Hello and thank you for joining us for episode seven of Node TV. How time flies!
A huge theme over the last few weeks has been our excitement over the digital revolution. What we’re witnessing is incredible; as insurance brokers, underwriters and business intermediaries you’re trying to keep up with, as well as hopefully, trying to adapt and innovate with, is just phenomenal.
In light of that, one of the topics I have been asked about a lot over the last couple of weeks is Industry 4.0. Or more specifically, how we think the upcoming industry revolution is going to affect insurance.
Again it’s about understanding how fortunate we are to be at the very cusp of the industry’s fourth revolution. The first revolution, known topically as ‘The Industrial Revolution’ occurred in the eighteenth-century as the result of the discovery of steam power. Secondly, we have the mass-production revolution, assembly line production powered by electricity in the early twentieth-century. Then, of course most recently the third which kind of covers, the time through from the seventies to the nineties, where we saw the rise of computer and automation.
Now, we’re at the beginning of the fourth, the revolution that experts are referring to as the revolution of cyber physical systems. I think with the change that we are going to witness over the next twenty years, is going to create a very dynamic space within the insurance industry. Naturally, I want insurers to begin to look at this. I think it’s absolutely the right time to look at cyber liability insurance for clients; that’s the things we here about day in day out. That’s the data and the privacy, the business interruption, the infrastructure and network- the general hackable of side of things
But more than that, now is the time to look at the internet of things and the interconnectivity of devices and machines. It’s crucial to understand that with the progression that we are going to see happen over the next twenty years- the internet of things is not going to go away. We speak to insurance brokers all over the world, every single week and we’re constantly reminding them this. As well as doing everything we can to help them find confidence and assist them in discussions with the insured.
Frankly there is a lot of money to be made. We all like to do a deal, but also it’s a necessity, as it isn’t going to go back. We need insurance brokers based in all corners of the world to get informed and to get comfortable discussing the internet of things., the digital revolution and the technology standpoint. We’re at a point where manufacturing, is going to completely change, so it’s important to ground ourselves now.
I was actually reading a really useful study the other day, which has inspired me to collate together run some services off that are most going to be impacted by the industry 4.0. Within all service industries, we’re going to see a complete alteration of their business models. How people look at reliability in their infrastructure, the IT security, the machine safety, the product life-cycle, industry value-chain, work and education skilled economic factors. It’s all going to be turned on its head. I think it’s crucial that everybody starts to address and considers these. They say risk, I say opportunity!
We also believe that certain products around the cyber and ENO are going to have to absolutely change; thus again prompting a complete shift in the way in which we underwrite these types of risk. Perhaps most importantly, the information we will need ourselves, in order to underwrite these risks is going to change.
Whilst it might sound daunting, don’t lose sight of the excitement that comes with change. We’re really excited and hopefully you are and will be too. Get some confidence and start to have the conversations with the insured, as the industry 4.0 gains speed, you will see great benefit from being involved!
