Record Level of M&A and 50% YOY Increase in Financing Dollar Volume: FT Partners' FinTech/InsurTech Q1 2025Report  May 15th 2025

A Customer Service Horror Story | Insurance Thought Leadership

As insurers continue to focus on improving the customer experience, here's how NOT to handle service while integrating chatbots.

Because I'm in the midst of moving from California to the East Coast to be nearer to my daughters and my siblings, I've been canceling service with various companies. One handled a question horribly — and I think offers lessons for insurers, both in general terms and in terms of how they integrate chatbots into their service operations.

So I'll tell the story here, then suggest an exercise that can keep executives from falling into the most common traps.

Because my problem wasn't with an insurance company — Xfinity is the villain here — I don't even need to pretend to be polite.

Here goes........ CONTINUE

Paul Carroll, editor-in-chief, Insurance Thought Leadership...... (and The Jack Kerouac of Insurance on his cross-country journey)

At RIMS, Sedgwick Experts Outline Key Workers’ Comp Claims Trends

At last week’s RIMS RISKWORLD conference in Chicago, two experts from risk and claims administration partner Sedgwick outlined a few key workers’ compensation trends worth paying attention to today.*

The topics were based on Sedgwick data and primarily related to the medical arena within the workers’ comp space.

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(Re)defining Empathy in Insurance | Insurance Thought Leadership

Empathy is much desired in the insurance industry, but little understood. It needs to be redefined in this era of exponential gains in technology.

The expression “empathy in insurance” is as abused and misunderstood as “innovation in insurance.” The underlying intent and value of both are important but vague. They are also contradictory at times and often misapplied by industry practitioners.

Insurance innovation began to emerge with the insurtech wave roughly a decade ago. Insurance carriers added “innovation” in job titles, opened “labs” and launched corporate venture funds attracted by the prospects of modernizing insurance. Despite these advances, outsiders and many insurance insiders appropriately viewed “insurance innovation” as an oxymoron, challenging the notion that the industry is or can be legitimately innovative. This was most evident when sincere expressions of cheerleading for true breakthroughs evoked gushing terms like “transformational,” “revolutionary” and “game-changing.”

The same can be said about the debate over empathy in insurance, including empathy in claims. Escalating this debate is the introduction of conversational AI, emergence of generative AI and opposing views on just where and how far to apply these in insurance. A popular explanation from insurance executives is that artificial intelligence should have boundaries to certain functions or in replacing people. Rather, they advocate equipping people to perform better in their jobs by automating repetitive, menial tasks so people can concentrate on more valued work. Connecting information in new ways, faster, better and cheaper while keeping humans in the loop is the popular current thinking. After all, insurance is considered a relationship business.

COMPLETE ARTICLE

Alan Demers and Stephen Applebaum

Are insurers ready for an aging population + urbanization? - Capgemini

4 key strategies to address the changing risks

In brief

• Aging and urbanization are concentrating risk, requiring new underwriting and pricing models
• Ownership is evolving, pushing insurers toward flexible, modular coverage.
• Customers want proactive protection, not just payouts — ecosystem partnerships are key.

The age demographics of the global population are shifting faster than ever before — and property and casualty (P&C) insurers must be ready. According to Capgemini’s World P&C Insurance Report 2025, The world population is projected to reach 9.66 billion by 2050, up from 8.16 billion today — effectively adding another China to the planet.

But beneath this headline growth lies a deeper disruption: The structure of that population is transforming. The global dependency ratio — the proportion of seniors (aged 65+) compared to working-age individuals — is growing. By 2050, for every 100 working-age people, there will be 26 seniors to support, up from 16 today — a 63% increase. And in most regions outside of Africa, the imbalance intensifies, approaching nearly one dependent for every three workers.

At the same time, the world is becoming more urban. Nearly 70% of the global population will live in cities by 2050, concentrating people, and the risks they carry, into denser, more complex environments.

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