While I do my best every week to find a topic that will resonate with you and to then provide some insight, I'm always interested to see how many of you click on the link in the Six Things email and read the full commentary I've written.
I use the information to calibrate my thinking about what's top-of-mind in the insurance world. In that spirit, I looked back at 2024 to see what themes most piqued your interest in the Six Things commentaries I wrote. I think of the readership numbers as a sort of survey, though based on your actual investment of time rather than on abstract questions about what topics most matter to you.
As you might imagine, AI shows up often in the 10 most-read commentaries from 2024. How could it not? But I was surprised by the commentary that topped the list.
Let's have a look.
The most-read commentary was on "peak auto," the fact that car sales appear to have peaked in the U.S. and many other major economies. In fact, that commentary was the most-read by a lot — almost 50% higher than No. 2 — even though it was only published two weeks ago, and a lot of these commentaries have a long tail; in other words, a lot more people are likely to read this piece in the days and weeks ahead.
I suspect there were two reasons for all the interest. First, auto insurance is a massively important industry, and having sales plateau or even fall will have major effects on who drives, how much they drive and the risks for the cars they drive. Second, despite all the attention to electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles, rising repair costs, etc., there just hasn't been much attention to the peaking of auto sales.
Nos. 2, 3 and 4 were all about AI, which I believe is both the biggest challenge and biggest opportunity of the next few years.
One commentary was on "The Third Wave of AI," which involves having an AI act as an agent, a sort of highly efficient executive assistance capable of carrying out tasks on your behalf — with all the efficiencies and risks that new wave entails. A second warned to "Beware the Algorithm!" It noted that lawyers and consumer advocates are demonizing algorithms any time a decision goes against a policy holder, so we should talk about them less and always put a human face on a tough decision. The third looked at "Who's Getting Results From AI, and Why." It described research that found the insurance industry is above average in innovating with AI but has more levers it could be pulling to get the full benefits.
No. 5 asked, "Can We Insure Against Heat?" This was a notion I wrote about simply because it had never occurred to me. I've read (and written) a lot about the indirect effects of rising temperatures, such as intensifying hurricanes and wildfires, but it never occurred to me that we might issue insurance covering the direct effects of heat on people and property.
No. 6 and No. 9 were on another massive topic, the nuclear verdicts that are growing in size and frequency. One, "Private Equity's Hot New Investment: Suing Insurers," looked at the source of the financing for many of the lawsuits. It said that, while legal system abuse has long been a problem for insurers, private equity and AI are taking the problem to a whole new level. The second, "Forget 'Social Inflation'; Think 'Legal System Abuse,'" looked at how the insurance industry can better make its case that many of these nuclear verdicts are unwarranted and harm consumers by raising premiums for everyone. Hint: Terms like "legal system abuse" and "billboard lawyers" work better with regulators and consumers than the benign, somewhat confusing "social inflation."
No. 7, "Dashcams for All," argues that smartphones and apps are now at the point where we can all have dashcams — reducing fraud, simplifying the adjudication of claims and curbing risky driving.
No. 8, "The Lawsuit That Had to Happen," looked at how some auto makers and data analytics firms were providing information on driver behavior to insurers, in some cases leading to far higher rates. The piece argued that the suit should clarify a key issue in auto telematics... but perhaps at the cost of a class action and probes by the FTC and Congress.
No. 10, "Steve Ballmer's Classic Mistake," was one of my occasional rants about how important it is to sweat the details when designing the customer experience. Ballmer doesn't need me to tell him that. He's the former CEO of Microsoft. But as the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, he spent $2 billion on a beautiful new arena, only to then require that attendees interact with the arena's personnel and services through an all-encompassing app that baffled and angered many.
Now let's see what 2025 brings.
In the meantime, I hope you and yours are getting some time to relax and enjoy each other during this holiday season.
Cheers,
Paul