The Metaverse is becoming more nd more a topic of discussion, what can the insurance sector expect from it in the near future?
The Metaverse has been one of the top buzz words in 2022. Both the tech and business world are investing heavily in this new 3D layer of the internet despite it being at the beginning of its development, user numbers and use cases are still limited.
The motivation for companies like Microsoft, Google and fashion brands such as Gucci and Louis Vuitton is to be at the forefront of this technological development and to expand their customer´s experience from the physical to the virtual worlds.
The term Metaverse originated from a 90s science fiction novel. The following defines it quite well:
“The Metaverse is an interoperable online environment, projected in real time with multiple virtual worlds, where an unlimited number of users can experience, socialize, create and hold value.”
The Metaverse can be compared to where the mobile internet was in 2003, namely at the beginning of its emergence. In order to advance on this long journey, the development of various technologies is needed. It is foreseeable that the Metaverse will have the same potential to revolutionize technology like the mobile internet had, which had changed the way the web was used, and provided products, services and companies as well as new business models.
Some of the core attributes of the Metaverse are the following:
- It will continue indefinitely.
- Metaverse takes place in real time with an unlimited number of users.
- And has a fully functioning economy, where content and experiences are created and consumed by individuals, groups and companies.
- Furthermore, Metaverse is accessed via a variety of devices, from smartphones to VR headsets and more.
The current applications of the Metaverse are gaming, remote work, real estate, education, social interactions and entertainment, advertising and marketing, health, arts and culture, tourism as well as e-commerce. They are entertained by popular providers and platforms such as: Horizon Worlds, The Sandbox, Decentraland, Nvidia Omniverse and others.
Regarding the Insurance Industry few ground-breaking cases have yet been implemented. Various insurers are testing “virtual customer advisory services”, “virtual agencies” as well as “virtual sales trainings for insurance advisors” – an interesting application by a US insurance company is the “selling of insurance policies for non-fungible-tokens (NFT)”, kind of a theft and hacker insurance.
The Eurapco Lab Innovation Team´s opinion is that there is no urgent need for action right now. However, it makes sense to keep a constant eye on developments.
Gartner – a company that specializes in market research – also shares this assessment and predicts that the Metaverse will take more than ten years to reach the plateau of productivity.
In spite that there are many different interpretations of the Metaverse, and much to learn, many use cases are currently being evaluated within the insurance industry, namely La Mobilière, LocalTapiola, Reale Mutua, Achmea, as well as by the Eurapco Lab Innovation Team. Meaningful future use cases could be branding, protecting digital assets, risk management and claims assessment.
If we grabbed your interest with this article and you want to know more about the Metaverse, then view the report from the Eurapco Lab by clicking here and then select files.
