ICEYE, a world-leading provider of SAR data and natural catastrophe analysis solutions, announced the launch of ICEYE Insights, a powerful geospatial platform which allows insurance companies to combine ICEYE's unique flood observation data and analysis with their property insurance information to understand the impact of a flood event and take action.

Marsh, the leading insurance broker and risk advisor, announced the launch of its Cyber Incident Management (CIM) service to support clients headquartered in the UK and Continental Europe to prepare for, respond to, and recover from cyber incidents, as well as increase their cyber resilience.

Swiss Re's "sigma 5/2020" publication has just been published. The main focus of this report is on machine intelligence (MI) and other cutting-edge transformative technology (such as machine learning or artificial intelligence).

Over the past 3 years, ransomware has jumped into the spotlight in the cyber threat landscape. Annual ransomware demands have multiplied by ten, states the latest technical newsletter released by French reinsurer SCOR, analyzing in depth the ransomware attacks' mechanisms, as well as prevention and insurance solutions.

Swiss Re Corporate Solutions and Airbus Aerial recently announced a collaboration that will help companies efficiently identify flood risks and more accurately predict weather-related flood damage.

Alike any journey which, as long as it might be, begins always with a first step, developing a good cybersecurity program, as complex as this might become, begins with a number of simple, basic actions. In fact, building the cyber resilience of a company is a real journey, starting from building a culture of awareness, going through adopting a mindset of resilience so that in the end, besides having in place a business continuity plan, a disaster recovery or incident response, but also practice it on a regular basis so that it becomes a "second nature".

Insurers need to think about Intelligent Automation (AI) not as a technology implementation, but as an end-to-end business transformation that will impact the business model, operating model and ecosystem, states a recent report launched by KPMG, "The Automated Insurer: Next steps on the journey to intelligent automation."

FRISS recently released the results of the "Digital Transformation in Insurance Survey 2018." Over 170 insurance professionals from various countries across the globe participated.

by Rilind ELEZAJ
In this techno savvy era, a smart device has become the most important instrument that performs numerous tasks in the age we are living in. Our transition and full integration of mobile technology shows that it is to here to stay and evolve.

Insurance Europe calls upon the commission to provide a clear common framework on licensing, certification and authorization, classification by use and size on drones, at EU level, a recent paper published by the European federation of insurers says.

Guy Carpenter & Company announced on 30 April that its two-year strategic relationship with CyberCube Analytics, formerly part of Symantec Corporation, has produced the industry's first cyber risk modeling platform with an inside-out view of cyber risk exposure.

The Board of Directors of Archimede S.p.A. ("Archimede") deliberated the next formal start-up of the listing process on the AIM Market of the Italian Stock Exchange targeting EUR 30 - 47 million funding.

2017 was an extreme year for natural disasters, with total losses from natural and man-made disasters expected to amount to USD 306 billion - up from USD 187 billion in 2016. The recent disasters draw attention to the enormous gap between what's insured, and what's not - we call this the protection gap, reads an analysis published by Swiss Re as part World Economic Forum Annual Meeting.

Insurers must be cautious in using the latest AI technologies, as GDPR introduces a series of obligations for the controllers, aimed at safeguarding the rights and freedoms of data subject. In the following article, we will address the most significant risks that the use of such technologies pose from the perspective of data protection.

Price pressure is the biggest barrier to revenue growth, said almost half of the 46 global insurers interviewed by Simon-Kucher & Partners for the 2017 Global Pricing and Sales Study. A third of them also stated that most planned price increases are slashed or not implemented at all.

Rather than merely adding value to the insurance sector, technology and technical innovations are now determining its very growth and evolution. The last few years have seen mobile devices, GPS functionality and social media engagement impact hugely as to how insurance claims are processed by companies and policies assessed by insurance agents. Analysis of data and the value of legitimate customer interactions is more important than ever and have helped insurance companies to maximize profits while keeping the customers happy.

If you compare the insurance fraud business to other types of business, it pays off to commit insurance fraud. The benefits are great, the chances of being caught are low, and the sanctions you get once caught are low as well. So, whether working in the claims, financial, underwriting or SIU department; you will all deal with fraud at some point. And it does not stop at an organization or a border. Fraudsters do market research. They use different modus operandi, use different insurers, fake identities; just to make sure that they don't get caught.

Technology. The press is covering it, everyone is talking about it and we, as an industry, are spending time and money investing in it. For all this reasons and more, we will shortly talk about this topic at our Swiss Re L&H Conference in Warsaw in May: "Think tomorrow! Innovative solutions for our industry."

Insurance is the industry most affected by disruptive change - based on the percentage of CEOs who are 'extremely concerned' about the threats to growth from over-regulation, the speed of technological change, changing customer behaviour, and competition from new market entrants, shows the 20th edition of the PwC Global CEO Survey.

Insurance fraud is a serious issue for the entire insurance sector. Payment of fraudulent claims has a negative effect on the loss ratio and on insurance premiums, which results into a competitive disadvantage. Moreover, investigating 'false positives' takes a huge amount of time and unnecessary costs. Fraudsters are getting smarter in their attempts to evade the insurer's radar. As a consequence, money flows to the wrong people and thus combined ratios are under pressure. Insurance companies must detect insurance fraud before claims are paid. The best way to reduce the loss ratio is to increase the chances of fraud detection at claims and limit false positives to a minimum.