今週のITCでは、地に足をつけ、星に目を向けよう

Keep a clear focus on what new solutions can actually do. But don’t forget to stay open to transformative possibilities for the future.

Late last week a strong solar storm brought brilliant displays of the Northern Lights as far south as Texas in the US. This morning my feed had picture after picture from people who had stepped outside last night to marvel at the universe. On a much larger scale, it's a bit like what is happening this week at ITC, as thousands of insurance executives gather under the bright lights of Las Vegas, where new solutions are sure to dazzle.

While it’s important to take time to appreciate the awe of the cosmos, getting swept up in the possibilities of what new technologies can do is a different matter. New solutions can hold immense potential, but the reality is most tools and platforms aren’t going to massively upend the insurance industry. That can be easy to forget on an overwhelming show floor or in a breathless panel discussion. So my advice for folks at ITC this week (since I can’t be there myself) is to keep yourself grounded, but at the same time, be open to dreaming a little.

Step one is maintaining a realistic perspective on what new solutions can do, and what they can do for your organization specifically. Take time to assess your current business processes and identify specific pain points. What are the challenges your team faces? Are there inefficiencies that could be addressed with technology? What does this new solution actually do? By grounding yourself in the realities of your organization and its challenges, it’s easier to keep a practical focus on what a new system or tool might actually be able to achieve for you.

As a former boss and longtime mentor used to say, insurance is a simple industry: all it does is connect massive pools of capital to people who have exposure to risk. The complexity arises in how that money gets to those people, i.e., the various networks of intermediaries that have grown up to indemnify risk, frame contracts, and distribute products. And the story of technology in insurance is fundamentally about disrupting and disintermediating those networks by allowing different actors in that chain to access each other more quickly and more directly.

Paradoxically, it’s also important to remain open to truly novel technologies that could truly be transformative. I’ve seen insurers implement technologies that exist today that reduced processes that used to take days or weeks to minutes, or launch new platforms to support tens of millions of dollars in new premiums. And what’s possible in the future might be even more profound.

The stargazing aspect to all this is that fully taking advantage of these new technologies might require fundamental shifts to business processes: the way insurance is sold, or what an insurance product even looks like, might look very different in the future. Being open to those possibilities requires creativity, future-focused vision, and a little suspension of disbelief. But as long as your approach to most things is realistic and grounded, it’s good to dream a little.

If you are going to be at ITC next week, have fun! I can’t wait to see what comes out of it.