Tom Piccin says the banking sector is showing us up.
The insurance industry needs to change and should borrow some of the ways in which the banking sector transacts its business.
This is the message that Bruce Carnegie-Brown, president and chief executive of Marsh Europe/Middle East, gave in Ireland recently.
In his speech, Carnegie-Brown said that the insurance industry provides a much greater value to its clients than the banking industry, but he argued that this value is largely unrecognised.
The simple answer to the conundrum of why this is the case is, according to Carnegie-Brown, fairly simple: the inefficiency of business processes in the industry is getting in the way of providing a good service to clients.
He warned that if this problem were not tackled the insurance industry would become a "burning platform". The challenge is to make sure the fire does not rage out of control.
Carnegie-Brown proposed a number of changes in the industry, highlighting the importance of innovation.
He suggested that one of the ways this could be done was in the trading of risks, with the industry increasing the ability to quote for multiple year transactions - a process which would effectively reduce the high volatility of prices and capacity in the insurance market.
In his speech, he criticised the industry's over-reliance on "anecdotes and broad cycles" as opposed to independent and objective data, its inability to agree industry-wide standards on technology and the need for standardisation in contract certainty.
He finished by encouraging ambition in the market and a focus on selling "the real value of what we do".
If his comments are not acted on, a smoking platform, may indeed become a burning one. IT