various departments across the industry.
More than half, 241 respondents, were executives for property/casualty personal lines insurers, while 78 represented P/C commercial insurers.
Executives in areas such as actuarial pricing and underwriting selected growing cyber risks above macroeconomic trends as one of the three top trends impacting their area of the company over the last two years. Thirty-five percent of C-suite executives selected macroeconomic challenges as the top trend.
Insurers said the ability to attract and retain talent is a significant challenge, with large insurers giving this a score of 8.05 (on a 10-point scale).
The survey found different priorities in terms of skills they are looking for in new employees. IT executives and C-suiters put the most attention on IT management skills, in contrast to actuaries and product executives who are most keen on acquiring talent with dynamic pricing skills.
As for AI skills, C-suite executives ranked that second, behind IT management skills. Only analytics executives ranked AI skills first. Nearly all survey respondents—98% —said they are planning to use predictive modelling. M