The insurance industry continues to be a hotbed of innovation, with activity driven by growing demand for digitalization and personalization. With the growing importance of technologies such as telematics, machine learning, big data, deep learning, and data science, insurers are overcoming demographic challenges, low penetration rates, cybercrimes, and fraudulent claims. In the last three years alone, there have been over 11,000 patents filed and granted in the insurance industry, according to GlobalData’s report on Artificial intelligence in Insurance: Credit risk analysis models.
However, not all innovations are equal and nor do they follow a constant upward trend. Instead, their evolution takes the form of an S-shaped curve that reflects their typical lifecycle from early emergence to accelerating adoption, before finally stabilizing and reaching maturity.
Identifying where a particular innovation is on this journey, especially those that are in the emerging and accelerating stages, is essential for understanding their current level of adoption and the likely future trajectory and impact they will have.
90 innovations will shape the insurance industry
According to GlobalData’s Technology Foresights, which plots the S-curve for the insurance industry using innovation intensity models built on over 65,000 patents, there are 90 innovation areas that will shape the future of the industry.
Within the emerging innovation stage, AI-assisted underwriting and treatment expense prediction are disruptive technologies that are in the early stages of application and should be tracked closely. Vehicle motion estimation, vehicle forensic analysis, and AV insurance risk analysis are some of the accelerating innovation areas, where adoption has been steadily increasing. Among maturing innovation areas is driving skill evaluation, which is now well-established in the industry.
Innovation S-curve for artificial intelligence in the insurance industry
Credit risk analysis models is a key innovation area in artificial intelligence
Credit risk analysis models, which use artificial intelligence (AI), are a critical area of innovation in the field of AI. By applying machine learning algorithms to real-time transactional data, insurers can generate automated and personalized decisions across a customer's lifecycle, assess credit qualification, limits, and pricing, and detect negligence and fraud. AI empowers insurers to work with a broad range of data points and learn from data without the need for rule-based programming. This results in more accurate and efficient credit risk analysis, which is essential for insurers to price policies correctly and maintain a healthy portfolio.
GlobalData’s analysis also uncovers the companies at the forefront of each innovation area and assesses the potential reach and impact of their patenting activity across different applications and geographies. According to GlobalData, there are ten companies, spanning technology vendors, established insurance companies, and up-and-coming start-ups engaged in the development and application of credit risk analysis models.
Key players in credit risk analysis models – a disruptive innovation in the insurance industry
‘Application diversity’ measures the number of different applications identified for each relevant patent and broadly splits companies into either ‘niche’ or ‘diversified’ innovators.
‘Geographic reach’ refers to the number of different countries each relevant patent is registered in and reflects the breadth of geographic application intended, ranging from ‘global’ to ‘local’.
Patent volumes related to credit risk analysis models
| Company | Total patents (2010 - 2021) | Premium intelligence on the world's largest companies |
| State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance | 57 | Unlock company profile |
| Flex | 49 | Unlock company profile |
| SoftBank Group | 37 | Unlock company profile |
| Allstate | 32 | Unlock company profile |
| Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China | 27 | Unlock company profile |
| Equifax | 17 | Unlock company profile |
| Didi Global | 17 | Unlock company profile |
| International Business Machines | 6 | Unlock company profile |
| Swiss Re Asia Pacific | 5 | Unlock company profile |
| Zhong An Online P&C Insurance | 5 | Unlock company profile |
Source: GlobalData Patent Analytics
Ping An Insurance is a top patent filer in credit risk analysis models. They have developed a technology that uses artificial intelligence to identify credit risk. Their invention involves obtaining information about a user's qualifications, changes in information, and user tags from previous loans. They then predict the probability of multiple risk categories and determine a second credit risk level. Additionally, they use blockchain to improve the accuracy of credit risk identification for insurance users. Some other key patent filers in credit risk analysis models in the insurance industry include State Farm Mutual, SoftBank Group, Flex, The Allstate, and Swiss Re.
In terms of application diversity, State Farm Mutual leads the pack, with The Allstate and Flex in the second and third positions, respectively. By means of geographic reach, Didi Global holds the top position, followed by Zhong An Online P&C Insurance and Swiss Re.
To further understand the key themes and technologies disrupting the insurance industry, access GlobalData’s latest thematic research report on Insurance.
Subscribe to our Newsletter
Get industry leading news, data and analysis delivered to your inbox
GlobalData, the leading provider of industry intelligence, provided the underlying data, research, and analysis used to produce this article.
GlobalData’s Patent Analytics tracks patent filings and grants from official offices around the world. Textual analysis and official patent classifications are used to group patents into key thematic areas and link them to specific companies across the world’s largest industries.
