Fintech Is Not Likely to Replace Employees in Insurance Industry, but Will Force Them to Improve Skills
Yang Qianwen
DATE:  Jul 07 2017
/ SOURCE:  Yicai
Fintech Is Not Likely to Replace Employees in Insurance Industry, but Will Force Them to Improve Skills Fintech Is Not Likely to Replace Employees in Insurance Industry, but Will Force Them to Improve Skills

(Yicai Global) July 7 -- The speed and pace of technology developments worry employees across many industries, leading to question marks as to whether technology will replace employees and workers. The insurance sector employees are not immune to it either. Will technology replace some of the workers in the insurance industry?

Not entirely, insiders told Yicai Global. Some of the basic, repetitive work in the insurance industry can be conducted with the help of technology, but workers at key positions such as front-end sales, back-end underwriting and insurance claims handling can hardly be fully replaced by technology or robots, people from a number of insurance companies and fintech firms told Yicai Global.

Technology now plays a supporting role in the insurance industry. However, it would force insurance practitioners to improve their professional expertise and skills set to take on more complex work, they said.

"Internet technology and other new technologies are replacing workers engaging in simple, repetitive work," an employee at China Pacific Insurance Group Co.'s life insurance unit told Yicai Global. "For example, our previously outsourced order entry jobs and image review jobs have been replaced by self-order entry and self-scanning by clients themselves. Our preservation business has been growing at 30 percent to 40 percent in recent years, but the number of preservation personnel working at the counters has remained unchanged. Teleworkers dealing with life insurance clients have also largely been replaced by new technologies."

Meanwhile, insurance companies are hiring more and more technical staff. China Pacific Insurance's information technology center has employed more than 1,000 people. The number of technical workers has increased from 500 last year to 1,200 at present at Ping An Life Insurance's technology center, which was established a year ago.

"However, I think it is an overstatement that fintech will completely replace workers at some of the key positions in the insurance industry," Chen Wei, chief executive of Zhongan Information Technology Services Co. told Yicai Global.

Current technologies can not completely replace humans, Chen said, adding that some jobs are unlikely to be entirely scrapped due to growing business in the insurance industry.

Fintech is playing a supporting role rather than substitute workers in the insurance industry, insiders point out. "The insurance industry is special as it requires employees to analyze, judge and deal with various situations in each stage, including selling insurance products, underwriting and compensation. Obviously, it is impossible for current technologies to complete all these tasks. At this stage, they are unlikely to replace workers at some of the posts in the insurance industry," a director at China Pacific Insurance Group Co.'s life insurance unit said.

"On the other hand, we cannot deny that new technologies are quietly changing the insurance industry. When new technologies are incorporated, all insurance practitioners should re-examine themselves and learn how to use such technologies to embrace changes. This is the future development trend," the director said.

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Keywords:   Insurance,Fintech,AI,TECHNOLOGY,Sector,Replacing,Losing Jobs,Robots,Work Place