Earlier this year I did a talk at the Casualty Actuaries of Greater New York spring meeting on disrupting insurance and I just posted it to youtube, check it out! The talk was a reprisal of this article I published in a reinsurance journal and updates some ideas.
A few big themes are explored here. First that insurance is more resilient than it might first appear. The talk starts with a geek-out session on disruption theory and how it might apply to insurance generally, concluding that when we talk about insurance disruption we really mean disintermediation. The entire insurance industry is an economic intermediary so to shortcut past them is by definition removing an intermediary!
I consider what it would take to disintermediate a few key institutions of insurance: brokers and regulated insurance entities. It ain’t pretty, which is why these institutions have survived for centuries. The market needs them!
I don’t mean to be a complete pessimist, of course. My heart lies with the barbarians, even if my mind is safely behind the gates. Insurance is tough but not invincible!
Not Unreasonable 