The movie Blade Runner (and the novel it is based on, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) depicts a future world where artificial intelligence is taking over. It is a striking dystopia where robots – the replicants – have more humanity than their human masters.
Reimagining the future of insurance can get a little bleak too. Insurers might be concerned about InsurTech’s rise and its challenge to both the old ways of doing insurance, and even the need for insurers at all.
However, a week spent at Connections 2017 in November helped me reimagine how InsurTech will impact the industry. Talking with industry CIOs and InsurTechs there, I came away with a clearer view on how the several strands of InsurTech would develop in 2018 and beyond.
One strand is how InsurTech disrupts insurers through digital distribution models. Lemonade is the pre-eminent example. Their challenge is direct, loud and bullish. But insurers have faced off this kind of model before, for example, insurance aggregators here in the UK. Insurers can stand tall against this disruptive move when they consider how they have strong customer relationships, and data that can be harnessed and used more powerfully and dynamically than ever before. InsurTech distribution models look less likely to succeed in my mind.
To learn about how else InsurTechs will develop in 2018 and beyond, please read my Finextra article.