The impact of COVID-19 is yet to be accessed fully, but it is fairly clear that the insurance industry is facing mounting losses in the short term and an uncertain recovery in the long term. Commercial Lines are expected to be hit the hardest. Property, Liability, Workers Compensation and Marine coverages may face somewhere between $30 and $80 billion in claims according to Willis Towers Watson and will see significant market shrinkage post-pandemic. The two months of the lockdown delivered a devastating blow to the US economy. With 39 million Americans forced out of jobs, the commercial insurance market is bound to shrink beyond the levels seen following the Great Recession of 2008.

Rob Galbraith gave our company the best present for Christmas 2019: his book, "The End of Insurance as We Know It." Inside, he wrote an inspiring message "To Małgorzata, Best wishes on your tremendous efforts to shape the future of insurance and bring about a safer world." Roberto received the same hand-written message in his book, of course. Roberto and I teamed up to discuss Rob's book and how new technology is transforming the insurance industry.

Over the past ten years, “nuclear verdicts” have dramatically increased in frequency, which has affected the rising costs of commercial insurance premiums and threatened the existence of fleet companies. The challenge with predicting if your fleet is sustainable to a crash of this magnitude is the uncertainty of how these verdicts are determined. Often the amount awarded is not proportional to the actual damages.

2020 will be the year of Big Data. We have been told that so many times, but every time some other tech fad grabbed the attention away. Now data has grown so big, there is no way we can keep ignoring it. And it is not just the size. Finally, we are properly equipped with computing power, analytics, and visualization tools that will help us to turn our full attention to data.