McKinsey’s top insurance articles of 2023
As 2023 begins to take shape, we review our most impactful insurance articles of the past year.
January 3, 2023Several topics dominated insurance leaders’ agendas in 2022: enduring profitability challenges, the unyielding pace of maintaining a competitive edge, and the mounting impact of inflation. All year, McKinsey’s publications covered the spectrum of subjects to help provide context and guidance as leaders tackle today’s most complex business challenges. We’ve highlighted our most noteworthy insights below Life insurance
Global Insurance Report 2023: Reimagining life insurance (report and podcast)—Following the inaugural 2022 Global Insurance Report, released in February 2022, the first chapter of the 2023 report delves into the major forces at play in the life insurance industry and the business model decisions insurers will face as they seek to accelerate growth and exceed performance targets. Ultimately, a changing industry landscape can allow insurers to overcome current performance challenges by transforming where and how they generate value.
An accompanying podcast features four McKinsey Insurance Practice leaders discussing industry trends and how companies can be successful by rethinking the life insurance model. Listen to the podcast or read the transcript.
Unbundling value: How leading insurers identify competitive advantage (article)—For US life insurers to address new and old challenges, they need a fresh approach to their business model and how they create value.
Grow or exit? Overcoming the scale trap in life insurance closed books (article)—The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated challenges for insurers in continental Europe. M&A deals with closed-book players can help insurers continue to create value.
P&C insurance
Countering inflation: How US P&C insurers can build resilience (article)—As property and casualty insurers in the United States struggle to maintain profitability, executives will need to direct a coordinated response across pricing, underwriting, claims, and other functions.
What P&C insurers can do as claims inflation pressures results in Europe (article)—With an eye toward a likely tumultuous 2023, claims executives can use a structured approach that includes transparent tracking, tactics, and strategic actions to tackle claims inflation in the short term and in the future.
Capturing the climate opportunity in insurance (article)—The world’s transition to net-zero emissions will cost trillions of dollars and present new kinds of risks. Here’s the role insurers can play.
Climate and insurance: How carriers are preparing for a net-zero future (podcast)—Decarbonization means a new risk landscape and new strategic skill sets for insurers. McKinsey subject matter experts from around the world discuss the shifts they’re seeing and the road ahead. Listen to the podcast or read the transcript.
Claims 2030: Embracing the future (videos)—As technological change accelerates and customer preferences diverge, the future of claims organizations centers on four key trends. Watch the videos or read the transcript.
The new standard for insurance claims (podcast)—In this podcast, three claims experts discuss what insurers should consider as they update their technology, ways of working, and workforces to bring forth the future of claims. Listen to the podcast or read the transcript.
Our most-read 2023 article
Five steps to improve innovation in the insurance industry (article)—Insurance is not typically considered a bastion of innovation, despite a long track record of creating new and exciting markets around emerging risks and consumer demands. Industry executives are recognizing the power of innovation to accelerate the pace of company change, yet few insurance carriers have pursued innovation in a systemic way. Five steps offer a road map for building innovation into the way an organization works, competes, and grows.
Connect with our Financial Services Practice
The future outlook for European insurtechs—and the potential value at stake
The future trajectory of the insurtech market is heavily determined by investment flows. According to McKinsey analysis, European insurtechs today attract approximately 20 percent of global insurtech funding volumes—a share that has remained steady over the past five years. European insurtechs had a record year in 2021, with more than €3 billion in funding. While the overall number of deals declined, deal size grew across all stages, with a higher share of late-stage deals compared with previous years. European insurtechs were collectively valued at approximately €40 billion in the same year.
While the industry successfully bounced back from the initial disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, a new set of challenges have emerged. Thecurrent macroeconomic environment is characterized by rising interest rates, decades-high inflation, and ongoing geopolitical unrest. Across industries, tech companies have been falling short of earnings targets and investor expectations—a phenomenon that began in public markets in 2021 and spread to private markets. Insurtechs were not immune to this asset overvaluation. For example, B2C insurtechs with balance sheet business models (especially those with high loss ratios or limited clarity on the sustainability of key economic drivers) could not meet the high expectations set by their software as a service–like tech counterparts.
As a direct consequence of this trend, both technology companies and insurtechs have seen a significant decline in valuations. The Nasdaq fell by 30 percent in the first half of 2022, and some insurtechs are experiencing valuation decreases of up to 95 percent (in extreme cases) relative to their all-time highs in 2021. This dynamic is slightly less pronounced in Europe than in the United States.
Funding volumes are also shrinking, especially in later-stage financing and IPOs. US venture capitalist funding decreased from $94 billion in the fourth quarter of 2021 to $36 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023. In Europe, the corresponding decrease was €29 billion to €13 billion. Nevertheless, there is still some market activity in Europe, and investors are looking for new deals, though more selectively.
The longer-term outlook for European insurtechs is more positive. If insurtechs follow a similar value capture trajectory as fintechs, which today account for approximately 20 percent of the market capitalization of traditional banks, insurtechs could generate roughly €200 billion of value in 2030—five times the current market value. While this rapid growth is achievable, it would require annual funding of approximately €5 billion, which is significantly higher than 2021 (approximately €3 billion) and 2022 levels (approximately €2 billion).
0 Comments