Читать книгу Analytics for Insurance - Tony Boobier - Страница 17

Not all insurance markets are moving at the same speed nor have the same level of maturity. Insurance penetration and market maturity tend to go hand in hand. This can potentially be analyzed by type of insurance and by geography, and micro segmentation helps allow analysis by demographic group.

It generally follows that insurance penetration directly correlates to the level of maturity in the banking sector. For example, with the exception of South Africa, the level of insurance penetration in the African nations is very low. Notwithstanding, the emergence of micro-insurance (insurance products whose purpose is to be both affordable and provide protection for low income people – those living on $1–$4 per day) has the potential to ‘buck the trend.’ Also this is a historical perspective – the rate of growth in the telecom industry in Africa may open the door to new thinking driven by the convergence of mobile technology and financial services. One other model which is beginning to emerge is the convergence of insurance with other industries, e.g., retail, which may lead to an acceleration of insurance market penetration and growth.

For the purpose of this publication, only a limited number of territories have been considered:

■ North America and Canada

■ Western Europe

■ China

■ Latin America.

These four groups of countries represent approximately 90 % of the insurance market as we currently know it. It is possible to identify some correlations between these territories, for example by contrasting growth markets with mature markets, but even these generalizations can be misleading as they can fail adequately to reflect the cultural and economic differences which prevail across vast regions.