I've done a lot of systems design and development in the insurance industry, and it's a vast space with opportunities not just for insurers.
The most recent thing I worked on was a pricing and activation engine that sat behind a web site that acted as a broker for a number of insurers. That isn't new, but it was new for this market - life insurance. As such my employer was a single provider on a panel of providers.
The web site that provided the panel brought a number of innovations - one of them being an underwriting SaaS. Panel participants are able to enter their underwriting crown jewels into a 3rd party web site, secure in the knowledge that their IP wasn't going to be leaked or shared with others on the panel.
There were many more efficiencies that the model enabled, which were never realised (well, not by the time I left) because the SaaS provider couldn't reach financial agreements with some of the providers.
Greed was (is?) something that risked torpedoing the most innovative thing I've seen in life insurance, ever.
All that to say I agree that this market is brimming with opportunity. The market is so incredibly broad, and deep, and so complex... Regulation is definitely a thing, but hardly an impediment. I have, for example, spent many years in this industry, but never worked for (or with) reinsurers. I have a long-standing suspicion though, that that market is so convoluted that the front-line insurer can conceivable be it's own reinsurer, after having passed through like, 15 other reinsurers...
The most recent thing I worked on was a pricing and activation engine that sat behind a web site that acted as a broker for a number of insurers. That isn't new, but it was new for this market - life insurance. As such my employer was a single provider on a panel of providers.
The web site that provided the panel brought a number of innovations - one of them being an underwriting SaaS. Panel participants are able to enter their underwriting crown jewels into a 3rd party web site, secure in the knowledge that their IP wasn't going to be leaked or shared with others on the panel.
There were many more efficiencies that the model enabled, which were never realised (well, not by the time I left) because the SaaS provider couldn't reach financial agreements with some of the providers.
Greed was (is?) something that risked torpedoing the most innovative thing I've seen in life insurance, ever.
All that to say I agree that this market is brimming with opportunity. The market is so incredibly broad, and deep, and so complex... Regulation is definitely a thing, but hardly an impediment. I have, for example, spent many years in this industry, but never worked for (or with) reinsurers. I have a long-standing suspicion though, that that market is so convoluted that the front-line insurer can conceivable be it's own reinsurer, after having passed through like, 15 other reinsurers...