I’ve served on IUMI’s Data and Digitalisation (D&D) Forum for two years and took over as Chair in September this year. For those unfamiliar with our work, the Forum comprises marine underwriters, marine risk professionals, IUMI Professional Partners active in the digital space and experts from leading tech companies. Our remit is to build awareness of both opportunities and challenges arising from the use of data and digitalisation in marine insurance and also to create a common understanding that we hope will promote data standardisation in our sector and the wider maritime community.

We believe that big data and digitalisation can facilitate the transformation of marine insurance making it more attractive to investors, corporates and – crucially – the next generation of marine underwriters. To share our thoughts and to help others who are seeking an entrée into this exciting new world, we’ve produced a comprehensive introductory document which we hope will serve as a useful starting point. You can read and download the document from the IUMI website.

The document recognises that marine insurance is currently lagging behind many other industries but that a data revolution is currently underway. We make the case for digital innovation within maritime more generally and fully understand that individual companies can only go so far in isolation. True “disruptive” innovation will require close collaboration and partnerships.

Our paper goes on to pinpoint a number of inefficient processes that digitalisation could radically enhance including insurance cover, bills of lading, risk assessment and claims handling. Looking more closely, traditional cargo insurance products and processes are generally paper-based, slow and inefficient. Digitalisation of insurance document handling would streamline administrative processes, reduce errors and eliminate time-consuming manual handling, while improving customer service and satisfaction.

For those who are technically minded, we also discuss the growing varieties of data and data sources, data architectures and analytics methods. 

We finish with a look at how data analytics and digital transformation might change marine insurance and the opportunities that could be created. We also discuss how the marine insurance value chain and the ongoing pursuit of sustainability might be impacted.

I urge you to read the paper – it’s only 12 pages! Let’s connect, learn, and grow together!