Legal & General Insurance has started investigating ways to bring a form of robo-advice to the protection process to improve the customer journey.
Mark Holweger, managing director at Legal & General Insurance, said the company was not only exploring how to use data "sensibly and correctly" to create the best possible cover, but also working to "fit protection propositions into other systems" such as robo-advice.
He said: "We hold lots of hackathons and work with experts such as Google to try to understand different needs for different customer segments, and how this can work together in an automated process.
"We have a number of different 'incubators' in our organisation, where we are developing various ideas to make the life journey simpler for advisers and the clients."
Mr Holweger pointed out that banks and building societies have already been using internet-based services to create a more seamless and secure mortgage process, and said the protection element could be built into this process.
For example, when completing mortgage applications online, forms could contain relevant protection questions which, once captured, could remove the hassle of submitting all this information again for a protection policy.
Insurance is so personal and emotive, that technology cannot pick up what a human adviser often can.Tom ConnerAccording to Mr Holweger: "If you look at the customer journey it is important to see where are the hassle factors, and how can we use technology to take out the hassle for them and for the intermediaries.
"By using data well and creating automation and engaging with the robo-advice developments, we can give brokers a competitive advantage", he added.
Advisers such as Drewberry have welcomed technological advances that can make the consumer and the advisers' lives easier but said full-on robo advice - such as is being developed for the investment world - might still be a long way away for the protection industry.
Tom Conner, director of advisory firm Drewberry, said: "If you are a provider, building a robo-advice platform could be easy; for example, it could be as simple as a decision tree to help guide clients down the protection or mortgage route.
"However if you are looking at protection needs more generally, such as what the employer might provide for an individual, or whether the individual has children, for example, it becomes trickier to build a robo-advice proposition that will cater for all their various needs.
"When you then look at whole-of-market propositions, and put the underwriting into this - such as whether there are medical conditions or the client has a dangerous hobby such as horse-riding - then you might need a deeper and wider, whole-of-market proposition and that is more difficult to create.
"The adviser in a conversation can capture all of this information, as insurance is so personal and emotive, that technology cannot pick up what a human adviser often can."
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