The insurance industry is currently going through an incredible amount of change. This is largely because developments in insurtech are making insurance solutions faster, better and more effective than ever. In the first quarter of 2016 alone, more than $650 million of funding was given to insurtech companies. The result of insurtech progression is that insurance companies now have more data and insight to work with than at any point in history -- but also face a challenge. This challenge is the need to become nimble -- quickly. See also: Fast and Slow: the Changing Landscape   The importance of swiftness Cognitive computing, robotic process automation, Internet of Things applications, the gig economy and even self-driving cars are all now issues that insurers must consider. All these developments mean that methods and practices that insurers have been using for decades are changing rapidly. Also contributing to the need to be nimble is the fact that America has recently experienced a cataclysmic housing market crash and has elected a president who seems dedicated to shaking up the insurance world. President Trump has already attempted to repeal Obamacare and has stated his intention to remove state lines for insurance company operations. The political uncertainty means that law and regulations could change quickly. Staying on the cutting edge One way that insurers are staying on the cutting edge is by looking for ways to speed up processes, and to operate more efficiently. I would know, because my company, WeGoLook, helps insurance companies to do just that. WeGoLook provides insurance solutions, financial services, auto and fleet inspections, and heavy equipment verifications for companies. Our innovative mobile application facilitates inspections and data collection that help in insurance claims processing. We have 30,000 on-demand agents in the field, who collect 65,000 data points on a daily basis. Gig companies such as ours plug into supply chains easily with innovative technology, which is why traditional insurers are taking notice. In fact, this is exactly why Crawford & Co. took an 85% stake in WeGoLook. Partnering with digitally powered gig economy startups can make insurers more nimble. See also: How to Embrace Workforce Flexibility   For insurers that can adapt to the swiftness that is now required, substantial profits can be made. Those that cannot may find that their companies suffer dramatically. Being nimble is the new standard for insurers.

"I think it’s particularly important for business today to take an active role in trying to fix the problems that this country does have." – Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO, JP Morgan Chase- April 5, 2017

Since the global financial crisis of 2008, concerned business leaders, government officials, thinkers and a wide group of stakeholders have spawned a new discourse on the future of modern capitalism. The Coalition for Inclusive Capitalism was inaugurated in 2014 to encourage businesses to make changes and expand their investment and management practices to regain public trust. Primarily composed of business leaders, the coalition advocates for corporations to be managed for the long term and for the benefit of stakeholders as well as shareholders. Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the 21^st Century” became an international best seller by highlighting the challenges facing capitalist economies and how rising inequality is leading to discontent and undermining democratic values. In January 2017, the G20 finance ministers called on members to pursue inclusive growth. Innovation and global commerce have traditionally been tremendous forces for progress. Capitalism has demonstrated a consistent ability to adapt to changing circumstances and drive technological change. According to the latest available data, the global economy is more than five times larger than it was half a century ago, and global per capita GDP has more than doubled over the same period. These numbers represent more than higher profits for corporations: They also amount to millions of jobs created and billions of lives improved. In 2015, the World Bank estimated that the share of the global population living in extreme poverty had fallen below 10% for the first time – down from more than 40% barely three decades ago. Networks and connections are playing an increasingly dominant role in all aspects of our lives. As Joshua Cooper Ramo has described in his book “The Seventh Sense: Power, Fortune and Survival in the Age of Networks” -- financial webs, DNA databases, currency platforms, medicine and research labs are all increasingly operating through both concentrated and diffuse networks. Networks have compressed time and space, accelerated the speed of commerce and trade and enabled the creation of vast wealth. But it is also evident that the market economy that has worked so well is not serving everyone equally. Growing income inequality and a rapidly evolving job market have left many people behind. In July 2016, the McKinsey Global Institute released an extensive report on incomes in 25 advanced economies worldwide, finding that between 65% and 70% of households were in income segments whose average incomes stagnated or declined between 2005 and 2014. The growth of artificial intelligence, big data and machine learning is having a profound impact on skilled labor, eliminating many positions and also undermining steady, secure employment opportunities and with it sources of income. This precipitous rise in income equality is having a direct impact on the way many see the capitalist system as a whole. According to a recent study by the Harvard Kennedy School, only 19% of Americans aged 18-29 identify themselves as “capitalist,” and only 42% of Americans 18-29 say they even support capitalism at all. Some have gone so far as to question whether these trends are insurmountable and if the world is entering a “post-capitalist” phase of economics. The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) 2017 Global Risk Report shows in detail how rising income inequality and the polarization of societies pose a risk to the global economy in 2017 and will shape the world for at least a decade unless urgent action is taken. The WEF’s 2017 Inclusive Growth and Development Report shows that the U.S. ranked 23rd among the most advanced economies in that regard, one spot above Japan. According to the report, the U.S. ranked 29th out of 30 in net income inequality, 29th in wealth inequality and 28th in poverty rate. Growing inequality, technological changes and the rise of digital networks are creating new economic paradigms. These disruptions are clear and potentially dangerous. These challenges also present the U.S. with an opportunity to show the world how a new American and inclusive capitalism can work, thrive and ultimately serve as a model for American leadership around the world. See also: 6 Tech Rules That Will Govern the Future   American Inclusive Capitalism – An agenda An American inclusive capitalism agenda should be both transformational and empower businesses, governments and non-profits to effectively respond to both the short- and long-term challenges. Government at the state, local and federal level will need to provide an appropriate legal and regulatory framework, but executing the agenda should be led by business and be built on a broader rethinking of the role of businesses and capital markets and their ability to generate public goods. Some of this rethinking is on the notion that financial value can be created by business in addressing social challenges. This view – most famously championed by Harvard Business School (HBS) Professor Michael Porter – is that businesses through a “shared value” model present the best opportunity to scale and solve these problems. And Porter’s HBS colleagues Gary Pisano and Willy Shih have argued for a manufacturing renaissance through the expansion of a new “industrial commons” where research and development (R&D) and production among companies can be co-located and serve as an innovative platform for growth. Enactment of an American inclusive capitalism agenda could also provide the U.S. with an opportunity to address urgent domestic economic challenges, unlock business creativity and create a blueprint for other countries to address similar issues within their own economies. The implementation of the agenda within the U.S. could begin with the following initiatives:

• Reduce incentives for short-term financial engineering. Over the past few decades, businesses have increasingly become unable to plan and execute for the long term. The private equity industry has accelerated these trends by buying companies, restructuring the businesses (often accompanied by layoffs) and then selling the businesses. Financial engineering has been central to private equity-led leveraged buyouts (LBOs) fueled by debt laid upon the companies themselves. While appropriate financial engineering can provide opportunities for failing companies to thrive, in many cases the results are less than optimal for the companies, their workers and the communities where these businesses operate. In addition, private equity owners are both the investors and the managers of their portfolio companies, which creates incentives for owners to manage operational decisions – such as union contracts, plant closings and use of capital – for short-term gains to owners. Partly as a result of these realities, private equity-owned companies are twice as likely to file for bankruptcy as compared with public companies, which lead to significant job losses at individual companies. Policymakers should reduce the incentives for indiscriminate and harmful financial engineering. An initial step could be to address what some refer to as the “carried interest loophole.” Carried interest refers to income flowing to the general partner of a private investment fund that is currently treated for tax purposes as capital gains as opposed to wage or salary income. Instead of fund managers typically paying a federal personal income tax on these gains at about 23.8%, by eliminating the carried interest loophole these same managers would be taxed at a top rate of 43.4% (not including any relevant state and local taxes). Taxing carried interest at ordinary rates would generate $180 billion over 10 years and provide a disincentive to harmful financial engineering.
• Enact a Universal Basic Income (UBI). Universal Basic income is a transfer payment in an amount sufficient to secure basic needs as a permanent earnings floor no one could fall beneath, and would replace many of today’s temporary benefits, which are given only in case of emergency and only to those who meet highly specific criteria. Rising inequality, decades of stagnant wages, the end of career employment and technology and networks disrupting the labor force have resulted in unprecedented income instability. Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) has concluded in March 2017 that as much as one-third of the U.S. workforce is at risk of being lost to automation. An Oxford University study goes even further, concluding that as many as 47% of jobs in the U.S. are at risk of being wiped out due to automation within the next 20 years. Some countries are already experimenting with a UBI system. Finland launched a UBI pilot program in 2017 where 2000 people are collecting approximately $587 per month for two years without having to report whether they are seeking employment or how they are spending the money. This supplement will be deducted from any benefits they are currently receiving. The program was created by KELA, the Finnish agency responsible for the country’s social benefits. Finnish official believe the UBI will help to streamline a bloated welfare system, and because participants will continue to receive benefits even when they find work there are no disincentives to seeking employment while on the program. A partial UBI already exists in Alaska, and pilot programs are being discussed in Canada, Brazil, Iceland and Uganda. A UBI system would serve as an effective mechanism to fight poverty while providing a floor where citizens could take risks in the job market without fear of losing all of their income. A growing chorus from all sides of the political spectrum – from Charles Murray to Robert Reich to Labor leader Andrew Stern – to business titans such as Pierre Omidyar and Elon Musk – all now support a UBI for Americans. There are various estimates regarding the costs of implementing a UBI program, but the UBI should be considered in tandem with full or partial consolidation of other programs and tax credits that would immediately be made redundant by the new transfer.
• Encourage Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) and Impact Investment as core parts of asset management. Impact investments are made into companies, organizations and funds with the intention to create measurable social and environmental impact along with financial returns. Research has shown that currently the majority of institutional investors actively consider ESG criteria when making alternative investment allocations. ESG analysis has moved beyond ethical concerns and has found a firm footing as a risk and investment management topic. Surveys now show most institutional investors are confident that ESG improves risk-adjusted returns and is an important aspect of risk and reputation management. It is estimated that investors committed at least $15 billion globally to impact-related projects in 2015, and that number is anticipated to grow exponentially as impact funds develop a track record and millennials demand more accountability as to how their savings are invested. Large impact investment funds with more than $250 million of assets under management (AUM) include Bridge Ventures, the Calvert Foundation and Turner Impact Capital. These funds and many others invest in sustainable agriculture, global health, water and sanitation, clean technology and affordable housing, among many others. In 2016, the largest asset management company in the world (BlackRock) launched its impact mutual fund to invest in companies seeking triple bottom line returns (profit, social and environmental returns), and the Department of Labor revised its Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) guidelines to allow pension fund managers to incorporate ESG criteria into investment allocation decisions. Impact investment can serve as a critical future channel to solve problems while generating returns for businesses and investors. The federal government could help to jump start this growing market by creating an ESG-related fund for the federal government’s defined contribution savings plan (Thrift Savings Plan, or TSP) for civil service employees, retirees and members of the military. There are nearly 5 million current participants in TSP, with total assets of at least $468 billion.
• Grant special purpose national bank charters for financial technology (fintech) companies. Fintech companies include businesses focused on payments, blockchain, wealth management, crowdfunding, digital currencies, peer-to-peer lending, clearance and settlement. Technology has made "financial products and services more accessible, easier to use and much more tailored to individual consumer needs." The power of fintech to accelerate financial inclusion and provide greater financial security to the marginal and the unbanked is one of the greatest potential impacts of this segment of finance. Fintech can help address this growing program of “capital deserts” by providing citizens tools to access capital particularly in underserved rural and urban areas. Many U.S. fintech companies consistently cite the lack of a clear and coherent regulatory structure within the U.S. as a major impediment to further growth and expansion. Policymakers currently find it difficult to support fintech innovation while upholding consumer and financial system protections.

See also: The Sharing Economy and Accountability   In December 2016, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) published and solicited comments for a paper exploring special purpose bank charters for U.S. fintech companies engaged in “receiving deposits, paying checks or lending money.” There would be numerous benefits to the OCC granting special purpose national bank charters to fintech companies. Special purpose charters would help ensure that these companies operate in a safe and sound manner while effectively serving the needs of customers, businesses, and communities. They would promote consistency in the application of the law and regulation across the country and ensure that consumers are treated fairly. The growth of new fintech companies with national charters would also expand access to finance for SMEs and make the federal banking system much stronger. Special purpose national bank charters for fintech companies would represent a crucial step in modernizing the banking system, fostering innovation and demonstrating U.S. leadership throughout the world in the rapidly evolving intersection of technology and finance.

• Continue to enact legislation at state level to support alternative corporate forms such as Benefit Corporations. Benefit corporations are legally designated for-profit corporate entities whose mission includes generating a positive impact on society, employees, the community and the environment, in addition to profit. Benefit corporations give entrepreneurs the freedom to consider stakeholders in addition to shareholders and net profit. Shareholders of such corporations, in turn, enjoy all the same protections and powers found in traditional corporate law but also have more freedom to hold the company accountable for remaining true to its stated mission. Benefit corporations create a no-cost economic development opportunity for states by establishing new pathways for social entrepreneurs to scale. Thirty-two states including the District of Columbia have passed benefit corporation legislation. “B” Corporations are businesses privately certified by B Lab, a non-profit organization founded in the U.S. but with offices throughout the world. Companies are granted “B” Corporation status by B Lab upon completion of an assessment and satisfying requirements that the company integrate B Lab commitments into its core business. There are now 4,000 legally constituted Benefit Corporations and 2,000 certified “B” Corporations in the U.S.. Some examples of well-known benefit or “B” corporations include Patagonia, Kickstarter, Solberg Manufacturing and Etsy.

Benefit Corporations and “B” corporations create tremendous branding opportunities for businesses seeking to highlight their positive impact on their communities. States and the federal government can expedite a process to provide incentives to businesses to declare as Benefit Corporations. More U.S. states can pass legislation to help facilitate a new market so that current shareholders, consumers and potential investors can make informed decisions based on companies’ missions and performance. And as the federal government downsides and more work is granted to federal contractors and subcontractors, government procurement guidelines could be reviewed and revised as a pilot project to include preferences for benefit corporations.

• Eliminate Anonymous Corporate Ownership. Nearly one year after the Panama papers exposed the offshore banking activities of clients of the Panamanian firm Mossack Fonseca, it is still legal for corporations in the U.S. to be anonymously owned. Anonymous ownership directly facilitates the ability of shell companies to hide assets and obscure illegal activity. But in addition to tax evasion and money laundering, anonymous ownership is also contributing to accelerating housing prices in major U.S. cities. According to the New York Times, streams of foreign wealth shielded by shell corporations are already used to purchase more than half of all individual properties in New York City that cost more than $5 million. In a three-block stretch in Midtown Manhattan, 57% of apartments are vacant for at least 10 months every year, and absentee homeownership has grown by 70% in Manhattan since 2000. In South Florida, money linked to wrongdoing abroad is helping to power the new condos rising on its waterfront and pushing home prices far beyond what locals can afford. These investments often result in skyrocketing home prices not only in luxury units but also more affordable housing – ultimately pricing out the ability of American citizens to live in their own cities. Cities also routinely encounter difficulties in identifying who actually owns slum properties and ensuring accountability for those owners and corporate entities that allow residential properties to become dangerous and deadly.

The UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy have all committed to creating a registry for anonymous corporate ownership. In late 2016, the U.S. Justice Department concluded its three-year Swiss Banking program that provided a path for Swiss banks to resolve potential criminal liabilities related to disclosure of cross-border activities, providing detailed information on an account-by-account basis for accounts in which U.S. taxpayers have a direct or indirect interest, providing information as to other banks that have transferred funds from secret accounts and closing accounts of those who have failed to meet U.S. reporting obligations. Despite these efforts, no U.S. state requires the name of anonymous corporate owners. Bipartisan legislation cosponsored by Sens. Charles Grassley and Sheldon Whitehouse and Congressman Peter King and Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney has been introduced to identify money laundering and terrorist financing through the disclosure of anonymous owners. Congress should pass that legislation, and the Trump administration should sign the bill into law to prevent the U.S. from becoming a preferred haven for tax cheats and illicit activity. See also: Changing Business Models, ‘New’ ERM   Conclusion Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the largest U.S. financial institution with some $2.5 trillion under management, recently released his annual letter to shareholders. His letter included extensive comments on public policy where he opined that “something is wrong” in America and that “we need coherent, consistent, comprehensive and coordinated policies that help fix these problems.” His letter is another example of the urgent need for inaugurating an American inclusive capitalism agenda. While government can provide the framework and a social safety net, the primary responsibility for such an agenda should be with the private sector through a renewed and reinvigorated business activism. Markets have a unique ability to adapt and allocate resources in the most efficient way, but when needless financial engineering results in the abandonment of communities, when middle-class citizens can no longer access capital and when more and more Americans drop out of the labor force with no source of income, the remarkable consensus that has resulted in American economic strength since the end of World War II will become seriously endangered. But there is a path forward. Business activism focused on new corporate forms, impact investing and a regulatory structure that facilitates a shift away from short-termism and toward entrepreneurship and greater access to finance can lead the way in this quest for reform. Such reform can be the harbinger of a new social compact between government, established business, entrepreneurs and the people. And it can give the U.S. an opportunity to assert leadership and address the most important economic challenges of our time.

Managed security services providers, or MSSPs, continue to rise in presence and impact—by giving companies a cost-effective alternative to having to dedicate in-house staff to network defense. In the thick of this emerging market is Rook Security. I spoke with Tom Gorup, Rook’s director of security operations, about this at RSA 2017. A few takeaways: Outsourced SOCs. MSSPs essentially function as a contracted Security Operations Center, or SOC. Most giant corporations, especially in the financial and tech sectors, have long maintained full-blown SOCs, manned 24/7/365. And so the top MSSP vendors, which include the likes of AT&T, Dell SecureWorks, Symantec, Trustwave and Verizon, are aggressively marketing MSSP services to midsize companies, those with 1,000 to 10,000 employees. See also: 7 Key Changes for Insurers’ Cybersecurity   At the other end of the spectrum—catering to very small businesses—you have consulting technicians, operating in effect as local and regional MSSPs. These service providers may have one or two employees. They make their living by assembling and integrating security products developed by others, working with suppliers such as SolarWinds MSP, which packages and white labels cloud-based security solutions for very small businesses. So what about the companies in between, those with, say, 50 to 999 employees? Security vendors recognize this to be a vastly underserved market, one that probably has pent-up demand for MSSP services. What MSSPs provide. For midsize and large enterprises, MSSPs deliver an added layer of expertise that can help bigger organizations actually derive actionable intelligence from multiple security systems already in place, such as firewalls, intrusion detection systems, sandboxing and SIEMs. The top MSSPs tap into all existing systems and provide deeper threat intelligence services, such as device management, breach monitoring, data loss prevention, insider threat detection and incident response. For small businesses, local MSSPs focus on doing the basics to protect endpoints and servers. This relieves the small business operator from duties such as staying current on anti-virus updates, as well as security patches for Microsoft, Apple, Adobe and Linux operating systems and business applications that are continually probed and exploited.  Who needs one? Every business today is starkly exposed to network breaches. So who could use an MSSP? The calculation for midsize and large organizations is straightforward. The goal is to provide more data protection at less cost, based on thoughtful, risk-based assessments. The most successful MSSPs will help company decision-makers build a strong case for their services. See also: Quest for Reliable Cyber Security   At smaller companies, the first question to ask is this: How mature is my security posture to begin with? Gorup observes: “Is security even on the radar right now? In smaller organizations, you might have just one person, part-time, working IT. Security is kind of secondary. I’d recommend seeking more advisory services to help detect phishing attacks, help build some processes, help understand what technologies you should invest in. This will allow growth to occur. And then you can make a natural transition into building an SOC or seeking SOC services.”

I recently had the pleasure of attending #CityChain17 (blockchain conference) at IBM’s SouthBank offices. Chaired by Paul Forrest (chairman of MBN Solutions), the conference was an opportunity to learn about blockchain and how it is being applied. In the past, I viewed the hype about blockchain (following excitement about Bitcoin its most famous user) as just another fad that might pass. However, as more businesses have got involved in piloting potential applications, it’s become obvious that there really is something in this – even if its manifestations are now much more commercial than the hacking by Bitcoin fans. CityChain17 brought together a number of suppliers and those helping shape the industry. It was a great opportunity to hear voices, at times contradictory,and see what progress has been made toward mainstream adoption. There was so much useful content that I made copious notes and will share a series of two blog posts on this topic. So, without further ado, as a new topic for our blog, here is part 1 of my recollections from this blockchain conference. Introducing blockchain and why it matters The first speaker was John McLean from IBM. He reviewed the need that businesses have for a solution to the problem of increasingly complex business and market networks, with the need to securely exchange assets, payments or approvals between multiple parties. He explained that, at core, blockchain is just a distributed ledger across such a network. In such a scenario, all participants have a regulated local copy of the ledger, with bespoke permissions to approve blocks of information. However, he also highlighted that today’s commercial applications of blockchain differ from the famous Bitcoin implementation:

• Such applications can be internal or external.
• Business blockchain has identity rather than anonymity, selective endorsement versus proof of work and wider range of assets vs. a cryptocurrency.
• Blockchain for businesses is interesting because of the existing problems it solves. Broader participation in shared ledger reduces cost and reconciliation workload. Smart contracts offer embedded business rules with the data blocks on the ledger. Privacy improves because transactions are secure, authenticated and verifiable. So does trust because all parties are able to trust a shared ledger – all bought in.
• Several sectors are currently testing blockchain implementations, including financial services, retail, insurance, manufacturing and the public sector.

Finally, John went on to outline how IBM is currently enabling this use of blockchain technology (including through its participation in the Hyperledger consortium and its Fabric Composer tool). See also: 5 Main Areas for Blockchain Impact   Comparing blockchain to databases, anything new? As someone who was involved in the early days of data warehouses and data mining, I was delighted to hear the next speaker (Dr. Gideon Greenspan from Coin Sciences) talk about databases. Acknowledging that a number of the so-called unique benefits of blockchain can already be delivered by databases, Gideon began by suggesting there had been three phases of solutions to the business challenges of exchanging and coordinating data:

1. Peer-to-peer messaging
2. Central shared database
3. Peer-to-peer databases

He had some great examples of how the "unique benefits" of blockchain could be achieved with databases already:

• Ensuring consensus in data (B-trees in relational databases)
• Smart contracts (the logic in these equal stored procedures)
• Append-only inserts (database that only allows inserts)
• Safe asset exchanges (the ACID model of database transactions)
• Robustness (distributed and massively parallel databases)

Even more entertaining, in a room that was mainly full of blockchain advocates, developers or consultants, Gideon went on to list what was worse about blockchain vs. databases:

• Transaction immediacy (ACID approach is durable, but blockchains need to wait for consensus)
• Scalability (because of checks, blockchain nodes need to work harder)
• Confidentiality (blockchains share more data)

After such honesty and frankly geeky database technology knowledge, Gideon was well-placed to be an honest adviser on sensible use of blockchain. He pointed out the need to consider the trade-offs between blockchain and database solutions. For instance, what is more important for your business application:

• Disintermediation or confidentiality?
• Multiparty robustness or performance?

Moving to more encouraging examples, he shared a few that have promising blockchain pilots underway:

1. An instant payment network (using tokens to represent money, it’s faster, with real-time reconciliation and regulatory transparency)
2. Shared metadata solution (as all data added to the blockchain is signed, time-stamped and immutable – interesting for GDPR requirements, even if the "right to be forgotten" sounds challenging)
3. Multi-jurisdiction processes (regulators are interested)
4. Lightweight financial systems (e.g. loyalty schemes)
5. Internal clearing and settlements (e.g. multinationals)

But a final warning from Gideon was to be on the watch for what he termed "half-baked blockchains." He pointed out the foolishness of:

• Blockchains with one central validator
• Shared state blockchains (same trust model as a distributed database)
• Centrally hosted blockchain (why not a centralized database?)

Gideon referenced his work providing the multichain open platform, as another source for advice and resources. Blockchain is more complex, hence the need for technical expertise A useful complement (or contradictory voice, depending on your perspective) was offered next. Simon Taylor (founder of 11:FS and ex-Barclays innovation leader), shared more on the diversity of technology solutions. Simon is also the founder of yet another influential and useful group working on developing/promoting blockchain, the R3 Consortium. He credits much of what he has learned to a blogger called Richard Brown, who offers plenty of advice and resources on his blog: One idea from Richard that Simon shared is the idea that different technology implementations of blockchain, or platforms for developing, are best understood as being on a continuum, from more centralized applications for FS (like Hyperledger and Corda) being at one end and the radically decentralized Wild West making up the other end (Bitcoin, z-Cash and Ethereum). He suggests the interesting opportunities lie in the middle ground between these poles (currently occupied by approaches like Stellar and Ripple). Simon went on to suggest a number of principles that are important to understand:

• The shared ledger concept offers better automated reconciliation across markets.
• But, as a result, confidentiality is a challenge (apparently Corda et al. are solving this, but at the expense of more centralization).
• No one vendor (or code-base/platform) has yet won.
• It is more complicated than the advertising suggests, so look past the proof of concept work to see what has been delivered (he suggests looking at interesting work in Tel Aviv and at what Northern Trust is doing).

To close, Simon echoed a few suggestions that will sound familiar to data science leaders. There continues to be an education and skills gap. C-Suite executives recognize there is a lot of hype in this area and so are seeking people they can trust as advisers. Pilot a few options and see what approach works best for your organization. He also mentioned the recruitment challenge and suggested not overlooking hidden gems in your own organization. Who is coding in their spare time anyway? In his Q&A, GDPR also got mentioned, with a suggestion that auditors will value blockchain implementations as reference points with clear provenance. See also: Why Blockchain Matters to Insurers   Time for a blockchain panel After three talks, we had the opportunity to enjoy a panel debate. Paul Forrest facilitated, and we heard answers on a number of topics from experts across the industry. Those I agreed with (and thus remembered) were Tomasz Mloduchowski, Isabel Cooke and Parrish Pryor-Williams. I took the opportunity to ask about the opportunity for more cooperation between the data science and blockchain communities, citing that both technology innovations needed to prove their worth to the C-suite and had some overlapping data needs. All speakers agreed that more cooperation between these communities would be helpful. Isabel’s team at Barclays apparently benefits from being co-located with the data science team, and Parrish reinforced the need to focus on customer insights to guide application of both technologies. What panelists appear to be missing is that, in most large organizations, blockchain is being tested within IT or digital teams, with data science left to marketing or finance/actuarial teams. This could mean a continued risk of siloed thinking rather than the cooperation needed. An entertaining, question concerned what to do with all the fakes now rapidly adding blockchain as a buzzword to their CVs and LinkedIn profiles. Surprisingly, panelists were largely positive about this development. They viewed it as an encouraging tipping point of demand and a case that some will need to fake it 'til they make it. There was also an encouragement to use meetups to get up-to-speed more quickly (for candidates and those asking the questions). The panel also agreed that there was still a lack of agreement on terms and language, which sometimes got in the way. Like the earlier days of internet and data science, there are still blockchain purists railing against the more commercial variants. But the consensus was that standards would emerge and that most businesses were remaining agnostic on technologies while they learned through pilots. The future for blockchain was seen as being achieved via collaborations, like R3 and Hyperledger. A couple of panelists also saw fintech startups as the ideal contenders to innovate in this space, having the owner/innovator mindset as well as the financial requirements. It will be interesting to see which predictions turn out to be right. What next for blockchain and you? How do you think blockchain develops, and do you care? Will it matter for your business? Have you piloted to test that theory? I hope my reflections act as a useful contact list of those with expertise to share in this area. Let us know if this topic is something you would like covered more, on Customer Insight Leader blog. That’s it for now. More diverse voices on blockchain in Part 2….

It is a warm autumn morning, and I am walking through downtown Mountain View, Calif., when I see it. A small vehicle that looks like a cross between a golf cart and a Jetson-esque, bubble-topped spaceship glides to a stop at an intersection. Someone is sitting in the passenger seat, but no one seems to be sitting in the driver seat. How odd, I think. And then I realize I am looking at a Google car. The technology giant is headquartered in Mountain View, and the company is road-testing its diminutive autonomous cars there. This is my first encounter with a fully autonomous vehicle on a public road in an unstructured setting. The Google car waits patiently as a pedestrian passes in front of it.  Another car across the intersection signals a left-hand turn, but the Google car has the right of way. The automated vehicle takes the initiative and smoothly accelerates through the intersection. The passenger, I notice, appears preternaturally calm. I am both amazed and unsettled. I have heard from friends and colleagues that my reaction is not uncommon. A driverless car can challenge many assumptions about human superiority to machines. Though I live in Silicon Valley, the reality of a driverless car is one of the most startling manifestations of the future unknowns we all face in this age of rapid technology development. Learning to drive is a rite of passage for people in materially rich nations (and becoming so in the rest of the world): a symbol of freedom, of power, and of the agency of adulthood, a parable of how brains can overcome physical limitations to expand the boundaries of what is physically possible. The act of driving a car is one that, until very recently, seemed a problem only the human brain could solve. Driving is a combination of continuous mental risk assessment, sensory awareness, and judgment, all adapting to extremely variable surrounding conditions. Not long ago, the task seemed too complicated for robots to handle. Now, robots can drive with greater skill than humans — at least on the highways. Soon the public conversation will be about whether humans should be allowed to take control of the wheel at all. This paradigm shift will not be without costs or controversies. For sure, widespread adoption of autonomous vehicles will eliminate the jobs of the millions of Americans whose living comes of driving cars, trucks, and buses (and eventually all those who pilot planes and ships). We will begin sharing our cars, in a logical extension of Uber and Lyft. But how will we handle the inevitable software faults that result in human casualties? And how will we program the machines to make the right decisions when faced with impossible choices — such as whether an autonomous car should drive off a cliff to spare a busload of children at the cost of killing the car’s human passenger? See also: Of Robots, Self-Driving Cars and Insurance   I was surprised, upon my first sight of a Google car on the street, at how mixed my emotions were. I’ve come to realize that this emotional admixture reflects the countercurrents that the bow waves of these technologies are rocking all of us with: trends toward efficiency, instantaneity, networking, accessibility, and multiple simultaneous media streams, with consequences that include unemployment, cognitive and social inadequacy, isolation, distraction, and cognitive and emotional overload. Once, technology was a discrete business dominated by business systems and some cool gadgets. Slowly but surely, though, it crept into more corners of our lives. Today, that creep has become a headlong rush. Technology is taking over everything: every part of our lives, every part of society, every waking moment of every day. Increasingly pervasive data networks and connected devices are enabling rapid communication and processing of information, ushering in unprecedented shifts — in everything from biology, energy and media to politics, food and transportation — that are redefining our future. Naturally we’re uneasy; we should be. The majority of us, and our environment, may receive only the backlash of technologies chiefly designed to benefit a few. We need to feel a sense of control over our own lives; and that necessitates actually having some. The perfect metaphor for this uneasy feeling is the Google car. We welcome a better future, but we worry about the loss of control, of pieces of our identity, and most importantly of freedom. What are we yielding to technology? How can we decide whether technological innovation that alters our lives is worth the sacrifice? The noted science-fiction writer William Gibson, a favorite of hackers and techies, said in a 1999 radio interview (though apparently not for the first time): “The future is already here; it’s just not very evenly distributed.” Nearly two decades later — though the potential now exists for most of us, including the very poor, to participate in informed decision-making as to its distribution and even as to bans on use of certain technologies — Gibson’s observation remains valid. I make my living thinking about the future and discussing it with others, and am privileged to live in what to most is the future. I drive an amazing Tesla Model S electric vehicle. My house, in Menlo Park, close to Stanford University, is a “passive” home that extracts virtually no electricity from the grid and expends minimal energy on heating or cooling. My iPhone is cradled with electronic sensors that I can place against my chest to generate a detailed electrocardiogram to send to my doctors, from anywhere on Earth. Many of the entrepreneurs and researchers I talk with about breakthrough technologies such as artificial intelligence and synthetic biology are building a better future at a breakneck pace. One team built a fully functional surgical-glove prototype to deliver tactile guidance for doctors during examinations — in three weeks. Another team’s visualization software, which can tell farmers the health of their crops using images from off-the-shelf drone-flying video cameras, took four weeks to build. The distant future, then, is no longer distant. Rather, the institutions we expect to gauge and perhaps forestall new technologies’ hazards, to distribute their benefits, and to help us understand and incorporate them are drowning in a sea of change as the pace of technological change outstrips them. The shifts and the resulting massive ripple effects will, if we choose to let them, change the way in which we live, how long we live for, and the very nature of being human. Even if my futuristic life sounds unreal, its current state is something we may laugh at within a decade as a primitive existence — because our technologists now have the tools to enable the greatest alteration of our experience of life since the dawn of humankind. As in all other manifest shifts — from the use of fire to the rise of agriculture and the development of sailing vessels, internal-combustion engines, and computing — this one will arise from breathtaking advances in technology. It is far larger, though, is happening far faster, and may be far more stressful to those living through this new epoch. Inability to understand it will make our lives and the world seem even more out of control. A broad range of technologies are now advancing at an exponential pace, everything from artificial intelligence to genomics to robotics and synthetic biology. They are making amazing and scary things possible — at the same time. Broadly speaking, we will, jointly, choose one of two possible futures.  The first is a utopian “Star Trek” future in which our wants and needs are met, in which we focus our lives on the attainment of knowledge and betterment of mankind. The other is a “Mad Max” dystopia: a frightening and alienating future, in which civilization destroys itself. These are both worlds of science fiction created by Hollywood, but either could come true. We are already capable of creating a world of tricorders, replicators, remarkable transportation technologies, general wellness and an abundance of food, water and energy. On the other hand, we are capable too now ofushering in a jobless economy; the end of all privacy; invasive medical-record keeping; eugenics; and an ever worsening spiral of economic inequality: conditions that could create an unstable, Orwellian or violent future that might undermine the very technology-driven progress that we so eagerly anticipate. And we know that it is possible to inadvertently unwind civilization’s progress. It is precisely what Europe did when, after the Roman Empire, humanity slid into the Dark Ages, a period during which significant chunks of knowledge and technology that the Romans had hard won through trial and error disappeared from the face of the Earth. To unwind our own civilization’s amazing progress will require merely cataclysmic instability. See also: Lack of Enthusiasm for Driverless Cars? It is the choices we all make which will determine the outcome. Technology will surely create upheaval and destroy industries and jobs. It will change our lives for better and for worse simultaneously. But we can reach “Star Trek” if we can share the prosperity we are creating and soften its negative impacts; ensure that the benefits outweigh the risks; and gain greater autonomy rather than becoming dependent on technology. The oldest technology of all is probably fire, even older than the stone tools that our ancestors invented. It could cook meat and provide warmth; and it could burn down forests. Every technology since this has had the same bright and dark sides. Technology is a tool; it is how we use it that makes it good or bad. There is a continuum limited only by the choices we make jointly. And all of us have a role in deciding where the lines should be drawn. This is an excerpt from Vivek Wadhwa’s new book, “The Driver in the Driverless Car: How Our Technology Choices Will Create the Future.”

Insurance carriers are making an unprecedented investment in transforming their policy, billing and claims systems and processes. We are in a unique period where the convergence of aging legacy platforms, complex market dynamics and a mature vendor landscape has made transformation a top priority for carriers of all sizes and profiles. We expect core system transformations will continue to be a top priority for insurers – regardless of size and product mix – in the coming year. Trends in the following three areas have been dominating our recent conversations with the industry:

1. Digital transformation and analytics: Carriers are looking to extend their core platforms to develop the foundation for digital transformation and analytics. They have more ambitious visions for how these programs should drive growth strategies and are no longer satisfied with simply implementing a new platform and then searching for ways to achieve benefits in the post- implementation environment. Looking forward, a successful transformation should include broader strategies for 1) data analytics, 2) a positive digital customer and agent experience, and 3) underwriting efficiency.
2. Greenfield and Cloud: Carriers are looking at alternate delivery approaches that align with their broader organizational visions. Some of them have recently started to explore the business and architectural simplicity of greenfield and cloud delivery scenarios.
3. Specialty and E&S: An increasing number of carriers’ core transformation focus is on modernizing platforms that process specialty and E&S products. We expect the next wave of transformation will affect specialty line carriers, which we categorize as non-admitted (E&S), Bermuda and London market carriers.

Insurers are looking for more than just up-to-date systems. They also want digital and analytics platforms that can help them realize the full benefits of a core transformation. See also: Data and Analytics in P&C Insurance   Digital and analytics platforms Several carriers have increased their investments in core transformation and recognize they need to add digital and analytic platforms to realize the following additional benefits and capabilities:

1. Better data and analytics – In recent years, carriers have recognized the value of building or improving an enterprise data warehouse (EDW) in parallel with traditional core transformation initiatives. This has enabled them to plan for strategic data analysis and build necessary components into core systems. Modernizing core systems often leads to more reliable data, and when this data is coupled with strategic data analytics initiatives it facilitates improved process metrics, work queue volumes and claims fraud detection.
2. Better customer and agent experience – Good customer and agent experiences most often occur with modern underlying core platforms, most of which now offer self-service capabilities and can even open new customer channels. Carriers are looking to advance core system capabilities by customizing an agent and policyholder portal layer that enables users to intuitively interact with the system; a claims transformation can improve the claims reporting, servicing and resolution process and fundamentally alter how a customer interacts with the carrier’s claims processing division. Billing transformation programs also typically include self-service capabilities that can improve the overall customer experience.
3. Improved underwriting efficiency – This can be a direct benefit of any core transformation simply because of the resulting modern screen flow. However, carriers can gain much more by coupling the screen flow with an operational redesign that integrates the underwriting department with the new system capabilities (although this may entail an assessment and reconfiguration of the underwriting organization.) This is of particular importance in commercial and specialty lines transformations that seek to automate repetitive manual tasks but still require experienced underwriters to fully evaluate risks.

Greenfield implementation Over the past two years, carriers have become increasingly interested in greenfield transformations. Such a transformation provides simplicity and gives carriers a unique opportunity to reinvent their business, IT and organizational culture. This is in contrast to traditional transformation programs that unfortunately  can “recreate the sins of the past” and implement relatively obscure business scenarios for the purpose of transferring the existing book of business. A greenfield implementation approach tends to be straightforward. It eliminates the need to integrate with antiquated legacy platforms and thus can lead to speedier delivery time. It also tends to require fairly simple product design, which makes it well-suited for mid-tier carriers that are looking to leverage off- the-shelf vendor products. Some key advantages of a greenfield approach are its product and solution simplicity, increased speed to delivery and the opportunity it provides the organization to break with the past. However, there are disadvantages if  a carrier doesn’t go into this kind of implementation with eyes wide open. For instance, it will limit book-of-business conversion capabilities in the near term and can create some intermediate operational challenges by adding to the overall portfolio of applications in the near term. Greenfield offers design simplicity that can enable carriers to break from the architectural complexity of the past. Cloud technologies Though cloud deployments are not new for insurance carriers, their scope has primarily been limited to productivity applications with minimal connectivity to the broader enterprise ecosystem. However, there are different expectations of the cloud today. The five key factors behind them are:

1. Aging infrastructure – Many carriers looking to modernize their core systems are discovering that their on-premise hosting environment is insufficient to support new core system technology, as well as customers’ and agents’ real-time “always on” expectations. Cloud solutions can meet many business and IT needs, and carriers now have a viable option to deploy new core systems in the cloud instead of investing in upgrading and maintaining new IT infrastructure.
2. Expanding technology ecosystem – Many small to mid-sized carriers do not have the capital or resources to support the complexity of a large transformation, but without transformations are constrained in their ability to respond to the market. Technology companies are beginning to offer complete, integrated ecosystems that include all the technology that runs core operations. This includes standard integrations of key ancillary systems (e.g. document generation, document management) and digital front-end portals and mobile, data analytics, underwriting desktops and predictive modeling. Better yet, automated refresh capabilities keep product versions up-to-date.
3. Need for new products and markets – Insurers need to quickly respond to changing market conditions to compete in a very competitive landscape. Cloud core systems provide carriers the opportunity to quickly test and learn new business ideas – such as new products or expansion into a new market – with minimal investment.
4. Need to facilitate product development and innovation – IT is beginning to shift from being a provider of all technology services to a broker or orchestrator of business services and technology innovation. Creativity requires experimentation, and, by nature, many experiments fail. Core systems in the cloud can help carriers reduce the cost of the experimentation and failure cycle, enabling them to greatly increase the potential for innovative ideas and solutions.
5. Talent shortages – It is difficult for many carriers to attract enough skilled employees, not least in infrastructure hosting and core development and testing. Cloud core systems alleviate the need for a full complement of IT staff because cloud solution providers already feature many of these resources.

There now are complete, integrated ecosystems that include all the technology that runs core operations, and automated refresh capabilities keep product versions up-to-date. Specialty and E&S Over the past decade, standard lines carriers have been challenged to improve profitability through reduced IT expenditures and policy acquisition costs. In response, these carriers have made significant investments in modernizing their aging policy administration platforms to improve automation and speed to market. We believe a significant share of the standard lines market now operates on a modern policy administration platform, with a final group of very large carriers starting to migrate to commercially off-the-shelf platforms over the next three to five years. See also: Demographics and P&C Insurance   We believe the next wave of transformation will affect specialty line carriers, which we categorize as non-admitted (E&S), Bermuda and London market carriers. Although they historically have been insulated from the deflationary pressures of technological automation, we believe three factors have aligned that will accelerate their transformations over the next five years.

1. Organic growth – Over the past decade, the specialty market has outpaced industry growth averages, and, thanks to a variety of market dynamics, we believe that this will continue. However, maintaining these increased growth patterns while managing their historically low policy-acquisition costs will be a challenge for many specialty and E&S companies. They are likely to respond by increasing and improving internal underwriting staff, as well as through increased use of technology to automate lower value aspects of the policy placement process. For example, specialty carriers will automate back-office and clerical work through new policy administration systems, while empowering their specialist underwriters to continue risk selection and pricing.
2. Technological maturity – Commercially available policy administration systems have traditionally focused on standard market products, thus requiring extensive customization to meet specialty carriers’ unique needs. For E&S and Bermuda carriers, we have seen products that now support multi-segment program policies, feature robust manuscript forms functionality and can set IRPM factors at exposure and policy levels. For London market carriers, vendors are now supporting accelerators that enable core systems to interact with the Lloyd’s and companies markets using ACORD XML standards and integrate their back office systems with the relevant Xchanging market systems.
3. Organizational reporting/controls – Many specialty carriers have difficulty providing sufficient data to their internal auditors and enterprise risk managers for the purposes of regulatory and group reporting. Modern policy administration systems enable underwriters, actuaries and internal controllers to more effectively track and analyze the carrier’s book of business. These systems support granular exposure, risk concentration and premium reporting, thereby easing the reporting burden. Moreover, powerful predictive analytics platforms enable underwriters to marry internal and external risk models to their expert judgment, resulting in clearer decision-making and more effective management across the enterprise.

New policy administration systems can help specialty carriers automate back office and clerical work, ease their reporting burden and improve their risk-based decision making. Implications

• Carriers have increased their expectations of core transformations and increasingly look to transformation to include robust digital and analytics capabilities.
• They also will continue to look at alternative delivery options in an effort to simplify their technology environment and their implementation road maps.

Many transformation programs are starting to include portal and data warehousing components, and off-the-shelf package solutions are well-equipped to integrate those components with the core back-office systems.

Sleep allows the body and the brain vital repair and recovery time, giving hormones the opportunity to replenish. Both inadequate and excessive sleep have been associated with early death. We are getting a better understanding of the health consequences of low levels of physical activity combined with inadequate or excessive sleep. Having at least seven hours of sleep each night has been described as a “health necessity” for adults. Less leads to reduced cardiovascular fitness and metabolic disruption as a result of altered hormone levels, which can cause weight gain. Excessive sleep is probably evidence of an underlying chronic illness that will itself shorten life. Wearables and accompanying apps help monitor phases of shallow and deep sleep at night. The amount of time spent in and out of each phase can be influenced by underlying health. Sensors in the devices can detect when a person is lying in bed and moving, generating data that could be valuable to life and health insurers because the amount and quality of sleep provide important insights into our long-term health. Sleep is influenced by genetic, medical, behavioral and environmental factors, and problems often increase with age. How well we sleep is governed by melatonin (released from the pineal gland), matched by a fall in levels of the activity-related hormone serotonin. These changes align our body clocks with the circadian rhythms of day and night. See also: Confessions of Sleep Apnea Man   Regular bedtime in an environment with suitable levels of light, sound and temperature is important for “sleep hygiene.” Smoking, alcohol, caffeine or food before bed and exposure to “blue” light from tablets or screens can all disrupt sleep. Poor sleep may result from chronic health problems, anxiety or depression but causes psychological distress in its own right. Work performance, judgment and social relations are harmed. Excessive daytime tiredness increases the chance of accidents. Disorders of sleep include nightmares and sleepwalking. Sleep apnea is most associated with excess mortality. Often obese, those suffering from sleep apnea are at particularly high risk of cardiovascular problems. The partners of these patients also often suffer from chronically disturbed sleep. While consumer-grade wearables and apps may lack the detailed analysis in sleep studies that includes core body temperature, hormone levels, circadian rhythm and brain activity, these devices offer an approximation of sleep architecture that could help individuals improve sleep hygiene. For insurers, self-reported sleep data could be incorporated within wellness and fitness product protocols in the future.

We can all use a chuckle from time to time, right? When it comes to innovation failures, the funniest I've seen in a long while popped up last week, and it provides a lesson while not having cost anyone in the insurance ecosystem a penny, so I think it's safe for all of us to laugh—and then think, "There but for the grace of God go we."

The innovation, called Juicero, was designed to be a Keurig for juice. It uses a ton of technology to give people a great glass of juice at home or in the office as conveniently as Keurig has given us coffee and tea. Juicero met all the traditional criteria for venture capitalists: 

Proprietary technology? Check. The device used some 400 custom parts.

Hot market? Check. The market for juice is very tempting.

A proven founder? Check. He had started a juice company called Organic Avenue.

High-minded purpose? Check. The founder, Doug Evans, compared himself to Steve Jobs, and Juicero talked about things like life force, while avoiding the term "juice" (generally in favor of "plant-based nutrition").

Great business model? Check. The company used the long-proven "razors and blades" model that had worked so well for Gillette—once you get the razor in someone's hands, you have a license to overcharge for blades forever. HP used the model with laser printers, Keurig with the pods for coffee and tea, etc.

With all the boxes checked, Juicero lined up $120 million in investment from smart guys at places like Google Ventures and Andreessen Horowitz.

The problem: The device is totally unnecessary. It's also expensive. While going through their checklists, Juicero and its investors never stopped to ask that most fundamental of questions: Does this solve a real problem for a real person? Instead, they talked themselves into the more common question: Would this make me a lot of money if people bought into the concept?

In these days of ubiquitous media, it didn't take long for someone to let the emperor know he was naked. Bloomberg did the honors in this article. A reporter took a Juicero bag of juice and squeezed it by hand faster than the super-high-tech, $400 Juicero machine did. (That's the discounted price, down from the initial price of $700.) The reporter, helpfully, provided video proof with the article. So what you're really buying with Juicero is bags of juice, which cost $5 to $8 for each eight-ounce glass—meaning there has to be an awful lot of life force in there. 

The company is now a dead man walking. It won't acknowledge that yet, but it is. This Atlantic article shows that the piling on has already begun.

We'll all make mistakes as we sort through the innovations being bruited about in insurtech, but we'll make a lot fewer if we start from the customer and work backward, if we ask that simplest of questions: Does this idea make someone's life demonstrably easier? 

Cheers,

Paul Carroll,
Editor-in-Chief 

Insurers are aware that technology will help to reduce claims drastically and therefore finally run premiums down to unsustainable levels. Time to move on “Insurance is a cornerstone of modern life. Without insurance, many aspects of today’s society and economy could not function. The insurance industry provides the cover for economic, climatic, technological, political and demographic risks that enables individuals to go about their daily life and companies to operate, innovate and develop.” Source: Insurance Europe I fully support this, but the way this cornerstone fits into modern life needs attention. It’s time to move on. See also: Insurance Coverage Porn   The Third Wave Twenty years ago, I set up the first digital insurance. Ten years ago, I set up (again the first) mobile insurance Now we’re heading for the third wave: connected insurance. Real connected insurance with the new opportunities that technology brings is what I (with a few former colleagues) believe in and have been working on for some time now. Of course: "IoT," "data science," "AI," "customer-centric" and "on-demand" are the buzzwords. But let me add two: "holistic" and "transversal." "Holistic" refers to the complete modern household with a connected lifestyle and "transversal" to the consumer who is completely not interested in our industry verticals. Insurance has to stay but with an overall and fresh approach. Hundreds of insurtech initiatives are currently taking pieces and add sometimes compelling features. See the Sherpa-Neos-Interpolis-Trov-CBien-Metromile-Vitality-Clark-Knip-PolicyGenius-Lemonade-Inshared-like initiatives. The real challenge is to bring it all together to a compelling, simple, transparent and engaging full service offer to the customer. Focus on prevention The new insurance is no insurance -- meaning the focus should not be on pushing insurance products but on offering prevention services. For this we developed an international concept for smart protection called InConnect, with the household as hub connecting all smart devices, vehicles and wearables and with technology and data used to improve prevention. Safety and Peace of Mind Unbiased personal risk management tools (Primes) help reduce insurance to what is really needed in one universal personalized policy without redundancies and gaps, dynamically adjusted to the actual situation and needs with:

• On-demand add-ons
• Built-in loyalty and reward system
• Ready connections for sharing cars, rides and homes
• Easy combining or splitting households
• Privacy and cyber risk recognized

and backed with a one of a kind insurance and claims IT platform. Startup The overall concept is quite ambitious. Although we’ve successfully done ambitious businesses before and have qualified people and technology on our side, we’ll start on a controllable scale. A startup will kick off in three European countries with home, motor and travel. As soon as we’ve completed our search for the right partners, we’ll start proving the concept, do the learning and keep you posted. Of course we’re always looking for enthusiastic and good individuals. Feel free to give me a buzz. See also: The Insurance Model in 2035?   Finally Insurers are experts in risk and capital management, and that is what they should keep doing, but in a different perspective. Deploy that expertise in the new environment of connected lifestyles.