At InsureTech Connect 2023, ReSource Pro’s Senior Consulting Partner Mark Breading sat down with Jason Reichel for a special chat on his Risk Management: Brick by Brick podcast. With artificial intelligence a major focus at ITC, Mark discusses use cases of AI in the insurance industry and shares his perspective on the evolving technology landscape. He also touches on current “mega trends” in commercial insurance that are affecting risk management, including climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, and cyber security. Here are a few highlights from their chat:

• AI for insurance is a game changer… but not on its own. Mark sees AI combining with other industry changes, like the Internet of Things and data collection on a broader scale, for more sophisticated and transformative change.

We’re attaching sensors to everything that the insurance industry insures, so there’s all this information that we can now analyze and use AI for. It’s not going to happen overnight, but I expect when we look back a decade from now, it’ll be a pretty different industry.

• Insurers should keep an eye on mega trends, especially where risk management is concerned. Some, like climate change-based disasters, are less under our control, but it’s important to respond in-time rather than retroactively. Others, such as increasing cybercrime, are the direct results of industry change. Mark sees the latter as a reminder to keep a level head when it comes to transformation, and to assess risk before implementing new technologies.

So many things are happening that are unprecedented, and I think it’s really hard for most people to get their arms around managing in a real-time world. It’s easy to say, ‘we’ll snapshot it and use it in analytics and in hindsight,’ but you’re missing the value of that real-time information in the first place.

• Risk management isn’t a simple set of calculations, and it shouldn’t be relegated to one group, like accounting or finance. It’s critical for organizations to keep a dynamic, operational view of risk management to actually stay ahead of the curve.

Are we going to engineer away risk in the world? No, of course not. And we’re going to introduce new risks, but by instrumenting things like vehicles and properties, we have the ability to proactively address risk, and it’s the policyholder, the business owner, or the individual who will benefit from that.

• New players aren’t the only ones driving growth. Incumbent and legacy insurance organizations are often the ones driving longer-lasting change. There’s room for new players and Insurtechs to win, but Mark feels that “it’s really less about disrupting existing players and more about enabling or partnering with them.”

ReSource Pro’s consulting services are there to help you consider these factors, providing the information and expertise you need to adapt and thrive. Experts like Mark can help you understand the significance of market changes, what your peers are doing, and which technologies you may want to adopt. Mark delves deeper into all these topics and more in the interview, sharing valuable insights for the insurance world and risk managers in general. To listen to the episode, click here.