ITA Pro Magazine - August 2015

There’s always time to look back and re-examine failures (and the occasional success stories) that have taken place, but looking forward and planning for the future takes a different kind of energy. Putting regular tasks aside to contemplate better ways of doing things sounds like something an organization should endorse, but too often it results in navel-gazing with little accomplished.

Still, just a bit more than halfway through what has been, thus far, a most extraordinary decade for insurance and technology, we felt this was an excellent opportunity to examine what lies ahead in the remaining five years of this second decade of the 21st century.

Where have we come from in this half-decade? In 2010 we were beginning to emerge from the worst financial crisis in 80 years. IT leaders were finally being viewed as valuable players in the company hierarchy, but the constant that held back insurance for more than a decade—the replacement of core systems—was still on hold for most carriers because of the tremendous cost concerns.

People were carrying computers in their pockets in 2010, but we had yet to see the full value of mobility and how an entire generation was becoming unplugged (except for their chargers, of course). The cloud was some vague concept to many and even the smartest people in the industry never saw entire policy administration systems being available in the cloud.

In this edition of ITA Pro, we asked some industry leaders to reflect on areas of importance—such as analytics, claims, distribution, and mobility—and where the industry will likely find itself with these capabilities five years from now.

Making predictions is never easy, but it can be fun. The beauty of where we are now, though, is reasonable people can make outrageous claims about the future and we will still have a problem tearing those ideas apart because, deep inside, there is a tiny speck of belief that the future is there for almost anything.

I don’t know if we will see flying cars, as Chad Hersh, then a Novarica analyst, spoke about a few years ago at a Majesco users’ conference I attended, but another point he touched on—driverless cars—certainly has a chance to change the insurance world in the 2020s. How wild is it to think drones will be soaring above us to examine property risks for underwriters? Not very.

Take your imagination for a spin and you might be shocked at some of the ideas that will come your way. Anyone who thinks otherwise hasn’t been paying attention these past five years. ITA

Robert Regis Hyle

PRO

PRO

Jim Daggett

Editor in Chief

Robert Regis Hyle

Contributing Editor

Michael P. Voelker

Art Director

Jason T. Williams

ITA Advisory Board

Tricia S. Blair Lincoln Financial Group Thomas Dunbar XL Group Miguel Edwards AIA Allstate Lawrence Fortin Millers Mutual Insurance Judith L. Haddad Patriot National Inc.

Craig S. Lowenthal Berkley Technology Services Ken Mitchel Clements Worldwide Wade Rugenstein NTA Life Kath Sandklev Cap Specialty Larissa Tosch Glatfelter Insurance Group

For Advertising contact Jim Daggett at jim@itapro.org or 631-241-3301

For Editorial, contact Robert Regis Hyle at bob@itapro.org or 812-747-7159

For reprints and licensing please contact Jim Daggett at jim@itapro.org or call 631-241-3301

ITA Pro magazine is published five times per year in print and tablet forms and three more in tablet-only form.

Copyright © 2015 by the Insurance Technology Association. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the ITA.