Global Risk Dialogue

The innovation edition

Our world is changing fast. Digitalization is transforming business globally. Customers want services in near-real-time. Change is routine and service is expected to be delivered faster and with better value than yesterday. Can the commercial insurance industry keep pace? In future, insurers will need to be fast, lean and smart, but they are not there yet. There is a realization in the industry that innovative tools and solutions (some of them transformative – but costly) will have to be made in order to stay relevant and offer value to customers. New tools will be needed for growing perils like cyber and long-tailed liability risks – “the next asbestos”. A changing climate threatens to upend historic catastrophe models, sparking innovative weather risk solutions. Start-up digital solution providers threaten to disrupt the commercial insurance space. Ways of going to market are changing with the advent of “distributed ledger technologies” like blockchain. Even the role of the underwriter is in question, as automation grows. Tomorrow’s underwriting function will likely be much different than it is today and new skillsets will be required.

Innovation in insurance is the main topic of this issue of Global Risk Dialogue, as it examines some of the ways in which the impact of customer expectations and changing business models will transform the risk business. It also looks at the latest innovations in a number of other industries as well, including the energy, automotive and marine sectors.