AILA award-winner identifies five "seismic impact" trends in insurance

The Australian Insurance Law Association (AILA) – a national organisation initially established to promote, review, develop, and debate insurance issues but rebranded early this year – has named Charlotte Hall the winner of this year’s Ron Shorter Award for professionalism in public speaking.

Now in its 10th year, the Ron Shorter Award is open to young professionals aged 35 and under. For this year’s award, AILA selected 30 applicants to attend a 90-minute live online public speaking training workshop with its training partner, the Australian Institute of Management (AIM), and then asked them to give two-minute presentations on their selected topics.

Three applicants were selected as finalists and received another six hours of intensive training with AIM and then spoke for 10 minutes on their topics before a panel of judges and an audience of industry professionals.

Read more: AILA conference evidence of increasing industry interest in events

In a video presentation that helped her take home the award and a $1,000 prize, Hall identified five tech trends that will have a “seismic impact” on the insurance industry:

Artificial intelligence (AI);
Distributed infrastructure that will enable insurers to easily access data that can be mined and enriched;
Zero trust architecture that will enable insurers to manage data better and protect against cyber intrusions;
Greater connectivity enabling data collection and storage through internet of things (IoT) enabled devices; and
Process automation that will modernise workflows by reducing manual processing.

In her speech, Hall advised insurers to move to “hyper-personalised policies” to reduce claims costs and operational costs. She also expects insurers to be more proactive about risk mitigation rather than risk avoidance only, as well as create new partnerships to identify and prevent risks from occurring.

“Embedded insurance will increase, moving insurers from front-end to back-end suppliers with less brand affinity. For example, insurance will be integrated at point of sale with consumer products, like furniture and vehicles,” she said, adding that traditional insurers must adapt their processes, products, and systems to avoid being left behind.

“For millennials, if a new product comes to market that promises to improve their customer experience [and] is personalised to their needs and lighter on their wallets, millennials won’t hesitate to turn away from incumbent insurers and post about their decision on social media,” she said.