Ageas Horizon Scan provides a compass for the future

The annual Horizon Scan provides us with a very clear view on the trends likely to impact Ageas both in the short and longer term, from a financial, reputational and/or regulatory viewpoint. The trends are clustered into five actionable categories – No brainer, Speed-up, Alarm, Observatory and Parking. They serve as a recommendation on how the Group and its local businesses can act upon these trends. It helps us in our decision making around where and when to invest and confirms if the choices we made in the past remain the right ones for the future.

Let’s zoom in on a few trends detected in 2023. 

• In 2023 not surprisingly, Generative AI falls into the category of “Speed-ups”. These are high-impact trends which may evolve faster than we think, so we stimulate our local entities to explore business opportunities brought by these trends and we monitor the potential risks. Ageas is already testing and deploying different initiatives in this area, both back- and front office, such as the Digital Coach - a training simulator for salespeople, recognising that this could be a game-changer for the insurance industry.

• Also, on the “Speed-up” radar, is an increased focus on Embedded insurance, particularly in Asia. Ageas recently launched digital platforms in India that confirm the traction that exists for this type of new B2B2C digital channels. It is already helping to drive future growth.

• Since the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual consultations are on a steep rise, fuelling the use of Digital Health solutions to monitor patients remotely. AI predicts telematics to become more impactful for the health insurance industry than what we expect for motor and home insurance, thus entering the ‘Alarm’ category. Ageas is exploring how health telematics can add more value to the development of the larger health ecosystems in the Group. In 2023, the MTL Fit wellness app, which offers customers rebates based on personal health data related to exercise, steps and health check-ups, has been further deployed in Thailand. And several of our entities are deploying an online AI-powered Symptom checker, also providing health service recommendations to clients.

Each year, Ageas uses AI technology to scan millions of open data from various sources (industry databases, patents repository, social media), browsing for signs of emerging trends or trends that might be evolving faster or slower than we might assume. This trend analysis is compared with the views of more than 2,000 employees from 13 countries in Europe and Asia. This dual approach helps us make sense of the future in a pragmatic way. As the world moves fast, the evolution of the trends on our Horizon are tracked by AI on an ongoing basis throughout the year.