Top predictions for the insurance industry in 2018:

From law, to emerging threat, to the rapid pace of technological change, you would be forgiven to be overwhelmed by the amount of variables impacting the insurer in any given moment.

What do they mean in practice, and how can the business grow in 2018? Guidewire Software's Keith Stonell, managing director for EMEA, provides Insurance Business his best four forecasts for the season ahead.

Insurtech will be dull but more purposeful
"2018 will observe insurtech needing to establish itself increasingly. We've noticed a shake-up already with all the peer reviewed insurer Guevara closed shop lately. There has to be question marks too over if those many insurtechs that search to be different distribution systems for insurance may justify the massive quantity of media and investment attention they've drawn in the past few years.

"The potential for insurtech along with other expressions of business creation, will lie in how well they're plugged to the mainstream. So, which makes it through 2018 will need increasingly getting old world insurance funding -- such as FRIDAY has from Baloise -- or making sure that your insurtech program is accompanied by an open API to become a part of a larger participant's ecosystem, as Octo or even Pypestream do with their telematics and chatbot messaging platforms, respectively.

"Undoubtedly, insurtech is creating some fantastic ideas and business models, many of which will change the market, but I find that more through assimilation than disruption."

Data listening can help insurers monetise managing 21st century threats to their customers
"Protecting individuals and companies from cyber threat seems a clear insurance chance, particularly with cyberattacks getting commonplace.
Analysing unconventional data, essential to underwriting new cyber dangers, has turned into a dark magic action. Insurers are working overtime to mine information that produces personalised experiences and goods, such as Amazon and Facebook perform daily, but the business will grow in 2018 about the way that it formalises data listening to outside resources to evaluate and cost new sorts of dangers."

Dynamic Data Analytics will gain floor with insurers
"Insurance continues to be a data investigation business since the very first actuaries scraped their parchments. Therefore, to state data analytics will issue in 2018 isn't any real surprise. However, what's going to turn into a differentiator is the way insurance companies will rely on dwell analytics to encourage personalised engagements in keeping with individual client requirements. Normally, digital transformation has been around quicker trades. By 2018, the target and the standard is going to be to earn core insurance systems brighter. Smart heart is about information analytics occurring right at the middle of operations instead of within an isolated silo."

Augmented Intelligence rather than Simply AI will become crucial
"At the beginning of 2017, Japanese insurance company Fukoku Mutual Life Insurance made headlines when workers became redundant with IBM's Watson Explorer AI. Nearly a year after, while the settled perspective is that AI will play a vital function, it's more about how AI will automate jobs and also increase insurance work, instead of automating human conclusion and removing employees. In freeing up employees from menial jobs, they could become better engaged in resolving their clients' needs. In addition, I find a definite advantage in how AI can help employees be more empathetic.

"There are new developments that combine predictive information analytics together with machine learning about behavioural evaluation, leading to some intriguing new technologies. 1 illustration is Cogito. This insurtech always monitors an individual agent's talk with a customer and autonomously places where the dialogue is flagging. It then recommends to this representative how they could display more favorable emotional intelligence. This really is a natural match for the insurance industry and client administration."