Insurance and Innovation

This article asks whether Innovation in Insurance is an oxymoron.

It's very true that innovation tends to be limited within the insurance industry. Products are incremental improvements on competitors' products. New products are few and far between, and quickly become the subject of copying.

It's possible that trends like the rise of social media will drag insurance kicking and screaming into a more modern place. Not really innovation per se, rather just facing reality. A recent post on YouTube shows the impact of social media in the context of customer satisfaction - or in this case chronic dissatisfaction. The rapid spread of this case suggests that monitoring social media has progressed from being a nice-to-have and is now a must-have. While it is unlikely that insurance will experience events that have quite the same infamous results, it's something to be aware of and watch carefully.