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Ismaning, September 23, 2021 - Insurers need to focus more strongly on their claims business model while making it more flexible if they are to continue to operate successfully on the market in future. This is the result of the study "Claims Management 2025" by msg and Versicherungsforen Leipzig, which outlines four strategic target models for the claims operating model of the future and presents practical recommendations for action.

Claims management has always been one of the largest but also most challenging areas of the insurance industry. With increasing digitalization and rising customer demands, the pressure on the various actors involved is visibly intensifying. The study "Claims Management 2025 - Strategies and Fields of Action for the Claims Ecosystem" by msg and Versicherungsforen Leipzig - based on the current market situation and the foreseeable social, technological and economic developments - outlines a future vision of the claims market up to 2025 and beyond. This will pose major challenges for insurers with their existing claims organization in the future.

“Our study clearly shows that, in addition to the challenges, the claims market will continue to offer outstanding opportunities in the future and represents an attractive and promising field of activity for insurers," says Jens Ringel, CEO Versicherungsforen Leipzig Frank Porzberg, Principal Business Consultant Insurance at msg, adds: "However, the prerequisite is that they consistently move strategically and operationally towards making their claims operations more flexible. In the claims market of the future, adaptability coupled with clear strategic objectives is the promising way forward.”

Data-driven digital insurer, power player, standard insurer or niche provider?

There is no "one-size-fits-all strategy" for all insurers active on the German market. In the future, too, different actors with varying areas of expertise will be able to operate successfully on the market. What is important is that claims managers derive the right and suitable future strategy for their claims management from this and transpose it in a targeted manner into a new individual Target Operating Model Claims. To this end, the study identifies four target models for a successful path into the claims market of the future, depending on the respective current market presence:

• the niche provider
• the data-driven digital insurer
• the power player
• the standard insurer.

Depending on the target model, the pendulum of the right positioning can swing more strongly in the direction of customer orientation, process efficiency, or business model expansion beyond claims. Regardless of the target model, however, the underlying focus on capabilities in data management and intelligent use of technology in future claims management is indispensable.

“While we don’t expect a hard 'the-winner-takes-it-all effect' for the claims market of the future, first movers will play a decisive role in shaping the rules of the game in the new claims market - not least to their advantage," explains Frank Porzberg. “If insurers don’t want to increasingly lose their own room for maneuver, they must start now to define and establish their target model."

The study “Claims Management 2025 – Strategies and Fields of Action for the Claims Ecosystem” was prepared jointly by msg and Versicherungsforen Leipzig. At the core of the approach is an online survey with 151 claims experts from insurance and service companies, in which the status quo and future vision for claims management 2025 were collected. 13 guideline-based interviews with executive board members and experts from leading German primary insurers supplement the results with important industry insights.

The entire study can be downloaded here in german free of charge:  https://www.msg.group/studie-claims-management-2025