If an old-line family business in Mexico could build a game-changing dashboard more than 25 years ago, why not agents and brokers everywhere in today's digital world?

A lot of other people are leaving the industry, too, or considering doing so as part of the general reevaluation of work that the pandemic has caused these past two years-plus.

As part of this month's ITL Focus on automation and RPA, we spoke with Nigel Walsh, managing director, insurance, at Google, about how far automation has progressed -- and about how to think about what comes next. Why automate a form or a process when you can simply eliminate it? 

Kevin Trokey, founding partner of Q4intelligence, which calls itself an agency transformation network, says agents need to focus on the basics in these crazy times. 

Agents and Brokers Commentary, March 2022

As part of this month's ITL Focus on life and health, we spoke with Ronald Klein, a senior adviser at Afiniti and founder of Obtutus Advisory, who has a long history in life insurance, with a focus on aging. He describes what he sees as a full-blown crisis--one that life insurers are uniquely positioned to address. 

So, even if interest-rate pressures diminish, insurers may feel the need to keep pulling every possible lever to become more efficient, including with agents and brokers. 

As part of this month's ITL Focus on blockchain, we spoke with Sanjeev Chaudhry, founder and CEO of Gigaforce, about how far blockchain has already progressed as a force in the insurance industry and about where it can go from here. 

What if life insurers could help all policyholders with cancer live at least two years longer than they would have otherwise?

A conversation with Greig Woodring on how life insurers can use genomics to help clients make remarkable strides, especially against cancer.

There's a division of opinion. Is the human touch overrated: Do customers want to serve themselves online? Or are they demanding human attention when they buy policies and file claims?

Someone interrupted at work, even briefly, typically needs 15 minutes to refocus. Now is the time to redesign work to filter out those interruptions.

The industry has a great story to tell, and we'll tell it better if we strip out the over-the-top language in the New Year.

Auto makers have repeatedly tried to capture more of the downstream revenue related to car sales and are now taking dead aim at insurance.

"The industry is lagging far behind financial services and utilities providers when it comes to the digital customer experience," J.D. Power finds.

A new report offers sharp insights into how the IoT will develop from here and into how insurers should adjust as they try to use it in products and services.

It's time to integrate IT with front-line operations so a combination of business people and programmers can innovate in ways that matter most to customers.

"The majority of companies focus on tech-enabled distribution in an attempt to minimize the dependence on agent channels, including embedded product warranty platform Extend, price comparison site the Zebra and commission-less life insurer Ethos Life."

"Digital twins" can allow companies to simulate strategies before implementing them -- but can be misleading if not monitored carefully.

GE's announcement that it is splitting into three parts underscores a theme we've been sounding at ITL for years now: that the future belongs to ecosystems.

AVs are not where many of us expected two or three years ago that they'd be by now -- and are heading in a surprising direction.

The vision is a fever dream for gamers who'd love to immerse themselves in their online worlds and not have to worry about the messy details of physical existence.

The supply chain fiasco will run deep into next year, impeding almost every sort of business across the globe and requiring agility by those that insure them.

"While agents and brokers certainly have to adapt to a more digital world, those who play their cards right are entering a golden age..."

Forecasts for the coming winter are looking rough, especially because they build on the tough weather we've already seen this year.

"The growth and success of independent agent distribution—not direct marketing—has been the single most important trend over the past decade."

Insights from the Global Insurance Forum, held by the International Insurance Society. 

What if we thought of insurance as akin to an electronic device and gave it an operating system, like what we've seen with computers and smartphones?

Seven "Laws of Zero" will shower us with resources that we can use to transform insurance over the next decade. We should start planning now.

Two-thirds of U.S. employees are looking for a new job, creating vulnerabilities for insurers -- but also a rare opportunity to lure talent to the industry.

We can target ransomware payments in quite straightforward ways -- and, if the criminals can't get their money, what's the point in hacking?

A much-cited claim about how behavioral science can guide insurance has been exposed as based on manufactured data.

To keep us from getting carried away, it's good to look from time to time at the failures of AI to live up to the projections -- and COVID is a prime example.

It's easy to imagine Amazon expanding beyond product liability and into other types of insurance for small businesses. For a lot of small businesses.

A blockchain application for airlines may show the way to massive scale, of the sort that will need to occur in the insurance industry with COIs, FNOL, etc.

The money flooding into startups has raised concerns that valuations may be too high and that much of the money will be wasted.

The vision of driverless robotaxis carrying us everywhere and making deliveries looks like it will have to wait a bit -- but big change is still afoot.

Sensors will not only let insurers price risk more accurately but will help them counsel clients on how to avoid those risks in the first place.

There's now a better way. And it's especially important at a time when so many insurers are trying to reinvent the customer experience.

Here are seven business models that should dominate in the next decade -- creating a host of opportunities for insurers.

The prospect of higher taxes on capital gains and on corporate profits could drive consolidation, especially among agents and brokers.

Budweiser's plan to offer "barbeque insurance" raises intriguing possibilities for "embedded insurance" and for the use of APIs to build ecosystems.

Best Buy was given up for dead in 2012 but has found purpose, profits and publicity -- and become a good model for insurers.

There is reason for a bit of optimism but also tricky issues for insurers and corporate clients -- and new cyber threats that lie ahead.

If you can get the image of a hulking semi out of your mind, highway driving by autonomous vehicles makes perfect sense.

Climate change will expand beyond a cause and become a calculation when we can quantify the effects and the costs of mitigating them -- which may be starting.

Daniel Kahneman points out a major problem that insurers only sort of know they have and that is surely worse than they recognize.

There may be a silver lining to the ransomware attack on the Colonial Pipeline. It underscores two long-obvious problems that have somehow been ignored.

Buckle up. As bad as the past few years have been, there's no reason to think this summer will bring any relief from natural disasters in the U.S.

We as an industry need to learn to prepare better for grey swans -- rare but very possible events -- both for our own sakes and for our clients.

Using AI to produce an instant, highly accurate transcription of a recording has become trivial, The advancement has broad implications.

As Big Tech continues to set the rules on customer experience, Microsoft just put another big item on insurers' technology to-do list: speech recognition.

Augmented reality may finally be close to becoming very real, with significant implications for how clients operate and, eventually, for insurers.

In a world where a single ship accident can disrupt global trade, it's time we return to the too-often-neglected discipline of scenario planning.

Only 13% of CFOs consider the North American economy to be bad in the first quarter, down from 26% in the fourth quarter and 60% in the third.

I'm seeing a sort of retronym that I never expected: "human employee," typically shortened to "human." As in, "the human's role is...."

It isn't correct yet to say that insurance is bought, not sold. We're in a confusing middle ground, where insurance is both sold and bought.

These potential breakthroughs, if they pan out, will ripple through society and, thus, through the world of insurance.

We need to look rigorously at past forecasts and decisions to calibrate how good we are (or, often, aren't), so we can continually improve.

IIS's annual survey of global insurance executives found that only 35% had an active, comprehensive plan for innovation -- meaning that two-thirds do not.

How can we reinvent the customer experience when insurance's insular language limits our ability to entertain outside perspectives?

Electric vehicles' market share may surge from 2% to more than 25% by 2035, with major implications for drivers, insurers and a host of businesses.

There was a "touch and go" moment for the industry in 2020, in the face of business interruption claims tied to the pandemic.

Although a new president traditionally has a honeymoon of 100 days or so, what Biden faces feels more like divorce proceedings.

Among the predictions: that 20% could work most of their time away from the office and that we are at the beginning of a new wave of innovative startups.

Ecosystems should produce key changes in two areas: how we touch customers and how we organize internal processes.

While the pandemic upended 2020, the insurance industry can now build on its digitization efforts to greatly accelerate innovation in 2021.

Innovation will focus less on bells and whistles and more on improvements across entire processes and organizations. But incumbents must start preparing.

An AI breakthrough in medicine holds great promise for insurers, especially in claims and underwriting.

How should insurers think about the liability for AVs? Using history as a guide, it's possible to make reasonable guesses at some of the answers.

Companies rightly focus on redesigning the customer experience but need to start to rethink another experience, too: the employee's.

While the pandemic has accelerated the world's move toward digital, this list of trends explains what comes next.

Howard Schultz's conception of Starbucks as a "third place" provides an intriguing model for innovators, including in insurance.

While autonomous vehicles have faded from the discussion since an Uber killed a pedestrian in 2018, AVs are being positioned for a resurgence.

Two recent studies shed light both on how to realize the gains that AI can provide — and on how the industry remains unrealistic.

Panelists at the International Insurance Society annual forum say insurers must earn more trust from clients, but likely in a new form.

I think the insurance industry can support what might be thought of as a "beyond greed" movement, and even ride it.

The Bold Penguin acquisition of RiskGenius exemplifies what I suspect will be the dominant insurtech model for some time to come.

Insurers must quickly figure out what the world of work and home life will look like after the universe resets so they can start preparing their businesses.

When's the last time you saw a glowing statement about insurers in a national, non-insurance publication?

The "fake news" complicating the response to wildfires will surely appear, in far greater fashion, when a vaccine for the coronavirus becomes available.

California, the bellwether for so many things in the U.S., is in the lead on this insurance issue, with its wildfires showing how very complicated it will be.

People may be starting to take the sorts of precautions that will be increasingly important as we have to adapt to the changing climate.

Like Elon Musk, you can create a feedback loop that produces a virtuous circle and lets you dominate a section of the insurance industry.

What's next? Sharknados? And what, if anything, can we do?

Even the best-case scenarios now suggest that it will be well into 2021 before the U.S. recovers from the coronavirus.

Clients will be happier, and companies will be happier, once clients can interact directly with insurers' information systems.

Social inflation, an on-again, off-again issue for the insurance industry for decades, is on again, and the pandemic may make it worse.

Insurers need to use a devil's advocate to head off painful mistakes as they rethink their strategies in the face of the pandemic and economic crisis.

Walmart's acknowledgment that it is establishing a health insurance agency shows that traditional barriers are breaking down. Insurers must prepare.

A bright spot has emerged: a major report on flood risk, along with a model that will go a long way toward making assessment more accurate and transparent.

If you figure out how to plug into and help develop the right ecosystem, you can succeed where even the magical Segway failed.

K-pop can serve as an exemplar for insurers and agents as we all try to figure out how to engage with clients more often and increase their affinity for our brands.

As we've seen with all the recent videos involving police and protesters, cameras are everywhere -- and the spread is just beginning. There will be major implications for insurers.

We seem to be moving into a new phase of the pandemic, in which the economy will reopen in fits and starts, and insurers will need to be unusually agile.

Telemedicine has dominated the "tele-" discussion for good reason, but there are loads of opportunities for remote management of claims, sales and even property inspections.

After years of asking, I finally have an answer about the economic argument for "smart homes" -- just not the answer I wanted.

We will see a major new focus on public health policy and perhaps a move away from "sick care" and toward "heath equity" that requires new payment models.

The pandemic is accelerating the move toward "stakeholder capitalism," and insurers should strongly consider joining the movement.

It's not that technology is no longer a key driver for the insurance industry. Far from it. But "insurtech" is losing its descriptive power.

I worry that the insurance industry is losing the messaging battle on business interruption coverage for the coronavirus, and at a crucial time.

With COVID-19 forcing permanent, structural change, insurers have to get outside their own heads and see how customers' businesses and lives will evolve.

As the pandemic accelerates the insurance industry's digitization, peeks into the future are available--but not where most of us usually look.

The "Future of Risk" conference, held by The Institutes, hit some risk-management themes that I think will be key as we all prepare for the new normal. 

There is a moral imperative for the industry to do everything it can, even if means bending some rules and forgoing some revenue in the short term.

More than 1 million people list "thought leader" on their LinkedIn profiles. So many thoughts! So much leadership.

Hackers have devised malware that can take over your industrial machinery, shut down processes and encrypt your data until you pay a hefty ransom.

Two main themes emerged this year: the need to focus more on resiliency and the industry's two-steps-forward-one-step-backward approach to innovation. 

It's worth stepping back from time to time and realizing that every project is a bet, and that not every bet pays off, no matter who you are. 

Insurers can look at the wildfire problem from the standpoint of the customer and find a series of ways—both big and small—to help.

We're now in an age where brands can take a hit overnight, at the hands of an angry mob, so it's important to think ahead about where the dangers may lie.

Let's spend a minute understanding just how dysfunctional the system for pharmaceuticals is.

The world of insurance and risk management should consider offering some rewards to tackle seemingly intractable problems.

How does the industry change if companies can sell devices and toss in some insurance as a giveaway?

Couldn't dragon-resistant building codes have been imposed? Are there enough adjusters in all of Westeros to handle all the claims?

Lots of people are to blame for the fire that gutted Notre Dame. But where were the insurers? 

Last week's announcement by A.M. Best that it will assess and score insurance companies on their ability to innovate means that incumbents either have to build robust capabilities or suffer consequences

Incumbents are likened to oil tankers, which change direction slowly. The goal is to be a speedboat, but that's unrealistic. What about being an aircraft carrier, which turns slowly -- but can launch fighter jets?

Many industries are criticized because they talk the talk but don't walk the walk. Well, insurers don't even talk the talk yet. 

The business case for smart homes has yet to be made. 

PG&E may be the first climate change bankruptcy, but it won't be the last. So, what do we do?

Why couldn't PG&E have seen the dangers of wildfires in advance? And where were the insurers?

Can we somehow mitigate these wildfires, or are we doomed to endure them?

There is quite a bit of buzz about the likelihood of a wave of M&A for insurance companies and about an intriguing maneuver that could let insurers free up capital.

It's exciting to see companies bring to life the sorts of dreams that many of us have been describing for years now.

Public authorities and insurers will soon be able to communicate with people in ways that could save many lives.

"Insurance innovation" is often treated as an oxymoron, but it can't be.

To justify their valuations, Big Tech companies need to keep gobbling up other markets. Might insurance be on the menu?

Only 27% of executives felt that their key performance indicators (KPIs) drove their businesses toward their strategic goals—leaving a lot of room for improvement.

It may seem counterintuitive that customers want you to do less and them to do more for themselves, but, let's face it, companies aren't much fun to deal with.

The concept of a minimally viable product (MVP) has helped many companies, but some caution is in order. 

We're beginning to see that distinction play out in corporate innovation programs: A few are producing lightning, but many are just catching lightning bugs.

The claims process has a long way to go. A massive amount of cost can be taken out, and everyone's experience can be improved.

Platforms can help a company to assess the vast array of innovation opportunities that continue to emerge.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services predict that spending on healthcare will climb 5.3% this year and an average of 5.5% a year through 2026.

It's official! The ability to innovate will play a key role in determining the future success, even viability, of insurers. 

Here are seven companies we believe are Exponentials. These are the companies most likely to produce growth measured not in percentages but in multiples.

Last week's announcement of a healthcare venture by Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase may finally shift the debate in the U.S.

We don't often look for headlines about ourselves, but we hope this partnership will turn out to be the most important thing we've done since our founding.

As we head into 2018, we’re all trying to figure out what the insurance industry can expect from innovation.

I've gone back through the nearly 1,000 articles we published from thought leaders in 2017 and have highlighted the six most-read articles below.

The thinking on insurtech is maturing as we all see that, as an old boss of mine liked to say, "We're in a marathon, not a sprint." 

The fact that safety is leading to some rate cuts in workers comp lets me hope that the industry is making progress.

You can't quantify with any precision something as novel as OnStar was. Yet companies routinely insist on such models and pretend they mean something.

Journalists are going to be naming names on the opioid crisis and telling stories of those killed or crippled. McKesson, Cardinal Health and Amerisource Bergen are already being singled out.

A preview for InsureTech Connect.

There are opportunities for insurers to take the lead in the "change the world" movement. 

We're all excited by insurtech's prospects -- but it’s easy to feel smart before the test begins. Let's see what Hurricane Harvey shows us.

Here are six stages that innovation programs must go through to succeed. 

Guy Fraker tackles the question that he hears so frequently when he coaches big companies on how to innovate: "Where do we start?"

This month's list of 6 Innovators to Watch, for instance, is mostly full of data plays and focused on life and health, not P&C (with a decidely non-U.S. profile).

This month's Six Startups to Watch will highlight the most interesting newcomers among the more than 1,000 startups we track.

These companies tackle some of the biggest issues facing insurers.

A CEO says he can run his company entirely off his smartphone, and customers can interact with the company entirely via apps and chat, too. 

Last week's announcement by Next Insurance that it would sell insurance via Facebook Messenger brings chatbots to the fore of the discussion on insurtech—where they belong.

A catalog of insurtech startups.

Just as the number of animal phyla exploded during what scientists call the Cambrian period, the number of insurtechs is accelerating at an extraordinary pace.

Commissioner Doug Ommen: "We may not always agree with insurers, but we are willing to talk about it."

These six are attacking major problems in smart ways, so, even if they stumble, they should teach us something important.

Great risk managers generally go unnoticed—the plane that lands safely doesn't get much coverage

We want to believe that every tree grows to the sky, that every startup will be Uber, but more than 90% of startups fail.

The U.S. has let infrastructure investment languish for so long that some 50,000 dams are now past their designated lifespans.

The cloud, like the spreadsheet, doesn't do anything that we can't already do, but the cloud is so much more efficient that it will lead to tectonic shifts.

What if policies weren't either bought or sold? What if they just happened? What if they were almost invisible?

With a hat tip to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and her five stages of grief, I've decided that technology disrupts an industry in four stages.

Mary Meeker gave her always-anticipated, annual presentation on the state of the Internet this week.

Mary Meeker's annual presentation on the state of the Internet says voice-recognition technology is nearly ready and will be highly disruptive.

If you look at the protection gap from the customer standpoint, there isn't a gap. We're just kidding ourselves.

The protection gap doesn't exist. We're just kidding ourselves -- while condescending to our customers.

I'm cranky on the subject of the smart home because I've been hearing variations on this theme for 25 years without seeing a result.

Many claim that the smart home represents a major shift, and opportunity, for insurers, but we're still way too early.

As the Google symposium showed, innovation can happen faster than we expect -- or slower. Here is how to get the timing right.

A line from Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises summarizes how disruption generally occurs, but a checklist of five items can provide some warning.

A statement by Volvo -- following actions by Google, Mercedes and now Tesla -- means that the future of car insurance is upon us.

After decades of effort, telematics and usage-based auto insurance have made modest inroads because the business model still isn't right.

Google's Project Sunroof, which uses exceptionally sophisticated mapping data, may show how Google will approach insurance.

Sure, everyone is talking about improving the customer experience, but look at the words we use.

Everyone wants to improve the customer experience, but look at the vocabulary we use. Many words are opaque, and some are even offensive.

There is a lot of art, as well as science, that needs to be applied to improving the customer experience. Here are some helpful thoughts.

Even very smart people in very serious settings consistently make two mistakes that lead them to just assume a sort of technological utopia.

Devices like FitBit and the Apple watch hold great promise for our health, but they won't have much of an effect for many years.