Why 5G is a Major Game-changer for the #Insurance Industry? #5GBuiltright

This article is part of The Future of Insurance -LinkedIn’s Newsletter Series, authored by Dogan Kaleli. Click here to subscribe and get updates on the technology, customer & employee experience, future of insurance industry and trends!

You probably heard about 5G already, which has many impacts on our lives… In this edition, in collaboration with Verizon 5G team and Scott H. Steinmetz from Allianz, I wanted to give you an overview about the 5G technology, some background, impacts on insurance and a couple of use cases so you can see how it’s already helping the insurance industry in its journey of transformation. A quick note before we dive into 5G: Verizon has invested billions of $$$ in network infrastructure since 2000, currently serves 99% of Fortune 500 companies and does business in 150+ countries… So I can’t think of anyone better to discuss 5G and infrastructure! 🚀

The impact of 5G on businesses will be significant: reducing costs while increasing efficiency, production and innovation. It’s fascinating to see how many touch points 5G has with different fields and industries: smart buildings, autonomous vehicles, connected wearables, real-time face recognition, energy efficiency devices, and more… Let’s start with a quick history:

Fourth Industrial Revolution “flywheel effect”

To get the big picture about 5G, let me describe the fourth industrial revolution first:

• 1st industrial revolution was the water & steam power in 1784, followed by;
• 2nd revolution in 1870 that involved mass production. Then came;
• 3rd one in 1969 with electronics and information technology.
• The 4th industrial revolution is all about connectivity, compute and intelligence leveraging 5G for new solutions and platforms merging advances in AI, Cloud, XR, Edge Computing, and IoT.

What is 5G?

5G is the fifth generation of the wireless technology. People using it, will describe it as one of the fastest, most robust technologies ever. That means quicker downloads, much lower lag and a significant impact on how we live and work. The connectivity benefits of 5G are expected to make businesses more efficient and give consumers access to more information faster than ever before. Connected cars, smart communities, industrial IoT, immersive education-they all will rely on 5G. A quick background: remember the first biiiiig analog cell phones? Those were using 1G, then 2G enabled new features like SMS and voicemail, which was followed by 3G that brought higher data transfer in our lives (web browsing, image sharing and GPS location-tracking). After that, 4G offered broadband that delivered deep web functionality to our smartphones (videos etc). 5G is here to do much much more, check these “5G Currencies”

Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband network will serve as a launch pad for high-impact, transformational experiences, platforms and solutions that transform industries ranging from insurance to entertainment — Toby Redshaw, SVP Enterprise Innovation and 5G Solutions at Verizon

I’ve discussed the 5G topic with Scott H. Steinmetz from Allianz Risk Consulting, who has years of experience working and innovating in insurance and risk management space. When I asked if if he can describe 5G’s effects on insurance industry, he said:

“Technology can only benefit the insurance industry. We need to think creatively to come up with new ways of measuring or understanding risk characteristics. If remote instruments and devices are employed leveraging 5G capability, a “data lake” can be created in the cloud which can then be used to significantly improve the quality of risk assessment and underwriting. 5G is going to have applications across all dimensions of insurance and it should bring confidence and better predictability, by building a more contemporaneous view of risk so it can help the insurance industry on pricing, risk conditions, acceptability and the ongoing risk assessment and underwriting processes. The technology can apply to various areas such as monitoring any form of property protection, or monitoring hazardous conditions for workers compensation risks, or wearables for the benefit of elderly in senior care facilities, to name some.”

And we picked three concrete examples to discuss the impacts on the insurance industry;

1) Smart Buildings

Scott Steinmetz: Using 5G technology in smart buildings, you are able to respond faster to conditions that are in the early stages of damage development, which will naturally limit the amount of loss sustained. If you think about this from a loss prevention perspective, water motion in a pipeline can be monitored sufficiently that says “you might have a leak” and you can explore the conditions and fix it before much damage occurs. This ability is the game-changer for the insurance industry, because this enables us to identify the undesired conditions in an automated fashion and address it timely. Overall, being able to understand risk environments and exposures, and being able to interact with that information will reduce the losses and consequently the total cost of insurance given that it will create a better risk profile. Additionally, more optimal energy use could be realized because the building is “smarter” bringing energy optimization and efficiency through use and leverage of operational parameters.

2) Augmented Manufacturing Safety

Scott Steinmetz: In the manufacturing space, use of this type of technology will have borad application throughout the manufacturing processes. The ability to monitor conditions in real-time, developing and interacting with captured data will significantly enhanced key value chains of manufacturing like observing quality elements of a part or surface or other characteristic detection. Using data to inform the quality aspects can serve the insurance industry in assessing risk quality, human elements and overall risk acceptability, which underpins the overall risk assessment and underwriting processes to a significant degree.

3) Drone Automation in Hazardous Environments

As I said earlier, you probably heard about 5G before reading this article, which has many impacts on our lives in every aspect. It’s important to get to know its capabilities and follow its “growth”, so you can identify areas in your field of insurance, and adapt it as soon as possible which will bring better risk assessment and underwriting capabilities, as well as better customer experience!

Verizon 5G

The Verizon 5G Lab is a showcase, an incubator and a media lab. It is a space to explore the boundaries of 5G network technology. Verizon has been able to collaborate with universities, startups and established companies to trial 5G concepts with its powerful 5G network. The Lab is currently closed but Verizon is offering virtual demos and meetings. If you want to explore Verizon 5G, book a meeting here on their contact page here

🌐 I f you want to meet the Verizon 5G team to discuss areas to collaborate or learn about their value prop for insurance industry, send me a note and I can connect you with them as well

🤩 Thank you for your great contributions: Toby Eduardo Redshaw, Steffen Spee, Daniel Seeley and Kari Drummond from VERIZON; and Scott H. Steinmetz from ALLIANZ

🏷️ Some content used in this article are provided by Verizon, and used with their permission.

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Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com and authored by Dogan Kaleli.