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I never intended to work in insurance, technology or analytics, but rather those three things found me. Like so many others, my journey to insurance and analytics started elsewhere and for me it was on the engineering draughtsman's table. There I used mathematics to design new structures but my heart was not so much in the creation of new structures, but rather in the understanding of why structures fail – and then who might be responsible for such failure.

In the failure of structures, all roads lead to the insurance industry. Structures fail because of defective design, workmanship or materials, and there is insurance cover for all of these. With the passage of time I was to learn that in some cases it might be possible to anticipate the cause of failure even before a physical investigation by using data. It seemed an important thing to step away from my engineering background and qualifications to learn a new trade, that of insurance, and in time I became qualified in that industry. Along the way I also discovered the professions of marketing and supply chain management and added these as strings to my bow.

Each time I stepped outside one profession to learn another, it felt like stepping off the top diving board at the diving pool. Looking down, I could see the water but had no real sense of how deep or even how warm it was. I discovered the main barriers between professions were not just of capability but of language, with each profession having its own terminology. Beyond this, as an outsider I couldn't help but see the interdependency between all these professions within the insurance community.

Ten years ago, the lure of technology became overwhelming for me, and there was something in the North American market that I found compelling. At that time they were some years ahead of the UK market although since then the gap has narrowed significantly. They seemed to have recognized technology as the great enabler and not as a threat. Not only did I want to understand why, but also how.

I stepped off the top of the proverbial diving board yet again from the relative safety of the insurance community into the dark waters of technology but this time it was more difficult. The fast moving world of that newer environment made the transition harder. I came to realize that the future of insurance is not just about technology nor about insurance but rests somewhere in between. In a short time, insurance and technology will be irretrievably intertwined and because of this, the insurance industry will have become transformed. New professions will inevitably emerge which sit in that ‘no-man's land’ between insurance and technology and those who reside there will probably hold the key to the future of the insurance profession.

So my challenge is, who is best placed to sit in that ‘no-man's land’? Is it the technologist who has to understand insurance to appreciate the subtleties and nuances of the insurance contract, and without which any attempt to apply the opportunities of data and analytics will fail? Or is it the insurer who has to reconcile the principles of insurance with the new problems of data and gaining deeper insight? Or will new professions emerge, occupying not that place called ‘no-man's land’ but rather some ‘higher ground’? Won't this allow them to see in both directions, both towards the line of business and also towards the technology department (if in the future it still exists, as we currently know it)?

How will those individuals cope with stepping off the high diving board? What capabilities and characteristics will they have? How will they be supported by professional institutions which appear, at least for the moment, to be behind the times? How will those individuals learn?

This book aims to be some sort of guide for those looking to occupy either no-man's land or the higher ground, however they see it. It doesn't set out to be either a compendium of insurance, nor of technology. I have resisted commenting on any particular insurer or vendor. Others with a more independent viewpoint can do this elsewhere, and provide ‘real time’ assessment. For those readers who, like myself, are ‘longer in the tooth’ there is also a different, perhaps harder challenge, which is that of learning to forget old approaches in a new dynamic world.

Finally, I have attempted to offer some thoughts about implementation. Many insurers have a notion that they want to become ‘analytical’ but their challenge seems to be implementation. They think about the ‘what’ but struggle with the ‘how.’ At a time when many if not all insurers will want to jump on the data and analytics bandwagon, what are the issues around putting this into practice, and how might they be overcome? At a time when ‘agile’ is the trend, how might this be accommodated into our rather conservative industry?

So in conclusion, this book reflects what I have personally learned on my own journey. Emotional ups and downs; floods and droughts; risks and realities; integrity and fraud; suppliers and supplied to; inspectors and inspected; and the rest. It's really been quite a trip.

Tony Boobier

February 2016