Onics’ Take on the Future of Insurance Engagement

At ITC London 2026, Sondre Aarrestad, Managing Director for Onics‘ Norwegian business says the company builds end-user services for insurance providers with tools that help insurers stay connected with customers beyond the moment a claim happens. His main point is that insurers need to engage people more consistently if they want stronger loyalty and better results which, done well, that “stickiness” can also help reduce claims costs, which is a big challenge across the insurance industry.

Aarrestad describes Onics’ work with IF as a practical example: improving the customer experience by giving people better control over the assets they insure, and enabling faster interaction when something goes wrong. Onics highlights prevention and quick response as key themes — reducing damage by spotting issues early and acting sooner while also noting these challenges are broadly similar in the UK and the Nordics, but says the Nordics are generally more advanced, with a few insurers already pushing these services into the market.

Most of the focus is on water claims, which Aarrestad calls one of the most expensive claim types for insurers. Onics prioritises solutions that help detect and respond to water-related risks, with the aim of limiting damage and lowering overall claim costs and adds that the same approach can extend to other areas like fire and smoke, burglar alarms, as well as new sensor use cases. One example is humidity: while it’s not always an immediate danger, but high humidity over time can create major problems, such as in basements. Aarrestad says Onics wants to expand and use these kinds of data points more effectively within insurance companies.

From a customer point of view, Aarrestad says insurance still feels like “a piece of paper” that people check once a year, with contact only when a claim is made and sees that as a big gap and a big opportunity; Insurers can be more relevant day-to-day by helping customers take better care of what they’re insuring with the added upside of fewer and smaller claims. Onics believes customers will increasingly expect this, and that insurers across the ecosystem can’t stay reactive;  And Onics expects this shift to accelerate over the next decade and in his view is that insurers need to rethink how they communicate and take responsibility for customer experience over time building habits and engagement every day, not just when damage happens.