It’s a good week to write about politics. Dear reader, you may think that politics has little to do with insurance technology, but exactly the opposite is true. For better or worse, politics – whether corporate or market-wide – has been and remains the midwife of IT in our sector.

Everyone knows about corporate politics. Most of us play daily. Very often, IT projects become political footballs, championed by one faction, but resisted by another. They may be adopted by an internal rising star, perhaps in the face of scepticism from incumbents. Good projects may falter on the altar of ambition.

In the London market, politics is everywhere. We have elected representatives and appointed champions. We even have a civil service that implements the rules and, pertinently, bodies like quangos that lead the execution of the technology projects we desire.

Finally, and not least, we have market bodies that levy taxes. These costs are manifest in the fees paid by market participants for their seats at the table, in charges made to pay for the services they use, and in the allocations to the IT projects they tacitly sponsor.

It goes without saying that London’s central IT projects are enormously political. They involve vast budgets, vested interests, and career-focused leaders. With the heavyweight politics of corporate rivalry in the background, the technological progress of the market is unsurprisingly hindered.

I believe politics is the main reason that London market IT systems are more than 20 years behind where they ought to be.

Now: imagine corporate and market environments where politics never interferes with the development and implementation of insurance technology. As in all good democracies, the direction of travel would be dictated by the people – those who actually use the tech day to day. They would choose systems that are designed to make their jobs easier, and make processes more efficient.

Leaders and civil servants would see the benefits of these proposals, and implement them immediately, providing funds freely based on the future returns of process and productivity improvements, competitive advantage, and enhanced customer service.

The result would be a set of user-friendly systems which communicate fluently with internal and outside partners, based on a standardised but flexible language. Every user would have easy access to all the information they need, exactly when and where they need it.

All of that is within reach, but still, sometimes, the politics gets in the way.