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Jim Jones is the Executive Director of the Katie School of Insurance and Risk Management at Illinois State University. The Katie School supports over 500 students majoring in risk management and insurance, actuarial science, and other majors who are interested in careers in insurance. He works with Katie School staff, the Dean of the College of Business, industry executives, departments chairs, and faculty in helping to develop talent for industry. Jones is Chair of the CPCU Society Ethics Committee. |
Insurance Thought Leadership:
What technology now in the market do you believe will have the biggest transformative impact on insurance and risk management in the next 5 years?
Jim Jones:
All of the technologies that are helpful in predicting and preventing losses. The industry will need to distinguish itself by providing value for customers in doing more than just providing insurance policies. This could be smart IoT for homes, wearables to reduce worker injuries, or AI to help insureds better identify loss trends.
Insurance Thought Leadership:
What do you see as the biggest obstacles to insurance innovation, and how would you recommend overcoming them?
Jones:
Status quo bias is always the biggest obstacle. Past success has always been the greatest impediment to future innovation. Regulatory rigidity also is a real challenge to innovation, but can be overcome to some extent through regulatory sandboxes and the use of synthetic data to predict how innovations will impact customers.
Insurance Thought Leadership:
What is an area (or areas) that you believe remains untapped/unfulfilled/overlooked for the promise of innovation in insurance?
Jones:
The creation of a database of curated data that can be used by AI. Industry and regulators will be more comfortable with the AI recommendations if they know the data is accurate and valid.
Insurance Thought Leadership:
How do you believe AI will transform insurance and/or risk management?
Jones:
AI will transform every aspect of insurance, claims, underwriting, and distribution. I think professionals in the future will have limited careers if they do not understand how to leverage AI in their jobs.
Insurance Thought Leadership:
Have your programs changed or expanded to prepare tomorrow’s insurance and risk management professionals for working in new ways with technology and data?
Jones:
Yes, we have workshops and student research with real world clients in order for them to keep up to speed with changing technology and risk landscape.
Insurance Thought Leadership:
Has the wider application of technology in insurance changed how students view opportunities in the insurance industry?
Jones:
Once they see the opportunities, we have a much more diverse pool of talent interested in insurance. Insurance already has so much data and that is appealing to students who want to work with and analyze data. Other technology oriented students see the opportunity for technology in insurance related to AI and to cybersecurity.
