The six pieces selected for this section bring together the expected multiplicity of views, and provide a rich, informative, and engaging set of connected conversations exploring what InsurTech is, for whom, by whom, and why?

Valentino Ricciardi urges us to cut through the InsurTech “noise”, setting out how the definition of InsurTech should be clear, simple, and comprehensive so that it actively shapes the vision of next generation talents and participation. Ricciardi’s InsurTechs share the characteristics of early adoption of technology, digital by default, focused on specific niches and, most importantly, value creators – for customers, incumbents, or both.

Steve Tunstall also defines InsurTech as absolutely essential for insurance to remain relevant to the customer. His ruthless dissection of the failings of an industry he loves also asks us: insurance needs InsurTech, but does InsurTech need (incumbent) insurance? Tunstall explains how only 10% of corporate risk faced by the CEO finds relevance in insurance solutions today, and how current failings could lead to systemically low penetration in emerging economies. For him, InsurTech may not have all the answers, but certainly some of the most important ones, driven by digitalization.

For Alex Ruthmeier, the digital transformation of insurance is InsurTech. He sees four major transformative changes: customer transparency; direct-to-customer connection; a very few scaled players with low margins; and demand-driven (customer) focus. Ruthmeier’s vision of InsurTech sees “human brokers” disappearing for all but complex risks, and more quickly than you might think.

Michael Jans also sees big challenges for brokers, but equally InsurTech as a huge opportunity for a broking rebirth. Writing from the perspective of the US, and its 40,000+ independent broker/agent firms, Jans envisions a near future of carriers shifting allegiances away from broker partners. He sees InsurTech as the route to delivering on that “peace of mind” customer promise at the core of the broker proposition, and the technology and scale to make the customer’s “heart sing”.

Jannat Shah Rajan posits a definition of InsurTech emerging from insurance’s Industrial Revolution where innovating customers, increasing life expectancy, and change in life stages drive change in Life, Wealth, and Pensions, as well as Non-life. Her theory of a protective “regulatory moat” around incumbents makes it axiomatic for her that collaboration will be the order of the day. As she says, “Incumbents are the best testing ground for new InsurTech propositions.” And lastly in this section, Karl Heinz Passler asks us to see not 1,200+ InsurTechs globally, but a segmented landscape of “InsurTechs” and “Real InsurTechs”. He sees two distinct groups: the first, including those improving Customer Experience (CX); those enabling incumbents; and those becoming risk carriers themselves.

The second group are those Passler considers to be challenging the very underlying assumptions and foundations of insurance. He asks us to see “Real InsurTechs” as those eschewing historic data in favour of real-time and AI-generated data; those adopting usage-based models; and those linking corporate earnings to settling claims. These differing yet related and intertwined definitions share a common core in the belief that InsurTech is directly contributing to the reinvention of the way insurance is imagined, funded, constructed, and done.