April 2018 to March 2019

   In this research, we studied two major themes.
   The first is the trends of computerization and insurance technology in the insurance industry. We can assume that the insurance industry’s major businesses have already adopted ICT systems. However, there is still scope for the computerization of other paper-based processes such as contracts and insurance claims. Like fintech, the use of new ICT equipment such as mobile devices (smartphones and tablets), IoT, big data and artificial intelligence (AI) has also attracted much attention. Since insurance calculations are based on the law of averages, the number of contracts must exceed a certain scale from the outset if a business is to be viable. In addition, an insurance company must always be able to fulfil its promise to settle insurance claims by making payments when required to do so. The mechanisms created by regulatory agencies for the licensing and authorization of insurance are also very strict. Under these circumstances, few startup companies take care of their own insurance business. We also conducted a local survey of insurance technology in London (the center of the European insurance market), at Lloyds (the world’s largest reinsurer).

   As the second theme of this research, we conducted a survey of insurance technology developments in the United States, which is a world leader in ICT. In the property insurance field, usage-based insurance (UBI) has become widespread in automobile insurance, and when assessing automobile damage for insurance claims, services are starting to energy where human assessors are replaced by AI systems that analyze damage based on photos captured and sent via smartphones. Damage assessment from video footage is also used, and not just for car accidents. For example, a system has been adopted whereby drones are used to assess damage to houses and damage caused by large-scale disasters. In people’s homes, startup companies are providing insurers with various sensors such as fire detectors, leak detectors, and surveillance cameras, and there is a clear move towards providing insurance customers with bundles that include sensors, monitoring/detection services.