Swiss Re’s group CEO, Michel Lies – while speaking at A.M. Best’s insurance market briefing -Europe – has stressed the opportunity big data provides insurers to tailor products "and accelerate underwriting knowledge".

Data, as a report published in 2013 by IBM notes, has always been the core of the insurance industry.

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However, the nature of that data is changing. Real-time weather feeds, geospatial data, public records, and data captured by devices and sensors is being augmented by unstructured data from social media posts, videos, emails and other fast-changing sources.

This means insurers can now use insights drawn from big data to improve claims operations and fraud detection and up-sell opportunities with real-time personalised offers.

Speaking to Life Insurance International at the A.M. Best briefing, which was held in London, Lies said: "On the underwriting side, [the use of] big data is accelerating and will help us improve our model. It will help the industry to tailor products for clients. There is also an enormous opportunity to test big data."

Lies said that to enhance profitability, primary insurers will aim for efficiency in multiple areas. For example, driving technology to make distribution more effective and client centric and adopting predictive modelling to improve underwriting.

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In terms of opportunities for the (re) insurance industry, he noted that high growth markets, such as emerging Asia and the Mena region are expected to grow faster than mature markets.

He added that there is also a large mortality protection gap, for example, in Asia-Pacific.

Lies concluded by saying the (re) insurance industry is in a phase where differentiation is very important. He said: "One-size-fits-all is over."