Electronic signatures in insurance: are they really secure?

In insurance, the electronic signature has become the standard way to speed up exchanges and simplify the customer journey. But given how sensitive the data handled is, and how cyberthreats keep growing, one question remains: is it really enough to secure a company's document processes?

The electronic signature at the heart of insurers' transformation

Like many other sectors, insurance is going digital fast. Policyholders expect journeys that are simple, quick and available remotely, whether they are sending documents, taking out a policy or handling a claim.

Against that backdrop, the electronic signature has become the standard. It speeds up procedures, smooths exchanges and simplifies the customer experience.

But an essential question arises: is an electronic signature genuinely enough to keep those exchanges secure?

At a time when cyberattacks, AI-generated forgeries and data leaks are multiplying, many insurers are realising that a signature on its own does not protect the whole of their document process.

Why are insurers adopting electronic signatures on such a scale?

Procedures in insurance are now digital throughout: quote requests, document uploads, estimates, claims notifications and the rest. Everything happens online, through apps or customer portals.

In that context, the electronic signature brings immediate benefits:

• Shorter contract turnaround times
• Simpler administrative procedures
• Smoother customer journeys
• Less paper changing hands

This approach remains a sensitive one, though, and has to be used with tools that comply with the regulations in force, eIDAS among them.

Sensitive data: why insurance is a prime target for cyberattacks

Every day, insurers collect, manage and store thousands of records covering identity, family circumstances, financial situation and other personal information. That is an asset cybercriminals take a keen interest in, and it brings a great deal of risk with it.

This data is the bedrock of the business, but the more exchanges go digital, the more document flows multiply, and the wider the attack surface becomes.

In 2024, a subsidiary of the AXA group suffered a cyberattack that leaked the personal data of 15,000 customers. Incidents like that are a reminder that even the most established players remain vulnerable.

Is an electronic signature a guarantee of security?

A signature usually comes at the end of a procedure.

It is worth remembering, though, that plenty of risks sit upstream of it: documents forged with the help of artificial intelligence, or fraudulent and stolen documents put to use.

An electronic signature does not secure your data. You can perfectly well sign a document through an electronic signature process and still fall victim to a leak caused, for instance, by a vulnerable backup on the company's side.

A signature does not secure a whole process. All it does is validate it.

Weaknesses that often go unseen in the process

It is worth looking at the document process in insurance as a whole.

Every stage can represent a risk to how data is managed and secured. Among them:

• Forged documents used upstream
• Insufficient identity verification at the moment of signing
• A lack of traceability when data is exchanged, stored and shared
• Software ill-suited to storing data securely and under control

The risk does not come from a single point, but from the document chain as a whole.

What that means in practice for insurers

Insurers face significant legal risk tied to data processing and to the body of law they have to answer to. But they also risk losing the trust of their customers and their prospects, and damaging their company's reputation in the process.

The real challenge: securing the whole document process

The problem is in fact far broader than the electronic signature.

Insurance cannot rely on a single tool to move forward and take the digitisation of the sector in its stride.

It has to reconcile three essential pillars:

• data security,
• regulatory compliance,
• operational efficiency, in order to move forward and handle the digitisation of the sector calmly.

It is the balance between these three dimensions that builds genuine digital trust.

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• Identify the weaknesses in your document processes
• Understand the regulatory requirements (GDPR, eIDAS and others)
• Build a document journey that is reliable and smooth