2117: an insurance odyssey
When I think about what the world might be like in 100 years, it is almost impossible to imagine. Digitalisation, globalisation and urbanisation have already created a world our great grandparents would not have believed possible.
One hundred years ago, the world’s population totalled 1.8 billion, the average life expectancy was 50, there was no television or internet, and communication was mostly done by post. Today, the global population has reached 7.4 billion, the average life expectancy in the UK is 81, and the world has gone digital. If those advancements are anything to go by, in 100 years we will have more than 11 billion people on the planet, the average life expectancy will be more than 100, and everything, everywhere, will be digital.
While the past can give us a few clues as to what might lie ahead, no one really knows where we will be at the end of this century. Perhaps we can take a few cues from science fiction films – after all cult-classics such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Trek and Back to the Future gave us a glimpse – if a somewhat fantastical and sometimes dystopian view – of the future, including the various technological advancements we might expect: augmented reality, cognitive computing, driverless cars, military robots, tablet computers, and video calls were all imagined on the big screen long before they were created.
Today, futurologists suggest that in 100 years we will see the colonisation of Mars, commercial space flights, flying autonomous cars, mechanical body parts, printed food, robotic carers for the elderly and underwater cities. Is it possible that we might even see life extended to the point of immortality? Could precision agriculture – big data intelligence-driven farming – eradicate world hunger?
Our best guess is that the world will continue to undergo change at and beyond the current phenomenal pace.
So how is the insurance sector responding to all of this change? After all, our purpose at the most fundamental level is to provide certainty around the uncertain. The truth is that the insurance sector has some important decisions that will determine whether we survive in the decades to come.
There are three things the insurance industry must do to remain relevant and offer value over the next 100 years: embrace technology; transform the workforce; and develop new products that cater for customer’s ever-changing needs.
Does our industry embrace technology? It is no secret that as an industry we are lagging behind the rest of financial services when it comes to digitalisation and the use of new technologies. There are no more excuses. If we don’t adopt and embrace new technology, we won’t have a future. This might seem nihilistic but insurers need to keep hearing this message to remind them why we must continue to challenge existing business models.
Transforming the workplace is equally as important. The insurance industry needs to attract employees who better reflect the diversity of the markets they work, or are seeking to work, in. Gender and nationality diversity, and digital fluency, are increasingly critical to business success.
As the world changes, so do the risks we face. The insurance industry needs to anticipate these new risks and develop insurance products as the risks themselves evolve. Driverless cars are already on the roads, drones are flying in the sky, and robots are already working alongside humans, so we need to provide the right insurance solutions. The insurance industry’s challenge is to enable innovation to flourish and support business growth in a world of new possibilities. Focusing on what our customers want is paramount.
The world in 2117 will obviously be a very different place. And it follows that the insurance industry will be too.
I’m no sci-fi writer so I will resist the temptation to suggest the storyline of an insurance-themed blockbuster based on a world 100 years from now. But if anyone was brave enough to take up that particular challenge, I have no doubt that more bespoke insurance products providing greater certainty of protection, ubiquitous use of mobile technology from personal to commercial activities, and a much more highly developed relationship between humans and machines would all feature. Our relationship with the natural environment and each other will continue to play a fundamental role, too.
When you compare what drove insurance in the 1600s with what drives it today, not much has changed. While insurance products have evolved dramatically, the foundation and principles of what insurers do remains the same: covering, mitigating and understanding risk.
Whatever the world looks like in 2117 and however different the risks, insurance will undoubtedly play a vital role in building resilience and enabling human progress, as it has done since its invention.
It is ironic that our future does not include other species(living beings) - it is futile to believe human race can live without perfect balance that nature put in place. So, for example, instead of focusing on "RoboBees" to pollinate our crops - why can't we see (and work towards) future that has bees (living and thriving) our crops.
Transformation and Operations Leader
8 年Thanks for a stimulating post. As you say we've lagged behind in insurance and struggled to deliver fundamental change that generates value for all stakeholders. Kotter's classic article on why transformation efforts fail (albeit within organisations) seems particularly relevant as we review how to deliver change at a more fundamental level. These are the areas where we've fallen down in the past. We need these change enablers in place if we are to see powerful change that really delivers benefits to all stakeholders : - Establish a sense of urgency - Form a powerful guiding coalition - Create a vision - Communicate the vision - Empower others to act on the vision - Plan for creative short term wins - Consolidate improvements and sustain momentum for change - Institutionalise the new approaches It's all possible, as has been demonstrated in other industries. We just need to drive momentum and traction into the change process and get some meaningful collaboration in place (that doesn't require universal consensus) to get us moving forwards.
Managing Consultant @ De gans & Van Geel | Organizational Development and Innovation in Information Management
8 年Hi Inga, great to start a discussion on what will the world be like over 100 years! Inspiring! First of all, I think insurers have done a great job to society by making risks bearable and by that giving society a change to grow. However, I would like to challenge the insurance industry a bit more then doing what they always have done: covering, mitigating and understanding risk. As you made clear, it is impossible to predict the future. That is true, but you can choose now what role you would like to have in making that future. I think insurers can play a bigger role then they have done so far thanks to developments in information technology. For the future I hope insurers will play a more societal role by not only using the available data, knowledge and understanding of risks to create certainties around the uncertain, but also to eliminate these uncertainties. For instance by telling car manufacturers or government bodies that safety measures should be improved, by rating police departments to enforce improvements, by advising government bodies, by investing in research to mitigate diseases or even by paying the security measures to prevent burglary.
Enabling organisational competence, confidence, and commitment; optimising performance, resilience, and self-sufficiency. Advanced behavioural modelling solutions that unlock individual and team performance.
8 年Thanks for sharing Inge Inga Beale A great stimulus for ideas and opinions. Your point regarding what drove/drives the industry certainly resonates. I hope in 100 years we will have made material progress in making insurance more attractive to customers. I believe many forms of insurance in their current form are the "best worst alternate" to delivering what people really want and I would suggest the protection gap statistics support this view. I believe that customers (business or consumers) want to "protect the things they value" e.g. their goods, services, their time, their ability to trade/function and their emotions. When we as an industry focus less on product led premium volume and more on services and products that deliver these forms of protection then we will find alternate (e.g. risk mitigation services, maintenance services) and more profitable revenue streams from happier customers. Rather than being disrupted from outside, we can expand the scope of our solutions be more than financial risk transfer products.
Editor | Financial Literacy Advocate | CEW Scholar
8 年I sincerely hope that the powers-that-be in government, business and academia find a way to fix world poverty and hunger sooner than 50 years. When I started in journalism, the internet was exclusive to the scientific academia. That it's part of everyday life in less than two decades since the exciting Yahoo! days of the early 90s is astonishing. I'd like to see algorithms that help governments elect politicians and businesses, CEOs. The type of algorithms that screen out bullies, hustlers, frauds and demagogues. One can only dream.