Smarter Way to Risk: Digital trading set to augment £20bn London market premium opportunity

Digital trading is expected to transform the way premium moves across the risk transfer chain, with industry experts predicting that throughout the remainder of the decade, premium will be traded “in a fundamentally different way”, unleashing opportunities in a number of different (re)insurance hubs.

The latest episode of The Insurer TV highlights a shift towards digitally augmented underwriting which has significantly reduced insurers' workloads. This transition has in turn enabled insurers to redirect their focus towards building stronger relationships with clients and colleagues

According to Taffy Jo Mayers, global head of commercial property and casualty and specialty insurance propositions at WTW, the primary advantage of digital augmentation is its ability to allow underwriters to concentrate on their core “human” strengths “of empathy and expertise”, whilst reducing time spent on “mundane” tasks.

Matthew Moore, president of underwriting at Liberty Mutual Global Risk Solutions, concurred with Mayers, emphasising that digital underwriting improves communication between brokers and underwriters. He envisions a departure from the traditional "zero-sum game" between brokers representing customers and insurers seeking optimal returns, towards a collaborative approach where "brokers and underwriters co-author solutions".

Richard Clarkson, global market leader for global specialty at WTW, commented that the potential for digital underwriting to bring underwriters and brokers closer together could lead to the expansion of the industry's revenue base. According to Clarkson, the adoption of the technology could create “new ways to bring risk into the marketplace… which can be transformed into new capital products”.

Watch the latest 10-minute Risk Spotlight episode to learn more about: