Symposium on insure‐tech, digitalization, and big‐data techniques in risk management and insurance

• Published date: 01 September 2021
• Author: Daniel Bauer,James Tyler Leverty,Joan Schmit,Justin Sydnor
• Date: 01 September 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jori.12360

J Risk Insur. 2021;88:525–528. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/JORI

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525

DOI: 10.1111/jori.12360

INTRODUCTION

Symposium on insure‐tech, digitalization, and

big‐data techniques in risk management and

insurance

Daniel Bauer |James Tyler Leverty |Joan Schmit |

Justin Sydnor

Department of Risk and Insurance, University of Wisconsin‐Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA

Correspondence

Daniel Bauer, Department of Risk and Insurance, University of Wisconsin‐Madison, 975 University Ave, Madison, WI

53706, USA.

Email: daniel.bauer@wisc.edu

The Journal of Risk and Insurance invited submissions of research papers related to insure‐tech,

digitalization, and big‐data techniques in risk management and insurance. The rapid growth in

data and advances in computing are transforming risk management and insurance. Modern

predictive techniques, including the rise of machine learning, are expanding and changing the

ability to classify risk. New technologies also enable new methods of transferring risk, un-

derwriting, and claims handling, changing and sometimes challenging the nature of traditional

insurance products and practices. The special issue encouraged research on the relevance and

impact of these trends on risk management and insurance activities.

The four articles in this special issue touch on a number of these points. Two of the articles,

authored by Zhuo Jin and Chamal Gomes and by Hong Li, Qifan Song, and Jianxi Su, re-

spectively, develop approaches to detecting fraud and misrepresentation in insurance appli-

cations using advanced machine learning techniques. A third article, authored by Guillen et al.

(2021), shows how telematics data can be used to extend pay‐how‐you drive schemes to pe-

nalize “near‐miss”events. The fourth article, authored by Gregor Weiss, Simon Fritzsch, and

Philipp Scharner, investigates the relation between digitalization and the market value of

insurers. In this introduction, we set the stage and provide a brief overview and outlook of

digital transformation and technology in insurance to highlight the contributions of the four

studies.

There are dozens of articles in industry trade publications pointing to the importance of

digital transformation in insurance. But what does “digital”mean in this context? The literal

definition of “digital”is a misnomer, in that digital transformation is not directly concerned

with converting insurance information into digital bits and bytes. Rather, we believe “digital”is

© 2021 American Risk and Insurance Association

We thank Vallabh (Samba) Sambamurthy for helpful perspectives and members of American Family Insurance for

their input on specific questions of digitalization.