Insurtech disruption could become a ‘black swan’ event: JLT’s Flandro

The speed at which technology is transforming the insurance industry means it could become a so-called black swan event for the industry – as opposed to technology being gradually implemented by the industry in an orderly way.

That was one of the themes debated by a panel of experts at Intelligent Insurtech Europe 2018, which is taking place in London today (Monday October 15) in a session called ‘Driving Incumbent Innovation with Insurtech: a view from the board’.

Chaired by Maria Solano, chief technologist, DXC Technology, the panel comprised David Germain, CTO, RSA; Madeleine Bailey, global head of strategy initiatives, MS Amlin; and David Flandro, global head of analytics, JLT Re.

Flandro said that the industry cannot assume that technology will transform the risk transfer landscape in an orderly manner.

“It could instead be a complete black swan event,” he said. “If you look at true disruption in other sectors in the past 30 years, you often find that executives were not discussing the true nature of that disruption in advance. It came out of now where and people did not see it coming. The same could be true for us. The best we can do is be nimble and be humble.”

Bailey at MS Amlin said that it is important to have a vision for what an insurer of the future might look like. She said, with this in mind, MS Amlin has taken all its senior leadership team on a process of education, so they understand what disruptive technology looks like, and they understand the potential end game and the types of choices they may have to make.

She added that there are several stages in how insurers respond to this challenge. The first revolves around reducing costs and downscaling to their core areas; the second involves exploring innovation and new products and services; a third will be embracing the evolution of technology-enabled platforms and the potential these have for transforming the business.

She argued that many insurers are still simply implementing the first of these. “They are simply managing decline; but unless you are aware of all three and operating in this space, you could be in trouble,” she said. “The incumbents have to make some important choices.”

Germain said that RSA has been moving its platforms to SAS-based architecture which allows it to leverage the expertise in external third parties, which can implement solutions much better than it can manage in-house. He said that the insurer’s goal is to have the commercial leaders capable of leading disruption in the industry.

“We want to ensure we have the right platforms in place and an agile architecture; there are investments to be made and we want to ensure we have the right infrastructure in place to support change in this industry.”

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