No fear for insurers after Amazon UK launch (The Dig preview)

Will Amazon be the big tech company that figures out insurance? You'd think its launch of a homeowners' insurance comparison site in the UK this week would lead to some buzz around that question, similar to what happened with Google Compare some – gulp – seven years ago.

Yet the insurance industry seems to be taking this news somewhat in stride. If anything, the initial reaction seems to be one of quiet bemusement. The BBC even called the launch "cautious." There aren't any fears that Amazon's partnerships with three insurers will allow it to "reverse-engineer" insurance, as was wondered about Google.

It could be because the initial launch is in a country that already has a vibrant market for the kind of insurance aggregation that Amazon is providing. Google Compare, for example, had existed in the UK for some time before its explosive arrival in the U.S.

But when considering the differences in reaction to each of these, it's important to remember that we know how the Google Compare story ended: About a year after its U.S. launch, the company shut down both Compare iterations and has not made an equally aggressive move into insurance since. Auto insurers have also absorbed Tesla's strategy to insure its cars itself, as well as the company's enigmatic but influential CEO, Elon Musk, calling the industry "inefficient."

Simultaneously, insurers have found their footing on the turf that the big tech companies claim is their major advantage: a data-driven digital customer experience. Carriers are getting strong marks in personal and commercial insurance on that front. The sector's reaction to economic headwinds isn't any different than big tech's either.

To continue the metaphor, it's a level playing field these days thanks to insurance's digital transformation. The word "insurtech" was barely industry parlance in 2015, and didn't even take off until after Compare shut down the following year. Looking back, it almost seems like Compare was a catalyst for insurers to grab ownership of their industry's digital experience before someone else did. That leads to weeks like this one, when the industry can look at the touchstone company for digital experience entering their sector and take it in stride.