As proof that data is a commodity, some insurers are even beginning to sell or trade their data back to the grid, feeding health data, telematics, sales statistics and more, to competitors and partners that value the same knowledge across a large data set. Quandl, a Toronto-based data marketplace, currently purchases daily auto policy sales data from at least one P&C insurer, and resells it to Wall Street investors. The investors use the insurer’s data as a window into automotive sales and the economy in general.

“That’s an example of an insurance company taking its data exhaust and turning it into more revenue for the firm,” said Quandl CEO, Tammer Kamel. “They don’t have to do anything other than to give us access to the data and we send them a check.”[i]

This is just one example, but a certain sign of a growth industry — insurance data markets. Maybe data is the new currency.

Rethinking insurance by rethinking data

In our Future Trends 2017: The Shift Gains Momentum report, we highlight the explosion of data that is powering innovation in the industry. In our A New Age of Insurance report, we look into how new technologies and their data sources are rapidly creating new risks that need new products, especially within commercial and specialty lines.

This is one of the reasons that insurers need to rethink data, not only in terms of how it will help them run their traditional businesses, but how new technologies and data will spawn new businesses, growth industries and new opportunities.

In Part 2, we’ll create some more data analogies. We’ll rethink the mechanics of moving data, rethink how you store it, rethink the decisions you can make with it and we’ll rethink insurance through the lens of data and its effectiveness to transform our organizations.

[i] Howard, L.S., Valuable Revenue Stream Hidden in Insurance Carrier ‘Data Exhaust,’ Carrier Management, July 7, 2017, http://www.carriermanagement.com/features/2017/07/20/169112.htm