Rise of Insurtech Mirrors Middle Ages

Historians use eras to help map out the big gearshifts in economic and social change in retrospect.

For the people who lived during those periods, well-known historical terms like the Middle Ages would have been unknown. For example, a medieval peasant knew they were a peasant but not that they were a medieval peasant. Medieval was a term first coined in 1604, more than a hundred years after the Middle Ages are said to have ended.

Finding yourself in a significant era of history that someone else has coined is something today’s insurers are experiencing too. Like those peasants and kings and queens, they can be forgiven for not noticing fully the historical shift around them because the accelerated pace of change has been so sharp and pervasive.

For insurers, the change is all about technology, and how technology can support the success of insurance companies in the long and short term.

The industry has passed through two eras in the last couple of decades at a reasonably sedate speed.

To learn more about how technological change has ushered in the Engagement Era of insurance, check out my Finextra article.