InsureTalk turns three on 31st instalment

InsureTalk31 took place on Thursday, 20 April 2023 with a live broadcast from Cape Town. Host Christelle Colman highlighted the specialness of the day… it was the webinar’s third birthday!

“Today we celebrate three years of InsureTalk: Thousands of people coming together every month to learn, to grow and to collaborate,” she said. 

The theme for the day was “Insurance for a better tomorrow: embracing innovation and responsibility”. 

“We hear about innovation all the time, but it was very interesting to me that Lombard chose to put innovation and responsibility into the same sentence,” said Christelle. “We are going to discover how the insurance industry is evolving to meet the challenges of tomorrow by embracing innovative solutions like ChatGPT and addressing critical issues such as ESG, solar power and commercial crime.”

Gregg Smith of Commercial Crime Concepts (C3) opened proceedings. He took a trip down memory lane, to the days when communication was via post or telex. In today’s digital age, things are different.

“Knowledge is at our fingertips, the economy has changed,” he said. “We talk about the internet of things these days, but it’s really more about the movement of money. 

“However, bad people have connections to our information as well, and we need to find ways of dealing with that risk.”  

Gregg said there are two distinct categories when discussing commercial crime in the digital age: 1) cyber crime, and 2) theft of money and/or property by employees, or computer fraud by any other party, before discussing the ability of commercial crime insurance to meet the challenges presented by cyber crime and the movement of money.

He went on to discuss the evolution and trends of commercial crime in South Africa, and what C3 – and the industry in general – are doing to counter this evolution.

Chris Charlton of Consort Technical Underwriters, another Lombard partner, spoke on “The future of underwriting: technology and data trends shifting the insurance landscape”. 

“We are living in an age of massive technological advancements, which will fundamentally change the way we live our lives,” he said. “What we once thought was impossible is now a reality and the advancement of technology keeps continuing. Insurance has had its part to play, and will continue to play a role as it has since 1347. But it’s going to look different and be conducted very differently.

“If we don’t adapt, we will be left behind.”

His talk covered data, algorithms and AI; the way the world is super-connected and the impact this has on insurance; the various platforms through which customers engage with insurers; the various platforms on which insurers store and manage data; super-apps, such as home automation; Web 3.0 and distributed ledger technology (smart contracts); and sustainability.

Our next speaker was Thokozile Mahlangu of the Insurance Institute of South Africa, who spoke on the importance of initiatives such as InsureTalk. She encouraged insurance professionals to ensure that their CPD is up to date ahead of the end of the cycle on 31 May. She outlined the various ways that professionals can earn CPD hours, including attending seminars such as InsureTalk, watching and reading relevant content, attending the African Insurance Exchange, completing short courses or modules of longer courses, presenting at events (including prep time), mentoring and coaching, writing articles for industry publications, drafting or reviewing books, lecturing and more. And keep a lookout for IISA’s in-person seminars, kicking off in May. (More opportunity to get CPD hours!)

Rianet Whitehead provided an update on what’s happening at FAnews and The Insurance Apprentice. Episode 4 is now live, sponsored by the Insurance Crime Bureau. 

On 10 May at 10.30, FAnews will be hosting a webinar on the possibility of grid failure and grid exclusions, said Rianet. Monique le Roux from the CSIR will talk about the load shedding forecasts and the risk of a grid collapse. Viviene Pearson of SAIA will talk about the bigger picture from the insurance point of view, and Seamus Casserly, representing the FIA, will unpack the conversation with clients relating to potential grid failure. There’s a banner on the FAnews website where you can register. 

Rianet also promoted the industry calendar – thecalendar.org.za – where you can add events and check to see that your event doesn’t clash with another one. She also echoed Thokozile’s plea to the industry to get CPD sorted in good time. FAnews offers readers the opportunity to earn three CPD hours in each edition. The April issue is now out… last chance to get those three hours in before 31 May!

After some amazing birthday wishes from the InsureTalk community, Lombard’s Jacob “Jaxx” Tshabalala gave a fascinating talk on AI and ChatGPT – specifically how ChatGPT is revolutionising customer service and underwriting in the insurance industry. He unpacked what it is, how it works, its effects and why we need it. 

“Can ChatGPT generate poetry? Yes. Can it be more creative than a poet? That depends. There’s nuance, context, that can enable either answer to be true,” he said. “Can ChatGPT be better at underwriting than an underwriter who has been doing the job for 20 years? Maybe, but highly unlikely. But can it come up with a basic underwriting framework or methodology? Yes, it can. And can it optimise on that framework? Yes, it can. So it’s about performing certain tasks without outperforming human beings or experience.”

He highlighted the differences between Google and ChatGPT, which he described as “your ultimate professional assistant.”

“These two tools solve two fundamentally different problems,” he said. “Google solves for access to information. ChatGPT solves for access to intellectual property, which has been privatised and commoditised for a very long time. The ability to access any intellectual property was never a possibility before.”

The risk, though, is if it falls into the wrong hands or gets used in the wrong context and gets misunderstood. This led into Jaxx’s commentary on the effects of ChatGPT on insurance, where it has the potential to impact positively on productivity, the labour market, profitability and knowledge context.

“Humans with AI will perform better than humans without AI,” he concluded.

Dawn Hurst, CEO of EA Inclusion, spoke from her base in the UK on women in insurance and how the landscape is changing from an inclusion perspective. 

“A really rich source of talent is women in leadership,” she said. But, there’s still a lot of work to do!

“While transformation around gender equity has become more evident over the last decade, there is still much work to be one, specifically at boardroom level, where women remain underrepresented. The day that we can stop having to use the word diversity … is the day that we’re making some progress.”

Dawn spoke on benefits and opportunities of female representation, unpacked the concept of gender bias, shared some key stats and a few tips on what not to do to be an empowered female. She also highlighted steps that women can take to level the playing field.

“If there’s one takeaway from today from this session I hope that it’s our attitude to diverse talent is to offer inclusive environments to everybody so that regardless of our difference, we can progress, we can excel, we can provide innovation and ultimately impact the EBITDA line of all of our businesses.” 

The final speaker of the day was Ildiko Richardson of Blue Anchor Risk Solutions, who spoke on cannabis and the insurance industry in 2023. Her talk touched on the history of cannabis, the legal and regulatory framework currently governing the cannabis industry, both locally and worldwide, what constitutes cannabis, what constitutes a pharmaceutical product, mature markets and how they are approaching the industry, and lessons that can be learnt.

“It was only in the 20th century that cannabis went from being considered a medicinal herb to being considered a dangerous drug,” she said. “It took over 50 years to criminalise and ban a plant that had been used for medicine and recreation for over 3 000 years.” 

But by 1986 renewed interest in the cannabis properties to treat cancer came to the fore. In 1996, California became the first US state to legalise medicinal cannabis. The use, possession and cultivation of cannabis by an adult for private and personal consumption was decriminalised in South Africa in 2018, although it is still a controlled substance under many pieces of legislation. 

“If you are not aware of where you sit or where your clients’ products sit within [South Africa’s legislative] framework as an insurer, you may very well be endorsing illegal activities,” she said. “And that goes against the principles of insurance.”

She unpacked the various classes of natural cannabinoids and where they fit into mainstream insurance products and explained, as an example, why they can’t be placed in a standard commercial agri product. She ended her talk with an overview of changes that have taken place in cannabis legislation around the world in the month of April 2023 – arguing that change is happening, and happening fast!

The next edition of InsureTalk will be held on 25 May at 10am. You can book here for the rest of this year’s sessions. 

Watch the full recording of InsureTalk31 below, and don’t forget to log onto the InsureTalk CPD hub for all your CPD info. InsureTalk CPD certificates are loaded onto the portal within two weeks of the respective event.