The main topics of the “Sustainable Insurance in the Future” panel moderated by Mrs. Dilek SAKALLIOĞLU, Vice President, SEDDK were digitalization and technology, strong capital, customer satisfaction, data-based business management, education and employment, climate and environment. The panel’s discussions were joined by Ceyhan HANCIOĞLU, General Manager, MAGDEBURGER; Fahri UĞUR, CEO, SOMPO; Firuzan İŞCAN, General Manager, HDI and Prof. Dr. Erdem KIRKBEŞOĞLU, Başkent University, Insurance and Risk Management Department.

Panelists have emphasized the changing nature of risks, advocating for the need of improving the industry’s resilience and also the coverage rate throughout society. “The world is changing, climate is changing, risks are changing. We should not fall behind them,” commented Ceyhan Hancıoğlu, General Manager, Magdeburger. So achieve this goal, “market players who are not strong enough should have no place in this industry. It is necessary to present the vision, capital and organization in a fair manner,” he said. Hancıoğlu also spoke about the need of educating citizens on the need of insurance and increase the coverage rate:

Drawing attention to the importance of the insurance sector for the continuation of life, stated that there would be no life in a world without insurers and said: “We are people who protect living beings and assets. We have to be strong to sustain, but we are still not strong enough. In this sense, of course, there are efforts and studies carried out in this direction, but I do not think that we are a harsh sector. The penetration rate already supports this. We need to increase this. “A compulsory earthquake insurance rate of 58% is not acceptable. We need to go after the remaining 42%. We need to also increase the insurance rate for other branches as well. For this, we need to make insurance more popular, increase the number of qualified employees, explain insurance correctly and provide accurate information. We don't explain ourselves or what we do well enough.”

Hancıoğlu insisted on the role of well professionally trained employees. “No matter how digitalized we are, you cannot eliminate people in areas that require expertise. You cannot and will not be able to eliminate the middleman and the agency. We need people at the moment of decision," he said. However, the role of digitalization should not be ignored, but considered for its right importance. “Digitalization is necessary in business processes, data management and reporting and is extremely important in terms of efficiency, but we need people at the last point. Because we take action with people and make contact with people.”

However, educating customers to insurance is as important as maintaining a permanent open eye on their changing needs and expectations. Firüzan İşcan, General Manager, HDI Sigorta said that “changing customers and changing needs are the result of dynamic life.” Customers now want to track their damage and want a simple package proportional to their purchasing power. "We need to develop strategies to manage existing risks and products for changing needs."

Firuzan İŞCAN, General Manager, HDI insisted on the benefits of digitalization with regard to the correct risk profiling of customers and assessing and mitigating risks. “We will increasingly use technologies such as ChatGPT, artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things to prevent damage from occurring or to predict possible damage. At the same time, we will continue to use new technologies to collect better data on both the vehicles and health side. Insurance is a craft, and we will benefit from technologies to improve our craft," he said.

As it is already well-known, no discussion about the industry’s sustainability may ignore the challenges raised by the climate change. Sompo Sigorta CEO Fahri Uğur said that the insurance industry should find a solution to the frequency and cost increases of climate change and the natural events that occur with it. “We can only do this by coming together with all stakeholders. We can solve this issue if both our customers and our regulator support us in this sense. As a sector, we must take responsibility and do what needs to be done," he said.

Prof.Dr. Erdem Kırkbeşoğlu summarized the digitalization in insurance role and status: “The sector is not behind the world in the field of digitalization. In developed insurance economies, there is no structure where everything is digital. We follow them too. There are two points regarding digitalization and the insurance industry. One of these is operational processes. Pricing is the most important of these, and personalized pricing actually stands out here. It seems that robot advisors, digitalization of call centers and digital policies will also be a part of the marketing process in the future. The second dimension is new products and new business systems. It is said that cyber insurance will have a very significant market share in the future. Group-specific insurance, such as personalized pricing, is also on the agenda. New products are also being developed for platforms such as Uber and Airbnb, which are in the sharing economy. All of these are seen as new areas of opportunity for agencies and intermediaries," he said.