For the second year in a row we have partnered with NAMIC to cover their Annual Meeting through their Connect Differently feature which allowed us to watch the conference virtually. As far as we know they continue to be the only insurance conference offering a virtual pass to watch the speakers!
The session was presented by Arlene Kern, Strategic Innovation Leader at Munich Re America.
She started with a GREAT explanation of what exactly the sharing economy is: People own underutilized assets, like a car who is only used 10% of the time, and want to monetize that utilization. Network companies have emerged to connect them to others who are willing to temporarily pay to use the asset. It’s possible today because almost all of us havie a computer in our pocket, our smart phone, and simply wouldn’t have been possible 15 years ago. One of the biggest hurdles is building trusts among strangers which the companies do by creating reputation scores (strangers scoring strangers) which she says was pioneered by Facebook and their “like” button. Personally I disagree, my own research is that reputation scores started with Ebay which preceeded Facebook by 9 years! Millennials are especially guilty of adopting tohe sharing economy because of their ethos of owning less and doing more (access instead of ownership) and it appears Gen Z is following in Millennials’ footsteps on this.
Great summary of the main sharing economy companies and what they do.
In red the sectors of the economy where the sharing economy started, and in black the many sectors where it’s growing now.
Another huge reason the sharing economy is not going to be just a fad is the MASSIVE amount of investment that is going into it. This combined with two rising generations that are demanding more and more shared options will force regulators to not attempt to kill it.
This is one of my favorite slides. Only 15% of US adults are using rideshare (Uber/Lyft) and only 11% are using home sharing (AirBNB). This means that there’s IMMENSE growth potential as people get more and more comfortable with these services! She didn’t show numbers by generation, but I expect that Millennials and Gen Zers are more likely to use these services compared to Boomers and Xers which means that over time the services will only continue to grow as these new generations grow in their share of the population.
AirBNB is already almost the size of Marriott, in only 10 years.
Expect that very soon you’ll be able to temporarily use everything from a car to a plane to a toilet from your smartphone.
Almost everybody is aware of Uber by now, but most have no clue about Turo and other services that do it differently. Great explanation of the many forms of car sharing.
Fantastic explanation of how we expect the transportation model to change. Whether it’s in 10 years of in 50, cars are likely to become a utility. You won’t own a car, you’ll just rent car time with an autonomous vehicle owned by a fleet of some sort. Of course this is much easier to do in urban and suburban areas, and might never happen in sparsely populated areas.
The growth has been and continues to be outstanding!
After this great explanation of the insurance economy she dug into what it means for insurance: “Single biggest challenge is that the insurance industry has really divided their products, and quite frankly regulation as well. They put a pretty bright line between commercial lines and personal lines and the sharing economy really starts to blur those lines because we’re taking personal assets that are being used for commercial purposes. So the existing products often don’t fit well.”
Quite simply: It’s not going away, we’ll need to adapt and the time to adapt is now before somebody else eats our lunch.
About Antonio Canas
Tony started in insurance in 2009 and immediately became a designation addict and shortly thereafter a proud insurance nerd. He has worked in claims, underwriting, finance and sales management, at 4 carriers, 6 cities and 5 states. Tony is passionate about insurance, technology and especially helping the insurance industry figure out how to retain and engage the younger generation of insurance professionals. Tony is a co-founder of InsNerds.com and a passionate speaker.
Tony started in insurance in 2009 and immediately became a designation addict and shortly thereafter a proud insurance nerd. He has worked in claims, underwriting, finance and sales management, at 4 carriers, 6 cities and 5 states. Tony is passionate about insurance, technology and especially helping the insurance industry figure out how to retain and engage the younger generation of insurance professionals. Tony is a co-founder of InsNerds.com and a passionate speaker.
