The life and pensions sector has many reasons to be upbeat about its future. The number of people aged over 60 will more than triple to over 2 billion by 2050. The number of middle class people (earning more than $10/day) will grow from 430 million to 1.2 billion in 2030, with 2/3rds of this growth coming from India and China, creating much more wealth to protect and more demand for life cover. Over the next 30 years, some 1.8 billion people are expected to move into cities, most of them in Asia and Africa, increasing the world's urban population to 5.6 billion and reshaping the marketplace for insurers and other financial services businesses. The number of people connected to the internet will increase from 1.8 billion today to 5 billion by 2020, changing how customers interact with your business and their expectations over the speed and intuition of response. 
A larger and longer living global population is increasing demand for retirement products. In turn, the increasing affluence of people within the high growth markets of South America, Asia, Africa and the Middle-East is creating a growth need for wealth protection. But as customers become accustomed to the ease, elegance and intuition of the Apple/ Amazon 'experience,' they want the same accessibility, transparency and responsiveness in their life insurance and pensions products. 
Advances in processing capacity, customer profiling and risk analytics are now opening the way for a new generation of 'smart' policies. To stay in the game, your business needs to be thinking and acting at the same rate as technology and customer expectations are evolving. 
Cloud computing is allowing businesses to turn fixed costs into variable costs. At the foundation of cloud computing is the broader concept of converged infrastructure and shared services. For example, a cloud computer facility that serves European users during European business hours with a specific application (e.g., email) may reallocate the same resources to serve North American users during North America's business hours with a different application (e.g., a web server). This approach should maximize the use of computing power thus reducing environmental damage as well since less power, air conditioning, rack space, etc. are required for a variety of functions. With cloud computing, multiple users can access a single server to retrieve and update their data without purchasing licenses for different applications. Proponents claim that cloud computing allows companies to avoid upfront infrastructure costs, and focus on projects that differentiate their businesses instead of on infrastructure. Proponents also claim that cloud computing allows enterprises to get their applications up and running faster, with improved manageability and less maintenance, and enables IT to more rapidly adjust resources to meet fluctuating and unpredictable business demand.
Digital distribution would allow your business to move into new markets without the need for expensive and difficult to establish branch or agency networks on the ground. The development of low cost and easy-to-understand and compare policies will be crucial in filling the gaps created by the withdrawal of social welfare and defined benefit plans