A Very Safe CES

Trends observable at the show that insurers must follow include the concept of ‘the home is a safe and secure space’ and monetizing the car as an infotainment center—both involving ecosystem partners.

Donald Light //

(Sony Bravia TV exhibited at CES 2021.)

CES, the mammoth Consumer Electronics Show, was virtual (aka digital), and not so mammoth this year. It was a lot easier moving from session to session. And to tell the truth, I did not miss squeezing into a Las Vegas Monorail car with a lot of my fellow CES attendees.

However, I did miss walking the exhibit halls, and being able to touch (or sit in) kind-of autonomous vehicles, and walk through fairly smart homes, and talk to (often) knowledgeable booth staff.

This year, like every year, I focused on a few connected home and connected  car sessions.

COVID-19, or the preferred term “pandemic,” hovered in the background of a lot of the discussions. This is reflected in my own, unscientific Word Cloud:

  • Touchless, Contactless Mobility (sic), Keyless, Safety, Security, Privacy, Peace of Mind, Air Quality, At Home, Telehealth, Check on Loved Ones Remotely . . .

Many of the concepts, that have come to dominate insurance technology, kept appearing in the connected home and car discussions:

  • Compelling end-to-end consumer experience, seamless consumer experience, lean and scrum, the API revolution, personalization

And special mention to:

In the “Mobility Experiences for the Future and Today” session, a panelist said that home remains the “first place,” but the car moves up to the “second place,” and work moves down to the “third place.” Following from that observation, there was a great deal of discussion of how cars can provide “drive-in movie” and premium audio experiences.

Implications

Insurers need to ride two waves:

  1. The “home as a safe and secure place” wave—both directly and in partnership with the firms that are winning the connectivity battles
  2. The monetizing the car as an infotainment center wave (again through partnerships); and positioning “connected cars are safe cars” by combining traditional how the car is driven telematics data, with the vast amounts of data generated by vehicles’ internal monitoring ECU systems and their ADAS safety systems.

CES 2020: Consumer Technology Evolving Faster than Insurance Uses

Donald Light // Donald Light is a Director in Celent’s North America Property/Casualty Insurance Practice. His coverage areas include: technology and business strategy; transformative technologies such as digital, the Internet of Things, and driverless cars; core systems; and insurance technology M&A due diligence. His recent consulting work includes: developing a strategic IT plan for a specialty insurer, core system vendor selection support; a build vs. buy analysis for core systems; and several due diligence assignments. Light is widely quoted in the press and media, including The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, NBC and CBS Evening News, CNBC, National Public Radio. He is a frequent presenter at industry conferences including those sponsored by ACORD, PCI, and IASA.

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