Life insurance is having a moment. At the start of the insurtech movement, some dozen years ago now, property/casualty took the lead on innovation, to the point that some brave folks even set up full-stack carriers that they claimed would turn the market on its head. Life insurance was the poor cousin. Yes, carriers pushed toward fluidless underwriting and reducing the number of questions on application forms, but life insurance pretty much stuck with traditional products and the same old, same old ways of selling coverage. No longer. Based on the articles thought leaders are publishing on ITL, life insurers have their foot on the gas pedal. Much of the reason is, of course, generative AI. It is creating the sorts of opportunities for radical improvements in efficiency and for coaching agents on selling tactics that Brooke Vemuri, vice president of IT and innovation at Banner Life and William Penn, describes in this month’s interview. Gen AI is also allowing for a sharp increase in personalization, based both on how agents want to sell and on how and what prospects want to purchase, as Brooke explains. But more than Gen AI is afoot. The growth of the “sandwich generation”—people caring both for elderly parents and for their own children—is creating an opportunity for product innovation. So are all the young people entering the work force, many of whom are more interested in “living benefits” rather than the death benefit. The wave of Baby Boomers retiring, together with a strong stock market, is creating opportunities for annuities and for disability and long-term-care insurance. Meanwhile, private equity is increasingly demanding innovation from life insurers, as Mick Moloney of Oliver Wyman explained in a lengthy conversation I had with him. PE firms are buying insurers partly to gain access to their investment funds, which the firms then use to make acquisitions—a la what Warren Buffett has done with Berkshire Hathaway. The PE firms also believe that insurers they buy will gain an advantage, because the firms have historically outperformed the stock and bond markets, where life insurers have traditionally parked their funds. Whatever their reasoning, the PE firms squeeze efficiencies out of the companies they buy, and other life insurers have to keep up. (One caveat is embodied in a recent New York Times article, which says PE firms are going through a bad spell. The industry has become so large and bought so many companies that the low-hanging fruit has been harvested, so outstanding returns are harder to come by.) I think you’ll be intrigued and heartened by the interview with Brooke and by the six articles I’ve included in this month’s ITL Focus. And stay turned. There is a lot more coming. Cheers, Paul | 
