Our survey of 141 C-level insurance executives reveals that the average respondent expects to invest more than $40 million in digital projects over the next three years. The Accenture Digital Innovation Survey found that P&C insurers intend to invest an average of $47 million, with life insurers earmarking $40 million. By our analysis, that corresponds to 0.2 percent of premium income each year, on digital initiatives.

The top priorities for investment so far include:

• Mobile communications and apps (68 percent of respondents)
• Data mining and predictive modeling (59 percent)
• Social media monitoring (54 percent)
• Open data and big data analysis (48 percent)

Respondents indicated that their main areas of investment were focused on increasing sales and sales efficiency, digitizing processes and improving customer-centricity.

However, the survey also reveals that 60 percent of insurers view their investments in digital as “exploratory,” as opposed to only 22 percent of respondents who believe that investments made by their organization are focused on driving truly disruptive innovations.

Digital has already reshaped other industries by shifting the power from the business to the consumer. To survive and succeed, insurers must go beyond digitizing current processes—they must fundamentally change their business models to become customer-centric, digital businesses that provide consumers with solutions, not just products.

Accenture has five recommendations to help insurers leverage digital technologies to innovate and transform the insurance value chain. To learn about them, I hope you’ll register to download our full report.

For more information:

• Learn more about the Accenture Digital Innovation Survey 2014, including our interactive data visualization tool.
• Read Seizing the digital opportunity in insurance, part 1: Are you seeking improvement or new sources of revenue?
• Read Seizing the digital opportunity in insurance, part 2: Digital is a top priority.
• Read Seizing the digital opportunity in insurance, part 3: Driving growth with digital.
• Read Seizing the digital opportunity in insurance, part 4: Extending the value chain.
• Read Seizing the digital opportunity in insurance, part 5: Digital Transformers and Digital Followers.
• Read Seizing the digital opportunity in insurance, part 6: Distribution is poised to benefit.