Five Emerging Trends for the Insurance Industry
Over the past few months, I have delivered a number of insurance oriented keynotes and, later this week, Ill be addressing a conference on Emerging Technologies for the insurance industry. While I cover a wide variety of trends in the information technology, biotechnology and nanotechnology sectors, here are five trends already impacting the insurance industry and which will only grow more prevalant over the coming years:

1. Genomics: Since 1998, the price of sequencing a base pair of genes has plummeted 100 million-fold. An individual can now have his or her genome sequenced for about $10,000. Obviosly, this still isnt practical or affordable for the average person but the price will soon decrease to $1000 and then $100and eventually even lower. The impact on human health will be profound and the implications for the insurance insurancein terms of life expectancy alonewill be immense.

2. Gaming Dynamics: The ability for smartphones to monitor everything from a persons heart rate and blood pressure to their glucose levels is impressive. To date, however, most of this data was just collected and then transferred wirelessly to healthcare providers who helped the patient make sense of it. This is about to change and gaming dynamics will lead the way by providing users new ways to engage, interact and, ultimately, control their own healthcare. Imagine, for example, receiving a lower insurance rate because you could verify that you exercised for 40 minutes and burned 400 calories. The potential for gaming dynamics to unleash new, innovative business models for the insurance industry is real.

3. Locational Intelligence & Pervasive Connectivity: Due to the exponential advancement of GPS technology and sensors, it is now possible to know a persons location to within a few feet. While this has made it easier for the “directional-challenged” to find their friends house a little quick, the technology is poised to revolutionize the insurance industry by making it feasible to monitor a persons driving habits. For instance, if a person is going too fast, braking too suddenly or driving or parking in a crime-ridden area, itll be possible to adjust that persons insurance rates accordingly. Undoubtedly this raises significant privacy concerns which might ultimately doom the technology, but it is just as feasible that cost-conscious consumers will be willing to provide access to such information in return for lower rates.

4. Computational Analytics and Data Mining: When a mild earthquake hit Washington, DC this past August, the first Twitter report reached New York 40 seconds ahead of the quakes shock waves. An impressive feat to be sure but itll pale in comparison to the type of information that will soon be delivered by data-mining Twitter and numerous other social networking sites. Officials at Southeastern Louisiana University recently reported they could track influenza outbreaks by collating the rise of Twitter texts from people complaining about flu symptoms. Other researchers have discovered there is a strong correlation between a persons physical health and the health of their friends. One future possibility is that publically-available social network data can be data-mined by insurance companies to offer discounted rates to individuals who travel in healthier social circles. (Again privacy concerns and regulations may prevent such uses but, then again, maybe not.)

5. Hyper-Personalization: The foundation of the insurance industry is based on the idea of pooling risk. This strategy has worked well for centuries but in the not-to-distant future it is entirely possible that many individuals will prefer to be insured based on their individual actionsand not the statistical average of a large group. This is especially true if the person in question is healthier, a better and safer driver, and cost-conscious to the point that they arent concerned with sharing certain data with the insurance provider in return for securing a lower premium for themselves.
This future is coming. The only question is whether you, your business, your association or your industry is ready.

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This is a highly debatable subject and although it is not considered to be the cause of eating disorders, media is often viewed as a contributing factor, especially amongst adolescent girls, who view the size and shape of models and actresses, as ideal body image.

Adolescents, who have an eating disorder, often have a distorted body image to begin with. They’re often over critical and ruthless in their self-evaluation, in terms of their body shape and weight. Through the medium of magazines and film, current trends pertaining to body image, or rather society’s image of the body, a person with an eating disorder feels that their own personal body, does not measure up to what is portrayed within the media and ideal or beautiful.

Unfortunately for the past decade, the fashion industry, while admittedly being at the mercy of advertisers,’ has used ultra thin, nearly skeletal looking models. The entire waif look has graced the pages of magazines and film, unfortunately for a person with a non- healthy body image and lack of self-esteem, striving to achieve what society has deemed beautiful, becomes an obsession.

The trend within the fashion industry is beginning to change, most notably in Milan, which have recently refused to allow underweight models to grace their notorious runways. Not all within the fashion industry are so willing to take a stand, they are in business to sell and that if the advertisers’ wants to use all too thin models, then that’s what they will have a gracing their magazines pages.

Although this trend is moving towards the use of healthy sized models, it may help to change society’s ideal on what a women’s shape should be. Some argue that it is much too easy to blame the fashion industry, when in reality eating disorders are at least initially a mental issue of the individual and their own idea of body image.

The debate is far from over and even with the strides that the few within the fashion industry has made, in the attempt to change society’s concept of what an ideal shape should be it is a task that will surely take decades to rectify. Society has a tendency to resist change, even more so if the media’s slow to change with it.

One of the warning signs of an eating disorder is the obsession with all too thin models and actresses. A person who suffers from an eating disorder often has many pictures of excessively thin people, strategically placed normally around mirrors or close to food sources. Generally, these pictures are used to remind the person suffering from an eating disorder of what they want to look like and it is used as a deterrent to eat or as motivation to exercise more.

The present day market is a highly competitive one and therefore companies need to devise new and innovative business strategies in order to continue making profits and to substantially increase their market share. For this reason, companies have now begun to shift their business focus from creating tangible products to developing a whole range of comprehensive products along with service designs. This explains the increasing importance of innovative services and this has become apparent over the years. However, little has been done for the management of these services. Heavy equipments are ones that are used mainly in the construction and manufacturing industry. These colossal equipments are difficult to transport, are capital intensive and have a long life cycle of use. This heavy industry machinery is extensively utilised by diverse industries including forestry, transportation, agriculture and construction.

These industries call for substantial investments in heavy equipments and thus getting a proper ROA or return on assets is necessary. Capital velocity is highly important in this respect. It is necessary to make provisions for such innovative services in order to ensure high level of performance and asset availability within a limit budget. Heavy equipments are usually customised and thus are difficult to manage and maintain. These equipments can be divided into different categories such as mining equipment and construction equipment. A working face, shovel, stacker and dumper is used for open pit mines whereas a drill, underground loaders and rigs are used for underground mines. Construction equipments comprise a long list including trenching equipment, piles driving equipment, wagon and trucks, excavating equipments such as clamshells, power shovels, hoes and cranes; draglines, scrapers and tractors.

There are different types of heavy equipment that are used for similar purposes and thus it would be difficult to make a generic classification. There are a number of factors that are taken into consideration while classifying these equipments and these include service facility, operating environment, revenue generation, core competency, life expectancy, service skills, subsystem, cost and weight.

Stakeholders play a crucial role in adding value to the customer through the supply chain. The list includes profiles such as that of manufacturers, service providers, designers, governments, contractors and suppliers.

Companies that use heavy equipment and heavy lifting services will obviously need the help of high investment in order to achieve an equally high ROA. Asset management is important in this respect. It is a proper and systematic approach adopted towards the maintenance and the upgrade of assets. Asset management comprises the activities and processes that are necessary for minimising the investment, maximising the commercial return, manage risks and optimise the strategic value. Asset management also includes every function right from operations to procurement, from engineering to maintenance. The latter is considered to be an integral function of asset management.

The business strategies implemented in the industry are a bit different from the other industries. It is a bit difficult for the heavy equipment industry to garner profits and improve their market position in the long run. Service development can increase the opportunities to a great extent thereby making more room for marketing opportunities.