How is Metaverse Presenting New Opportunities for Insurance Businesses?

Metaverse has brought in a new wave of digital transformation by presenting the insurers with a robust technology toolset that helps them to get engage with the customers and develop new business strategies. As the line between the digital and physical world continues to blur, insurers are now prepared to enter into the ‘phygital’ environment and leverage the advantages of its potential.

Insurance companies can streamline their operations, enhance the customer experience, and address new risks by investing in the metaverse. Metaverse in the insurance industry is the new frontier in user experience and financial risk coverage that allows the utilization of digital avatars for training and customer support, creating digital twins for property underwriting, or providing coverage for digital assets.

The metaverse continuum will, therefore, raise the standards for insurers’ hassle-free communication with customers, creation, and distribution of their goods and experiences, and smoother operations management. Let’s now move on to check out the current market figures of the metaverse insurance market and analyze the recent trends and impact.

Metaverse Insurance Market Impact: As Virtual Reality Explodes, So Do the Risks

With the aid of cutting-edge technologies like Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, Metaverse can replicate the actual world. The metaverse, which is the next generation of the internet and social media, presents numerous business opportunities to companies all over the globe. Over 17% of all IT companies worldwide have invested in the metaverse. Also, by the end of 2023, the metaverse market is projected to be worth $82 billion and $936.6 billion by 2030, with the widespread adoption of the metaverse in multiple industries.

Organizations across different industries are now harnessing the power of the metaverse to drive significant growth, including the insurance industry. A new set of customer needs will arise as a result of the metaverse’s widespread use and the rise in social and commercial activities carried out through avatars. To meet these needs, insurance firms will need to adopt new strategies. The digitization of administrative processes, from leasing to asset management, will be accelerated by the metaverse.

This technology will be widely implemented in the insurance industry in the upcoming years as part of the disruption. The metaverse innovation will have a significant impact on the insurance sector while generating higher revenues and increasing cost-efficiency. The metaverse will affect specific areas of the insurance industry as it continues to develop, which will later prove advantageous. This prompts us to move into our next section, where we will discuss the opportunities that Metaverse has offered to the insurance sector.

Game-Changing Opportunities of Metaverse Technology in Insurance

Although adopting the metaverse in insurance businesses is at its initial stage, it is expected to be adopted widely in the upcoming years. Let’s look at how this advanced technology’s growing pervasiveness is anticipated to bring new financial opportunities in metaverse insurance domain.

Processing of Insurance Claims

Immersive technologies like AI in the metaverse greatly impacts insurance companies by helping them enable the lost adjusters through damage identification. Insurance companies can directly verify the claim details by analyzing the recent damage details over the pre-damage images. The VR headsets help in the proper evaluation of the damaged property.

Metaverse life insurance, therefore, offers perfect solutions that help escalate instructions and information over the damaged parts or areas, helping the third parties specialist providers. Through remote AI insurance-related guidance or assisted remote training, the specialists can perform repair operations remotely, which in turn, reduces time and cost.

New Product Development

Insurance companies are always urged to develop or enhance new products. They aim to provide their customers with a better experience. Therefore, they are now following the top metaverse trends in the insurance industry to keep up with the expectations of their customers.

Metaverse establishes an advanced level of sales and distribution channel for insurance products. With accurate use of modeling techniques, underwriters can study the loss and risk catering to the market segment, and customers can experience a plethora of metaverse assets in different industries, for example, gaming or healthcare.

For instance, metaverse health insurance is expected to see significant growth in the future as more and more healthcare companies aim to provide patients and healthcare professionals with an effective and immersive experience through a virtual environment.

Asset and Wealth Management

With the addition of metaverse in insurance businesses, the ownership, adoption, and transactions of assets have completely transformed with a virtual economy generating real-world value for the users. For instance, the metaverse mitigates the risk approach as investments will now occur in both virtual and physical worlds.

Insurance companies are now considering crypto assets as their investment tool and have started focusing on alternative assets abroad. Metaverse asset management offers multiple opportunities for insurers to enter into the space of digital and crypto assets, along with developing strategic risk management approaches for dealing with new assets.

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Streamlines Sales and Distribution

It is obvious the metaverse is a genuine sales channel, and insurers need a focused strategy as the physical and digital worlds to merge. Insurance companies could use the metaverse to visualize models that would bring actual situations to life and increase the emotional appeal of sales or marketing campaigns.

Replicating the human touch and sense of confidence from an agent’s sales experience while announcing more visually appealing methods to aid customers in comprehending the benefits, limitations, and trade-offs of a product. This can help insurance companies boost the brand value of their distribution channels.

Upskilling and Training the Insurers

Training environment can be made more real by upskilling the workforce with AR and VR technologies. This is because insurers often deal with high stake, stressful claims sent by the claim adjusters. Thanks to the myriad applications of the metaverse in insurance, where workforce training can be done remotely.

With metaverse in the insurance industry, training scenarios wouldn’t actually involve real-time visits to the area of devastation. The ability to use these simulations effectively could be a game-changer for insurers and make the difference between a workforce that is equipped and one that is not. It can, thereby, be anticipated that more insurance companies will put forward their workforce through controlled training as the metaverse continues to upgrade.

Although you are now aware of the opportunities of the metaverse in insurance businesses, you should also be mindful of the risks.

The Hidden Threats of Metaverse in the Insurance Industry

While the metaverse brings many opportunities for the insurance sector, it also brings corresponding risks and challenges. Let’s have a look at them:

Unintentional Violation of Real-World Rights

NFT transactions have garnered a lot of attention since 2021. With NFT technology, transaction history data is stored on a blockchain along with each transaction’s item, participants, and amount. However, due to the lack of clarity surrounding this technology’s legal standing, disputes over intellectual property (IP) rights have emerged.

The insurers thus have to clarify the legal positions, like the legitimacy of actions taken in virtual spaces that can violate real-world rights.

Risks to Digital Assets

The metaverse offers exciting possibilities for businesses, but there are also dangers for digital assets in this setting. Hacking, fraud, value loss, and centralization are a few concerns that affect digital assets in the metaverse. In general, users must take necessary precautions to secure their assets because the hazards to digital assets in the metaverse are comparable to those in the real world.

Using strong passwords, enabling two-factor authentication, and keeping money in safe wallets are a few examples of how to do this. It’s also critical to use trusted platforms for trading and communication within the metaverse and to be mindful of potential scams.

Data Protection and Cybersecurity Risks

Head-mounted devices mainly communicate with remote servers to share biometric data, like facial data or financial data, such as credit card numbers and account passwords. The host develops a comprehensive database of customer behaviors over time, including tourist attractions, behavioral data, shopping trends, and other private information.

This gold mine of customer information draws the attention of hackers or cyber criminals. As more people use these devices, the attack surface dramatically grows, exposing them to potential cyber risks. Organizations will eventually require insurance and cyber-protection to secure information.

Server Outages and Glitch Risk

Unexpected server downtime can damage virtual assets and data because no technology is fault-proof. Insurance companies must safeguard and encrypt themselves against the possibility of financial losses in the event that clients file lawsuits for unforeseen losses.

Unexpected Damage Caused by User Negligence

With the help of VR goggles, users can enjoy a fully immersive experience. This raises the possibility that they may not be completely aware of the risks in the outside world, and as a result, they may hurt themselves or others or damage any particular surrounding objects.

Similarly, users who inadvertently leak private information while in a virtual environment may be held responsible for the resulting harm or cyber risk.

How Appinventiv Can Help You Unlock New Possibilities of Metaverse in the Insurance Industry

The fundamentals of the insurance business and processes won’t be affected by the metaverse, but the relationship between insurers and insureds will almost definitely change. The insurance companies will be in a better position as technology develops to meet the coverage requirements of metaverse users by offering robust digital coaching, hyper-personalized insurance benefit selection, and new products.

New revenue streams can be generated with the implementation of the metaverse in insurance businesses. In order to remain competitive, insurers need to keep up with market developments and place themselves to benefit from the metaverse and other advanced technologies.

Appinventiv’s robust metaverse development services ensure that insurance firms can smoothly operate their business in the virtual world. With our user-centric and agile development approach, you can advance your primary business objectives and stay ahead of the competitive curve.

Speak with our metaverse app development experts to learn how cutting-edge metaverse technology fits your company’s goals.

FAQs

Q. What does the metaverse mean for insurers?

A. The metaverse in the insurance industry comes with a plethora of opportunities both in terms of gaining new insurance coverage and operation needs. Most importantly, it helps insurers to get engaged with the customers, develop new risk mitigation strategies, and offer innovative products and coverages. Insurers can utilize the metaverse in their day-to-day business operations, thus increasing operational efficiency and reducing cost.

Q. What is the application of metaverse in insurance?

A. The following are some of the main ways a metaverse can be used in insurance procedures:

1. Insurance claims: By overlaying new damage information over prior damage images, a metaverse environment could be used to conduct estate evaluations and bolster claim proof. Property and casualty insurers can use the new technology to assess resources without being present, which will cut costs.
2. Brokers: Brokers could virtually interpret a client’s premises to assess their requirements and risk profile. They could use this information to develop risk management strategies that they could then implement on actual sites.
3. Creators of insurance products: Innovative insurance policy creators who concentrate on particular groups may be able to assist insurers in reaching a new market of clients.

Q. How does the metaverse impact the insurance industry?

A. The metaverse insurance impact is not known much talked about, as the technology is still in its infancy stage. However, here are a few potential impacts that the metaverse has on the insurance industry:

• Development of new types of insurance products
• Increased risk awareness
• Data collection and analysis
• Virtual claims handling

Q. What are some of the metaverse insurance use cases?

A. Take a look at some of the top metaverse insurance use cases:

1. Gaming: Being one of the initial investors of metaverse technology, the gaming industry has successfully implemented metaverse in various applications. Some popular examples or use cases of a metaverse in gaming include Sorare, The Sandbox, and Axie Infinity.
2. Travel and tourism: A very well-known use case of a metaverse in the travel & tourism business is Thomas Cook’s introduction of the Virtual Reality Holiday “Try before you Fly,” which enables prospective tourists to travel virtually to their desired locations.

To learn more about the metaverse insurance use cases, check out this detailed blog.

THE AUTHOR

Sudeep Srivastava

Co-Founder and Director