Digital transformation accelerated by the challenges posed by Covid-19 is a trend that will endure post lockdown, an Insurance Times poll of brokers and industry stakeholders revealed.

Asked how customer behaviour will have changed in five years time, 52% of respondents said there would be a continual and gradual move to online/digital, but not in a sudden rush.

While 45% of those polled said Covid-19 will be seen as the moment that digital business models become ubiquitous.

Only three percent said online will plateau again following the recent uptick, and none of the respondents thought the industry would go back to pre-Covid ways of buying and engaging.

The poll was one of three carried by Insurance Times during its recent SSP sponsored webinar: The legacy of COVID-19 will be the end of legacy - how a global pandemic is accelerating the adoption of cloud platforms.

Another poll asked respondents whether their organisation was using Covid as an opportunity to drive through significant digital transformation. Less than half, 44%, strongly agreed with this statement while 38% agreed, with 15% remaining neutral or undecided and just 3% disagreeing. 

Asked what has been the overriding factor in driving that change, 30% said they already had a plan, but have used Covid as a convenient excuse with stakeholders to focus and get on with it, while 20% said customer behaviour has caused them to reinvent their business model, the same percentage said Covid has been the shock to the system they needed to rethink the whole business, 27% said lockdown has increased their belief in their ability to drive through change to our operating model and just 3% said lower business demand has created more capacity to drive through changes that they already envisaged.