Real easy to make these “predictions” when they’re 33 years in the future. Remember that 33 years ago it was 1984. Predictions from the year, not the book included manned lunar bases, next generation supersonic transport, reliable 30 day weather forecasts. There would be effective weight and appetite control in a pill, chemical methods for improving memory and eliminating dementia, eliminating plastics created using petrochemicals, cargo pipelines for transportation of goods, a practical blood substitute and I could go on.
Highly unlikely. I thought actuaries were the smart ones in the insurance game. Ultimately we’ve had 50+ years of increasing car/road safety but premiums continue to rise as that is only on part of the total equation. As more tech is added to cars especially on the bumpers/grills/windshield the cost of repair when accidents occur (and they will occur just get less frequent) will be higher. Also unless the legal system and health system are overhauled during that time cost of injuries will continue to rise as well. One could make the case as the frequency decreases the people that make their money in those industries will only offset with increase costs as to keep their income flat. Also anyone that thinks the automakers will take on liability is crazy. Right now it is a marketing strategy, but in 5-10 years they will be back to the types of companies that handled the GM ignition switch fiasco and Takana airbag so poorly. All of this is the same story of technologist claiming they have the next big thing that well fundamentally change underlying social problems…. and they end up making a good product that does little other than sell a lot.
I’ll be retired in a few years so I really don’t care but….if you guys don’t think that autonomous vehicles are going to virtually wipe out auto premiums you are kidding yourselves-personal injury lawyers will go broke and so will the medical facilities when there are virtually no auto accidents. Use your imagination and think about the ripple effect of this. Airplanes fly on auto pilot- how many accidents are there due to pilot error?
Virtually none. Autonomous cars will operate the same way folks and that’s great news for highway safety- but it’s dismal news for P and C companies and agencies. The only survivors will be those who were smart enough to prepare for this inevitability and develop a niche in other developing lines..i.e cyber, tech etc.
Jake, here is a scary thought. 300 million vehicles on the road driven by humans and 40,000 Autonomous vehicles trying to avoid them. What happens when a crazy doped up driver merges into the same lane? What instant choice will the autonomous car take when they have passengers in the vehicle. Will they go to the ditch and end up with dead passengers or will they stand their ground and take out the dopey driver? Sure glad I won’t be around to find out.
Ridesharing is nice amenity when you’re drunk or on vacation without a car; but it will be many decades before on-demand transportation is dominant in most cities and suburbs. By 2024? I don’t think so.
Let’s not forget that there is always a wait. Unless we suddenly become a patient society (…right…) or there are so many vehicles that there is no waiting, this is still scifi.
It’s been 30 years more before the 2050. I really has a strong feeling about the projection of KPMG that it is possible to drop down the Auto Insurance Market. As of now, car insurance claims not my fault is useful. The traditional way of Auto Insurance claims is emerging to be more convenient. As stated on this post, “Autonomous technology is making cars increasingly safer.” This is truly a good news and should be celebrated.
Imagine the calm surface of a pond. This is my analogy of the insurance industry for the past century. Now take a bucket of lose grave and cast the stones across that calm surface, noting how each impact forms rings that travel out, and quickly overlap, magnifying the disturbance. These are the technological applications reinventing the very risk managed by the insurance industry. Materials science, robotics, AI, biologic chips, are all technologies being developed for countless different applications, and as each has success, they iterate and overlap. Will autonomous flying taxi’s impact insurance? Probably. What will impact insurance to an even greater degree is the simple reality that today’s mobility:
Reliant upon fossil fuels,
Individually owned & rarely used,
Requiring vast tracts of limited space,
A leading source of GHG emissions, and
When combined with human error- the cause of more fatalities than 2 WWII’s;
Is no longer viable as a global transportation system moving forward. If we start here, then we can begin to see the full scope and scale of influence upon insurance. Insurer’s would be well suited to forget the “car” and begin engaging in the next era of mobility.
Let’s talk about automation. I think the article is pretty close in terms of the manpower needed to sell and service policies and claims handling. Let’s look at the innovations over just the past 22 years; my tenure as an insurance agent.
1. Real time motor vehicle and CLUE reports. In 1995, in order to write a policy, we had to submit it and wait up to 30 days for underwriting to make it’s final decision on a simple policy. Now MVR, CLUE and underwriting decisions are instant in many cases. Not to mention, many companies weren’t even online and reporting data to Choicepoint/CLUE.
2. Real time rating – How many of us are old enough to have used a rule book in order to determine the cost of an auto policy? When I started, we were still using them for vehicles that generated a Symbol W or higher.
3. Instant Payments – how many of us have ever had to write a payment down and send it to accounts receivable? How many remember financing liability-only auto policies? Now personal auto insurance companies take instant payments via check, credit, debit, etc.
4. Computer Assisted Underwriting- How captive agents remember the time you no longer had to learn about company placement and selection? Approximately 1998, I remember participating in a meeting in which we rolled out a our methodology behind computer versus manual underwriting. Now, no one even questions computer assisted underwriting because for the last few years, most new agents no nothing but the computer.
5. Insurance websites and portals. Do I need to add anything here? In 1995, we didn’t even have email at the company I worked for. In fact, everyone had to fax documents. I remember giving directions to the closes Kinkos so people could fax documents for $1.00 per page. Now everyone has email, anyone can use a smartphone to scan or take photos. (Not to mention Kinkos doesn’t even exist now!)
6. Smartphone Policy Managements – If your insurance company could take a payment, make policy changes, or handle claims via smartphone app in 1995, raise your hand? That’s today’s reality. Virtually every major auto insurance carrier had developed a smartphone app to help sell, service, handle claims.
7. Oh yeah, what about the Internet?
8. Comparative Raters: How many people remember the time before EZLynx and other comparative raters. How many agents did it take to quote 10 companies?
These innovations and many other innovations give agents and insurers the ability to run lean and mean operations. The industry will shrink. Because quite frankly, auto insurance is the burger job of the insurance industry. (Yes, I said it). If we can automate the burger job by 2050, why can’t we automate the auto insurance agent’s job by 2050?
Consider my last point. IBM’s Watson (a super computer without access to internet) destroyed the all-time Jeopardy champions. It wasn’t even close. Watson can understand sentiment and spoken language. Watson does a better job at diagnosing cancers than the best doctors. Now Watson is available via API for your phone system via Twilio (or Whatever). When will an insurance company realize that you can use Watson to quote, sell, and service an auto insurance policy? If I can prefill the majority of an auto policy with a simple name, date of birth, and address, what can Watson do? Seems like the first to go would be the low hanging loss leader; car insurance. What are your thoughts?
Here is what this article is forgetting. I, for one, have not had an accident in over 20 years. I have had had my car broken into. I have had a tree branch fall and crack my windshield. I have had my car keyed, and I have had a quarter panel dented at the grocery store. All of these things are covered by insurance. None of them would have been stopped by a “self driving car”. Most drivers don’t have accidents. Yet most drivers still use and need insurance.
Real easy to make these “predictions” when they’re 33 years in the future. Remember that 33 years ago it was 1984. Predictions from the year, not the book included manned lunar bases, next generation supersonic transport, reliable 30 day weather forecasts. There would be effective weight and appetite control in a pill, chemical methods for improving memory and eliminating dementia, eliminating plastics created using petrochemicals, cargo pipelines for transportation of goods, a practical blood substitute and I could go on.
Very good Mr. Solvent. Excellent way to put a reality spin on these predictions.
AlGrr said the polar ice caps would be completely gone by 2014 also. Oops!
This article has literally nothing to do with climate change or Al Gore. Please try to keep your comments on topic.
Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
I politely asked you to keep your posts on-topic & you decided to insult me. So much hate in you. Take a chill pill and relax.
Sorry troll, I don’t have any patience with you these days. I do like MAGA, MASA.
Plenty of predictions did come true however. Touchscreens, videochat, computers in classroon, electronic books just to name a few.
Highly unlikely. I thought actuaries were the smart ones in the insurance game. Ultimately we’ve had 50+ years of increasing car/road safety but premiums continue to rise as that is only on part of the total equation. As more tech is added to cars especially on the bumpers/grills/windshield the cost of repair when accidents occur (and they will occur just get less frequent) will be higher. Also unless the legal system and health system are overhauled during that time cost of injuries will continue to rise as well. One could make the case as the frequency decreases the people that make their money in those industries will only offset with increase costs as to keep their income flat. Also anyone that thinks the automakers will take on liability is crazy. Right now it is a marketing strategy, but in 5-10 years they will be back to the types of companies that handled the GM ignition switch fiasco and Takana airbag so poorly. All of this is the same story of technologist claiming they have the next big thing that well fundamentally change underlying social problems…. and they end up making a good product that does little other than sell a lot.
Prying my fingers away from my own steering wheel is as likely as them prying my checkbook from my pocket. But then, I am a baby boomer.
I will let my kids and grand kids worry about this so called prediction.
I’ll be retired in a few years so I really don’t care but….if you guys don’t think that autonomous vehicles are going to virtually wipe out auto premiums you are kidding yourselves-personal injury lawyers will go broke and so will the medical facilities when there are virtually no auto accidents. Use your imagination and think about the ripple effect of this. Airplanes fly on auto pilot- how many accidents are there due to pilot error?
Virtually none. Autonomous cars will operate the same way folks and that’s great news for highway safety- but it’s dismal news for P and C companies and agencies. The only survivors will be those who were smart enough to prepare for this inevitability and develop a niche in other developing lines..i.e cyber, tech etc.
Jake, here is a scary thought. 300 million vehicles on the road driven by humans and 40,000 Autonomous vehicles trying to avoid them. What happens when a crazy doped up driver merges into the same lane? What instant choice will the autonomous car take when they have passengers in the vehicle. Will they go to the ditch and end up with dead passengers or will they stand their ground and take out the dopey driver? Sure glad I won’t be around to find out.
Yet there is still a robust insurance market for airplanes… Lower frequency, significantly higher severity.
Ridesharing is nice amenity when you’re drunk or on vacation without a car; but it will be many decades before on-demand transportation is dominant in most cities and suburbs. By 2024? I don’t think so.
Let’s not forget that there is always a wait. Unless we suddenly become a patient society (…right…) or there are so many vehicles that there is no waiting, this is still scifi.
It’s been 30 years more before the 2050. I really has a strong feeling about the projection of KPMG that it is possible to drop down the Auto Insurance Market. As of now, car insurance claims not my fault is useful. The traditional way of Auto Insurance claims is emerging to be more convenient. As stated on this post, “Autonomous technology is making cars increasingly safer.” This is truly a good news and should be celebrated.
Imagine the calm surface of a pond. This is my analogy of the insurance industry for the past century. Now take a bucket of lose grave and cast the stones across that calm surface, noting how each impact forms rings that travel out, and quickly overlap, magnifying the disturbance. These are the technological applications reinventing the very risk managed by the insurance industry. Materials science, robotics, AI, biologic chips, are all technologies being developed for countless different applications, and as each has success, they iterate and overlap. Will autonomous flying taxi’s impact insurance? Probably. What will impact insurance to an even greater degree is the simple reality that today’s mobility:
Reliant upon fossil fuels,
Individually owned & rarely used,
Requiring vast tracts of limited space,
A leading source of GHG emissions, and
When combined with human error- the cause of more fatalities than 2 WWII’s;
Is no longer viable as a global transportation system moving forward. If we start here, then we can begin to see the full scope and scale of influence upon insurance. Insurer’s would be well suited to forget the “car” and begin engaging in the next era of mobility.
Let’s talk about automation. I think the article is pretty close in terms of the manpower needed to sell and service policies and claims handling. Let’s look at the innovations over just the past 22 years; my tenure as an insurance agent.
1. Real time motor vehicle and CLUE reports. In 1995, in order to write a policy, we had to submit it and wait up to 30 days for underwriting to make it’s final decision on a simple policy. Now MVR, CLUE and underwriting decisions are instant in many cases. Not to mention, many companies weren’t even online and reporting data to Choicepoint/CLUE.
2. Real time rating – How many of us are old enough to have used a rule book in order to determine the cost of an auto policy? When I started, we were still using them for vehicles that generated a Symbol W or higher.
3. Instant Payments – how many of us have ever had to write a payment down and send it to accounts receivable? How many remember financing liability-only auto policies? Now personal auto insurance companies take instant payments via check, credit, debit, etc.
4. Computer Assisted Underwriting- How captive agents remember the time you no longer had to learn about company placement and selection? Approximately 1998, I remember participating in a meeting in which we rolled out a our methodology behind computer versus manual underwriting. Now, no one even questions computer assisted underwriting because for the last few years, most new agents no nothing but the computer.
5. Insurance websites and portals. Do I need to add anything here? In 1995, we didn’t even have email at the company I worked for. In fact, everyone had to fax documents. I remember giving directions to the closes Kinkos so people could fax documents for $1.00 per page. Now everyone has email, anyone can use a smartphone to scan or take photos. (Not to mention Kinkos doesn’t even exist now!)
6. Smartphone Policy Managements – If your insurance company could take a payment, make policy changes, or handle claims via smartphone app in 1995, raise your hand? That’s today’s reality. Virtually every major auto insurance carrier had developed a smartphone app to help sell, service, handle claims.
7. Oh yeah, what about the Internet?
8. Comparative Raters: How many people remember the time before EZLynx and other comparative raters. How many agents did it take to quote 10 companies?
These innovations and many other innovations give agents and insurers the ability to run lean and mean operations. The industry will shrink. Because quite frankly, auto insurance is the burger job of the insurance industry. (Yes, I said it). If we can automate the burger job by 2050, why can’t we automate the auto insurance agent’s job by 2050?
Consider my last point. IBM’s Watson (a super computer without access to internet) destroyed the all-time Jeopardy champions. It wasn’t even close. Watson can understand sentiment and spoken language. Watson does a better job at diagnosing cancers than the best doctors. Now Watson is available via API for your phone system via Twilio (or Whatever). When will an insurance company realize that you can use Watson to quote, sell, and service an auto insurance policy? If I can prefill the majority of an auto policy with a simple name, date of birth, and address, what can Watson do? Seems like the first to go would be the low hanging loss leader; car insurance. What are your thoughts?
Here is what this article is forgetting. I, for one, have not had an accident in over 20 years. I have had had my car broken into. I have had a tree branch fall and crack my windshield. I have had my car keyed, and I have had a quarter panel dented at the grocery store. All of these things are covered by insurance. None of them would have been stopped by a “self driving car”. Most drivers don’t have accidents. Yet most drivers still use and need insurance.