SINGAPORE — Significant differences remain between the products that insurers offer and the services that commercial insurance buyers need, but both sides say they are working to bridge the gap.

In Southeast Asia in particular, sophisticated insurance buyers say their needs often are not met locally.

But by making better use of available data, insurers say they should be able to offer more relevant coverage and services to policyholders everywhere.

Insurers are “critical financial stakeholders” for commercial policyholders, but rarely do policyholders' senior executives view insurers as such, said Franck Baron, group general manager of risk management and insurance at International SOS Pte. Ltd. in Singapore and chairman of the Pan-Asia Risk & Insurance Management Association.

Chief financial officers seldom meet with their organizations' insurers, which is a missed opportunity to develop mutually beneficial relationships, he said during the Global Insurance Forum, held last week in Singapore by the International Insurance Society.

“You are not helping. The way you provide your products, the way you transact your products is not seen as a very efficient process or sufficiently agile to respond to our needs,” he said of insurers.

For example, insurers often gather data from their policyholders only once a year, and the information is quickly out of date, Mr. Baron said.

However, he said, “The burden is not just on your shoulders. It is also on ours as risk professionals to make it happen in an efficient manner.”

Inefficiencies are compounded by the lack of expertise among insurers in the Asia-Pacific region, Mr. Baron said.

“The vast majority of our corporate insurance placements are not made through Asia for a very simple reason — we are still missing the right level of expertise and talent to make it happen,” he said.

Saurabh Verma, chief insurance officer at Reliance Industries Ltd. in Mumbai, agreed that complex risks often are not placed in local markets, despite ample capacity.

“Everybody goes to London first. The moment the risk gets complicated or becomes a large risk, the signing authority doesn't rest in this region,” he said.

Insurers at the conference also agreed that customer service needs to improve.

“What I'd like to see is us stop annoying the customer. We ask them lots of ridiculous questions that we already know the answer to because it's out there in the digital space,” said Brian Duperreault, chairman and CEO of Hamilton Insurance Group Ltd. in Bermuda.

By leveraging the data, insurers can reduce the expense of underwriting risks, he said.

For example, there is a record of policyholders' calls to emergency services, such as 911 calls, Mr. Duperreault said. “It's all out there, so why are asking them? We've got to take the ridiculous amount of expense that we have in our business out.”

Brokers, too, should change their approach to focus less on collecting data, because it is not their core strength, he said. “Advise the customer; that's what you should be getting paid for, not this mindless work.”

Insurers have the opportunity to make much better use of data, but it will require a change in mindset, said Chris Wei, executive chairman of Aviva Asia and global chairman of Aviva Digital, units of London-based insurer Aviva P.L.C.

For hundreds of years, insurers have made money by “tweaking pricing” in the belief that they know more about their business than anyone else, he said.

“We've got to rethink that fundamentally, and I think the industry is way behind in realizing that there's a lot more data out there,” Mr. Wei said.

David Fried, CEO of emerging markets at Sydney-based insurer QBE Insurance Group Ltd., agreed that making better use of data can help insurers transform their business. For example, QBE writes third-party auto insurance in Columbia through thousands of agency outlets, he said.

“As you can imagine, there are fraud issues, other claims management issues. We were able to put this into our center of excellence for data and analyze the data and understand the trends as they are developing, so we are no longer reactive but proactive. We are able then to price product, shut locations if necessary and remediate as required,” Mr. Fried said.