Step Up

The entrance of startups to the insurance industry, nearly four years ago (2015), introduced a change, innovation, that made all the components, whether they are linear or passive, to react. The new teen spirit that the startup introduced acted as a step function that increased the value of the industry. The input may be a nice and clean function. It has a ripple effect that affects the entire pond until is converges on the new and higher level.

Insurance companies take active steps towards modernization to keep up with customer's expectations and recent entrants to the insurance space who use the latest technology. Carriers introduced new entities into their organizations to champion and facilitate progress. Today there are innovation teams, innovation labs, venture arms, accelerator programs, and the less familiar function -- the Entrepreneur in Residence (EiR).

To understand better the avant-garde insurance that is done by the large insurance companies and their innovation programs I reached out to the leading insurance innovation teams.

Here is a short interview with Dominic DiMarco, EiR in QBE insurance, the man that claims to have the best job in the insurance industry.

"All the big businesses are trying to figure out how to do things "faster, quicker, easier and leaner" and they don't have those skills in their four walls to do it themselves most of the times."

"There is a difference between the IT infrastructure and core systems to the innovative work that is happening on the fringes. You can't replace a core system at once."

"Insurance companies, at their core, are massive financial institutes."

“It’s not just travel insurance, it’s people’s lives, it’s people’s incomes. They are being refused that just because they have a mental illness … I don’t think that it’s fair.” (Ella Ingram)

In 2015, the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal found that QBE insurance discriminated against Ella Ingram. In 2017, predominantly as a result of Ella’s case, a number of insurers reviewed their travel insurance policies removing blanket exclusions for mental health conditions. Discrimination is not restricted to travel insurance.

Mental illness has proven to be a challenge for the general and life insurance industry who have historically approached the issue from a regulatory compliance perspective.

There are currently numerous digital applications being used independently of insurance or in connection with health insurance. These applications fall within the four types.