Get ready for the supertrends
“In life, the only constant is change”. So starts the Credit Suisse film about the six ‘supertrends’ that investors need to be aware of to avoid the unpredictability of the financial markets and benefit from multi-year trends. (I assume the death and taxes one was done last year.)
In case your next Teams or Zoom work ‘pub quiz’ takes a turn for worse, the six trends are; millennials’ values, the silver economy, anxious societies, infrastructure, technology at the service of humans, and climate change.
All well thought through, and well-reasoned. And all with major impacts & reliance on the insurance industry. The list could translate to Energy, Health, Life, Construction, Aviation, Marine, Cyber and Livestock.
There are a few other super and perhaps not so super trends around the insurance market at the moment, many of which will be covered in our end of week news review. Here are two I would like to share.
Necessity: the mother of invention, salvation and extinction?
One headline (and trend?) which really caught my eye was in the FT on Wednesday; “Old school trading under threat as insurers rethink life at Lloyd’s”.
With the closing of the underwriting floors, an unavoidable reliance on technology and particularly Lloyd’s PPL platform has taken hold. The electronic placing platform which Lloyd’s has championed, coerced and forced insurers and brokers to use has been a savior.
Will they go back to the traditional face to face negotiation? The corporation may be thinking will they go back at all.
How are you, really?
Another trend that I hope others have seen and welcomed in recent weeks is that when you ask someone, ‘how are you’, they will often actually tell you. It seems that as we invite colleagues, clients and work acquaintances into our front rooms, spare rooms and kitchens, the question is worth the time to properly answer, and reciprocate.
The cursory, non-thinking: “Good thanks how are you. Anyway, the reason for the call...” seems wrong. As we live through this collective trauma, it is good to acknowledge and understand how we are coping with the upheaval of normal.
With thanks to Credit Suisse, the FT and those that ask.
https://www.ft.com/content/e51324dc-2084-4915-b98d-42fac7819b2f