Celent recently held its first UK CIO Agenda Roundtable.   The aim of this event was to bring together senior IT executives from across the UK insurance industry to debate shared topics of interest.  The event was hosted by a CIO’s at their premises, and the prize for hosting was that the CIO got to choose [...]

Microinsurance is referred to the type of insurance that aims to the base of the pyramid (BoP) population, generally those ignored by mainstream commercial and social insurance schemes. It emphasizes the importance of understanding the needs, preferences and characteristics of this target group: the low-income household, the working poor and the under-served. Microinsurance has the potential to play [...]

I’m guessing that somewhere in your strategy documentation will be an objective that states that you will succeed as an insurance company through ‘being innovative’. It may be presented up-front as a bold strategic theme or it may be hidden deep down in the depths of a key initiative. I’m also guessing that, for many of you, [...]

Most cultures reward and encourage success. Growing up, we learn quickly to highlight our brilliance and down play our mistakes. The corporate world we operate in only reinforces that. Do you remember how many times you had to fall off your bike before you could ride it successfully? You had to fail before you got [...]

Preliminary entries are in and they are strong! As many of you know, Celent kicked off a contest to define innovation in six words or less. Based on the principle that scarcity breeds creativity, we challenge you all to stir your creative juices and give it your best shot. We have received over 90 submissions so [...]

Ever since we discovered that the internet could be more than just a document repository or shop-front, we have been investing in smart ways to engage our customers better and improve the user experience.  Self-service via a laptop, tablet or mobile device clearly has huge benefits to both the customer who now has access to [...]

Celent held its 10th Peer Networking Event in Toronto last week and met with Canadian-based carriers to discuss insurance innovation and trends in big data. The purpose of the discussions was to identify practical ways to make progress on these topics in the face of increasing demands from the day-to-day business. The group reviewed the [...]

A brief summary of the ideas around Celent’s 2012 Creative Disruption Event.

I read with great interest the article in The Wall Street Journal today about bioprinting (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443816804578002101200151098.html?KEYWORDS=3d+printing). This offers great hope for critically ill patients and possible future relief for those of us whose natural sinews are reminding us of the law of entropy (read aches and pains). It also should give some pause to actuaries [...]

It has always been ironic to me that insurers have “lost the plot” on technology innovation. After all, insurance companies were among the first companies to implement systems to solve practical business problems. Of course, this was in the day when mainframes demanded entire floors in company headquarters buildings. These early systems have, in many [...]