Ask and You Shall Receive Disruption

As I prepare for some upcoming travel, I’m taking a hard look at Celent’s Insurance Symposium-Creative Disruption: Technology and the Future of Insurance in a few weeks.

Since I went to this event last year, I took a look back at what I had written about it. “More—or Even Some—Disruption, Please,” was the headline of my blog post. I recall being skeptical of the event, wondering if insurers can cultivate creative disruption? If so, how? However, I soon realized that day the value and possibilities. And, in my aforementioned blog post, I echoed a comment from an audience member at the end of the day: “I wish there was more disruption.”

Fast forward a year: We got it.

At this year’s event, three insurers will take to the stage to give us attendees “some” and “more” disruption from the past, present and future:

   * John Roblin, Former CIO, Chubb Insurance, will review the implementation of Chubb Masterpiece, a product in the personal lines P&C industry. Chubb identified an underserved part of the market—high net worth individuals—and constructed a unique service and technology proposition to meet their unique needs.

   * Tom Hammond, EVP, agency operations, BOLT Insurance Agency, will discuss BOLT’s efforts involving process, people and technology to provide service to small businesses. Their growth is just beginning to take off, demonstrating the up market march that is characteristic of the disruptive approach.

   * Davinder Singh, head of third party distribution and products DLF Pramerica Life Insurance Co. Ltd., will highlight the company’s microinsurance product for the Indian market. The proposition will deliver coverage to low-income households, which typically cannot afford any insurance protection. The lessons learned can be applied to other product development initiatives, which seek to open markets with high growth potential that previously were thought to be unattractive.

These are very different examples, but I’ll be one of those people waiting in line to talk to each of these speakers after their session. But, moreover, it will be interesting to see if the conversations I have with people at the event will be much different than last year. In looking at this year’s agenda, I’m predicting they will.

And, since it worked out so well last year, I just have to figure out what to ask for this year. Any suggestions?

Carrie Burns is Editor in Chief for Insurance Networking News.

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