The impact of digitalisation on the distribution of insurances in Belgium: How can brokers turn the threat of digitalisation into an advantage of their job?

Abstract

In today’s more and more digitalised world, any business sector needs to adapt their work and offers to the emerging digital changes. This is also the case for the insurance sector, in which the brokers’ daily work has been strongly affected by digitalisation. As the brokers’ added value, the customer service, is traditionally based on personal contact with the customers, digitalisation has created some major challenges for the brokers (Buron, 2019). The aim of this dissertation was to analyse the impact of digitalisation on the distribution of insurances in Belgium in order to help brokers to find the right balance between personal and digital working approaches. The analysis should help to transform the potential threat of digitalisation into an opportunity for the brokers’ job. The conduction of a SWOT and Porter’s Five Forces analysis completed the literature research on this subject. Later, two different studies were conducted to collect practical data. On the one hand, a customer survey analysed the customers’ point of view when it comes to digitalisation in the insurance sector. On the other hand, an in-depth interview helped to gain insights into the brokers’ opinions. An analysis and comparison of the results of both studies finally revealed interesting insights into the impact of digitalisation on the insurance sector. Most interestingly, brokers and customers tended to share similar points of view and agreed in the fact that personal contact and advice should be the most important aspects. Even if digitalisation has slightly changed the customer behaviour, especially that of younger generations, the need to have brokers for personal counselling remains crucial. The findings have helped to get a better understanding of the real impact of digitalisation and have proved that the thought “threat” of digitalisation could rather be seen and used as an opportunity and support for the brokers’ job. Finally, the key implications for brokers and researchers were stated and encountered limitations were acknowledged, based on which recommendations for further research could be made.