Recently LIIBA, the London International Insurance Brokers Association, posed some important questions about digital trading, then set out to answer them by asking their members what they believe the answers to be. LIIBA’s interpretation of the results makes fascinating reading (not least because I think they’re mostly correct).

The report considers the shape and nature of a technology-infused, future version of our market and the brokers who work within it. It is unusual: a report about insurance technology which discusses people much more than it talks about software.

Even if you disagree with its conclusions, the report is a wonderful thought experiment. Please resist the temptation to have Cortina summarise. It’s definitely worth a proper read.

LIIBA, whose people deliver $160 billion in premium into London each year, set out to learn:

• How the process of risk transfer might evolve.
• Who will be in charge.
• What a digital trader’s “life” would be like.

Trust is the element that permeated all responses to their questions about what LIIBA called “probably the most important debate of the day”. So they called their report The Trust Imperative.

A section about “revolution” correctly identifies a major stumbling block suffered by London (and I paraphrase): automating old processes makes old process more efficient, but doesn’t introduce more efficient new processes. “Many insurTech initiatives have brought impressive technology but not necessarily solutions to problems people actually have,” the report declares. It’s something I have been banging on about for years.

LIIBA says that the new profusion of data and the ability of technology and particularly AI to analyse it allows us a much better understanding of risk, which again is correct in my thinking. The Association then goes on to say that this can lead to the elimination of the annual renewal cycle, in favour of a more appropriate linearity. This suggestion I applaud. Insurance technology can indeed help to facilitate the change.

A fascinating generational divide was exposed when the brokers questioned were asked about the potential autonomy of AI. Older broking executives believe that AI tools can be granted some authority. Younger brokers disagree vehemently. I’m on their side: as I’ve said here before, AI is like a junior employee. It can do a lot for you, impress you, and work tirelessly, but it won’t always get it right. Outputs must be both prompted carefully and checked with care (by humans).

When it works, AI can take out the drudge work, eliminating the mundane. LIIBA says: “Time created by AI will allow for more client interaction. This will in turn drive more proactive risk management.” As following placement is automated, brokers will be able to spend more time selling cover to protect uninsured risks, and developing better solutions for clients. I couldn’t agree more. In short, in a more digital market, the trader spends more time interacting with other people.

There’s a challenge we have yet to solve, and LIIBA acknowledges it. Administrative tasks are the cornerstone of learning and career growth. They’re also the ones most effectively and efficiently automated. If we remove them from the workload of the newcomers to our industry, we must find other ways to help the young people get stuck in. “How we meet this challenge will go a long way to determining the long-term success of digital trading,” LIIBA says.

The authors’ take on the people part of the learning process is spot on. But beyond that, I depart somewhat from LIIBA’s interpretation of the findings. The idea that “people learning complex tasks find comfort in having some more straightforward things to do” does not ring true. If we think back, we probably don’t really believe, based on personal experience, that learning by doing the same repetitive, boring task is the best way to learn. No one found solace in the endless rekeying.

Today’s juniors are already used to different ways of learning, because technology has been integral to their entire lives. This will be even more true of the juniors of tomorrow, who are growing up now in schools and universities that are ever-better adapted to the technological age, and are adopting AI as I write.

We need to rethink how young people can and should learn their way into roles in our unique sector. And we need to make it more interesting. But we have a model: new technologies have often been adopted simply to improve existing, outmoded process, instead of revolutionising the processes themselves.

We need the same revolution in talent development. The raw recruits who arrive in EC3 each day come from an increasingly technological world. If we are to carve effective future market leaders from them, we need to abandon old ways and let the technological environment reinvent learning processes.

I encourage you to take some time to read the LIIBA Trust Imperative.

Guillaume Bonnissent is CEO of Quotech.