Category Archives: Technology

Disaster Resilience, Technology, Webinars

Triple-I, ResilientH20 Partners Launch Resilience Innovation Hub

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The Gulf Coast & Southwest Resilience Innovation Hub’s creation was announced on June 18 by the Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I) and ResilientH20 Partners and will be a key part of the Triple-I’s Resilience Accelerator initiative.

The Resilience Innovation Hub will allow private and public sector entities to collaborate and bring-to-market resilience and flood mitigation technologies. Moreover, the Hub will connect investors with governments and academic institutions while also highlighting pre-disaster mitigation success stories through a resilience portfolio and technology showcase program. 

The Innovation Hub is opening effective June 18 at the Cannon’s downtown Houston Cannon Tower, a venue which already houses workspaces where entrepreneurs gather as their ventures develop. The locale, also the headquarters for ResilientH20 Partners, is at 1801 Main Street, Suite 1300, Houston, Texas 77002. The Triple-I’s Resilience Accelerator initiative is aimed at reducing the impact of extreme weather events and building more resilient communities through insurance.

“As households and businesses learn from past natural disasters, especially those which struck the U.S.’s Gulf Coast, the Resilience Innovation Hub can accelerate the deployment of products, services, and projects aimed at reducing disaster-caused losses in consultation with insurance carriers and brokers,” said Dr. Michel Léonard, CBE, Vice President, Senior Economist, Triple-I and the Triple-I’s Resilience Accelerator lead.

“There has been a widespread interest in, and demand for, best-in-class actionable, alternative disaster mitigation solutions since 2017’s Hurricane Harvey and subsequent storms caused extensive insured losses to autos, homes, businesses, and governmental properties,” said Richard Seline, Managing Partner, ResilientH2O Partners. “Society saves six dollars for every dollar spent through mitigation grants funded through federal agencies and even more progress can be made on this front through further investment in pre-disaster risk mitigation.”

Nine of the 10 costliest hurricanes in U.S. history have occurred since 2004, as defined by private-sector insured losses paid to auto, home, and business insurance policyholders and FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) payouts.

“The Cannon Tower will provide a seamless onboarding for the Resilience Innovation Hub’s activities. Houston is already home to networks which focus on issues like sustainability, green infrastructure, and smart cities,” said Remington Tonar, Chief Revenue Officer, The Cannon Startup Platform.

The Resilience Innovation Hub’s creation was announced at the second in a series of virtual Town Halls co-hosted by the Triple-I and ResilientH2O Partners. The session on “Technology, Innovation, and Investment” focused on investing in pre-disaster risk mitigation and featured presentations by:

A panel discussion followed, and it included the Cannon’s Remington Tonar; Aaron Chan, Scouting Manager at State Farm’s @Labs; and Edward Craner, Senior Vice President of Strategy and Marketing at Holt Caterpillar.

Emerging Risks, Technology

COVID-19 Spurs Jobs For Robots, Drones, Other Technologies

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COVID-19 threatens to overwhelm the U.S. health system in coming weeks, creating a need for remote services.

Robots, drones, and other technologies are being deployed in the fight against COVID-19, introducing new opportunities, challenges, and risks.

From “tele-health” solutions that facilitate care from a distance to robots that disinfect facilities to  drones that help manage crowds, the pandemic is spurring novel uses of existing technologies and could lead to new ones as nations, companies, and communities try to be better prepared for the next outbreak.

Telemedicine

Use of video conferencing and other forms of remote health-care delivery was developed to serve communities with few medical facilities. Today’s extreme circumstances, however, highlight its broader value.

Medicare this week said it will expand coverage for telemedicine nationwide to help seniors with health problems stay home and avoid coronavirus exposure. The virus threatens to overwhelm the U.S. health system in coming weeks, creating a need for remote services.

However, a patchwork of state-by-state regulations is slowing the advance of telemedicine.

“Oregon just rejected us because we didn’t have a facility there, and they told us to get one before we reapplied,” said James Wantuck, chief medical officer at San Francisco-based telemedicine firm PlushCare. “North Carolina, we found out, is really targeting retired doctors who previously had a license in that state, while other states like Mississippi, Colorado and Florida are making it very easy for our doctors to get licensed there.”

Over the past week, increased demand has slammed facilities that are used to serving only a few patients a day and now face backlogs.

“You can get the technology to support these astounding volumes,” said Roy Schoenberg, CEO of Boston-based telemedicine company Amwell. “But you’re very quickly getting to a point where the supply of medical services isn’t there. We need to have enough clinicians to allow us to handle that incoming volume.”

Robots

At the Wuchang field hospital in Wuhan, China – epicenter of the first coronavirus outbreak – a ward was staffed with 5G-enabled robots to help contain the contagion and alleviate the strain on human personnel.

Doctors in the United States used robot-assisted telemedicine to treat the first person in the country admitted to hospital with 2019-nCoV. In a two-bed isolated area at Providence Regional Medical Center in Washington – set up five years ago to deal with Ebola but never used – a robot equipped with a camera, microphone, and stethoscope enabled the patient consult with clinicians without direct contact.

Robots also are being used for disinfection.  Xenex robots – manufactured in San Antonio, Texas – use pulsed xenon ultraviolet-C (UVC) light to destroy pathogens. The company says its devices are being used to clean hospital rooms where there have been suspected cases of the new coronavirus. The robot can clean a room in as little as five minutes.

Los Angeles-based Dimer UVC Innovations has developed a germ-killing robot to sanitize airplanes. The robot – called GermFalcon – is being used at the Los Angeles International Airport, San Francisco International Airport, and John F. Kennedy International Airport.

Drones

In Spain, police are using drones to warn people to stay at home. Spain has declared a state of emergency and ordered citizens to stay indoors, apart from necessary trips, after reporting a sharp rise in coronavirus cases. BBC footage shows deserted Madrid streets policed by drones. The drones are controlled by humans who relay warnings through them via radio.

Similarly, in China drones were deployed to observe crowds and help manage traffic. People not wearing masks in public could be identified, and the drones were able to broadcast information to larger areas than regular loudspeakers. They also used thermal imaging to identify people with elevated body temperatures and were used to spray disinfectant in public areas.

Longer-term implications

Expanded use of these technologies against COVID-19 is a logical continuation of their evolution, but such advances don’t occur in a vacuum. Concerns about machines replacing human workers – especially if this outbreak ushers in a new era of “social distancing” – and about normalizing surveillance and use of drones for crowd control almost certainly will be raised.

If telemedicine gains greater traction, will cost efficiency conflict with efficacy of care?

Will internet-enabled technologies create more channels for cybercriminals to exploit?

Will greater social acceptance of technological solutions result in decreased attention to low-cost approaches to containment, like hand washing and environmental cleanliness?

Policymakers, corporate decision makers, and communities will need to address these and many other questions after this virus has been suppressed.

Technology

Algorithms, A.I.and Insurance: Promise and Peril

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By Max Dorfman, Research Writer

A couple of articles crossed our desk recently that discussed the benefits and pitfalls of algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI). Neither discussed insurance, but they offered important lessons for the industry.

Algorithms and AI can work quickly, but they aren’t perfect.

An algorithm is a simple set of instructions for a computer.  Artificial intelligence is a group of algorithms that can modify and create new algorithms as it processes data. Broadly, these smart technologies can drive untold change for the industry.

As the Financial Times wrote earlier this year, “Insurance claims are, by their nature, painful processes. They happen only when something has gone wrong and they can take months to resolve.”

Chinese insurer Ping An uses AI to accelerate decision making, and New York-based insurance start-up Lemonade employs algorithms and AI to help pay clients more quickly. Other insurers use smart technologies for fraud detection, risk management, marketing, and other functions.

What could go wrong?

Algorithms and AI can work quickly, but they aren’t perfect. A recent article by Osonde A. Osoba, an information scientist and professor with the RAND Corporation, details what data scientists call an “algorithm audit.” An algorithm audit detects biases or blind spots that skew results, making it necessary to review and test the underlying data.

In the case Osoba discusses, Apple Pay was assailed on Twitter by tech executive David Heinemeier Hansson for giving him a credit limit 20 times larger than his wife’s, despite their sharing all assets, among other factors. Hansson concluded that the algorithm was sexist – causing a furor on the social media platform among both those who vehemently agreed and disagreed with him.

Apple Pay said it doesn’t have information about applicants’ gender or marital status. Yet no one from Apple could answer why Hansson received a significantly higher credit limit. They responded: “Credit limits are determined by an algorithm.”

Still, these algorithms and AI are informed by something – perhaps the implicit biases of the programmers. For example, systems using facial recognition software have yielded decisions that appear biased against darker-skinned women.

Are algorithms easier to fix than people?

An article in The New York Times by Sendhil Mullainathan, a professor of behavioral and computational science at the University of Chicago, discusses human and algorithmic biases. He cites a study in which he and his co-authors examined an algorithm that is commonly used to determine who requires extra levels of health care services. This algorithm has affected approximately 100 million people in the U.S. In this case, black patients were routinely rated to be at lower risk. However, the algorithm was inherently flawed: it used data on who receives the highest amount of health care expenditures.

Black patients already spend less money on health care than white patients with the same chronic conditions, so the algorithm only served to reinforce this bias. Indeed, without the algorithmic bias, the study estimated that the number of black patients receiving extra care would more than double. Yet Mullainathan believes that the algorithm can be fixed fairly easily.

Contrast this to a 2004 study Mullainathan conducted. He and his co-author responded to job listings with fabricated resumes: half the time they sent resumes with distinctively black names; the other half with distinctively white names. Resumes with black names received far fewer responses than those with white names.

This bias was verifiably human and, therefore, much harder to define.

“Humans are inscrutable in a way that algorithms are not,” Mullainathan says. “Our explanations for our behavior are shifting and constructed after the fact.”

Don’t write algorithms off

As RAND’s Osoba writes, algorithms and AI “help speed up complex decisions, enable wider access to services, and in many cases make better decisions than humans.” It’s the last point that one must be particularly mindful of; while algorithms can reproduce and intensify biases of their programmers, they don’t possess inherent prejudices, as people do.

As Mullainathan puts it, “Changing algorithms is easier than changing people: software on computers can be updated; the ‘wetware’ in our brains has so far proven much less pliable.”

Technology

What’s Insurtech, Anyway?

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Perhaps it’s a symptom of buzzword fatigue that everyone in the insurance industry seems to use the word “insurtech” without agreeing on – or maybe even really thinking about – what it means.

Some use it as a noun, suggesting a type of company – typically a startup – that applies cutting-edge technology to insurance-related challenges. Others use it as an adjective to describe the technologies and applications themselves. Still others seem to take the position of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, writing on a very different topic: “I know it when I see it.”

Whatever it is, insurtech is a rapidly growing feature of the insurance landscape, and many traditional insurers and venture capitalists are investing in it.

Insurtech doesn’t just mean offering products more quickly online. It means transforming the offerings and the customer experience.

Modernizing the value chain

Insurtech emerged around 2010 as an offshoot of a similar movement in banking, known as “fintech.” With providers of just about every other product and service embracing “Amazonation,” consumers have come to expect absolutely seamless service – wherever and whenever. Like those industries, insurers need to satisfy their customers while growing profitably and managing operational costs.

But insurtech doesn’t just mean offering products more quickly online. It means transforming the offerings and the customer experience.

Insurtech most consistently refers to the use of apps, wearables, big data, machine learning, and other technologies to automate and improve processes across the insurance value chain – from marketing and policy origination through underwriting, services, and claims.

Some applications focus on reducing friction in transactions; the time required to fill out an application and receive a quote is a classic example. Others seek to streamline and enhance back-end functions, such as risk assessment, pricing, loss control, and settling claims.

Claims: Ripe for insurtech

The claims process is particularly well suited for transformation. Insurers typically hire adjusters to determine the extent of their liability for a loss, damage, or injury and come up with a settlement. This can be time consuming, expensive, error prone, and, in some cases, dangerous.

Drivers can submit photos to their insurers via app immediately after an accident. Some insurers use machine learning and publicly available data to detect fraud.

Today, new approaches aid the claims process.

For example, drivers can submit photos to their insurers via app immediately after an accident. Some insurers also use machine learning and publicly available datasets to detect and flag potentially fraudulent claims.

As technology helps improve underwriting, policy administration and claims, new products are being developed and traditional ones can be handled differently.

One emerging approach – enabled by the intersection of telecommunications and big data known as “telematics” – is usage-based insurance (UBI), priced according to drivers’ own voluntarily provided behavioral data. A more recent stage in UBI’s evolution is pay-as-you-drive insurance, with monthly billing that varies based on mileage driven.

A similar trend involves using data from smart-home technology, such as water-monitoring systems that can anticipate and prevent leaks that might otherwise lead to claims. Advances in telematics and the Internet of Things are increasing the quantity and range of the data insurers will have at their disposal.

Obstacles remain

 Insurtech offers tremendous opportunities for innovation, but – as one of the most heavily regulated and publicly scrutinized industries – it faces obstacles. Many technologists driving the movement come from outside insurance. Few have navigated the legal, regulatory, and cultural minefields surrounding personal privacy and security.

Unlike many other industries, in which maximizing speed and satisfaction has become the prime directive, insurers are required by law to protect customers from privacy breaches and bias. Perusing social media for insights to help optimize user experience or using machine learning to anticipate and address changes in users’ buying behavior may be acceptable if you’re selling cars or cosmetics – but for insurers, their clients, and regulators it raises a host of red flags that have to be addressed.

Careers and Employment, Technology

SO, HAVE YOU THOUGHT ABOUT THE FUTURE…? The Coming Golden Age of Insurance

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By Sean M. Kevelighan, CEO, Insurance Information Institute

“What does the future of insurance look like?” It’s the question that’s launched a thousand publications and panel discussions. And it’s an essential one that covers a lot of ground. In my case, literally.

The Insurance Information Institute (I.I.I.) partnered recently with InsureTech Connect (ITC) and Gamma Iota Sigma (GIS) at the two organizations’ flagship events, InsureTech Connect 2019 in Las Vegas, and Gamma Iota Sigma’s 48th annual International Conference in Dallas. What we came away with from these back-to-back events were two distinct but nevertheless complimentary visions of how things are now and what’s to come.

Briefly put, the future of insurance will be largely to make good on past promises. And this is not because we’ve been remiss in our duties but because people now are able to build and implement the right tools for the job. Speaking before thousands of InsureTech Connect 2019 attendees, Glenn Shapiro, president of Allstate Personal Lines, was blunt.

He noted making policyholders wait several days for an auto repair estimate that takes only a few hours to complete is: “[N]ot a service experience that you would accept in any other part of your life!” Embracing Insurtech and the power of innovation enables insurers like Allstate to automate processes and replace outmoded legacy systems to make insurance a truly customer-driven business. Insurers are now able to provide security and empowerment to their customers.

Which brings us to … resilience.

Early in 2019, ITC selected the I.I.I. to co-host its Resiliency Innovation Challenge, a four-month-long competition for Insurtech start-ups whose businesses are focused on catastrophe resilience. Fast forward to the final day of InsureTech Connect 2019, and an impressive field of 22 Insurtechs was pared down to three outstanding finalists: WeatherCheck, True Flood Risk and Cowbell Cyber, whose CEOs presented their products and businesses to a panel of experts. The group included Susan Holliday, senior adviser to the International Finance Corporation in Washington, D.C.; Arlene Kern, a strategic innovation scout at Munich Reinsurance Co.; Lee Ng, vice president, Innovation, at Travelers Cos. Inc.; and Kevin Pray, vice president, Innovation, at The Hanover Insurance Group.

The finalists come at the problem of catastrophe risk from markedly different angles—preparedness, risk assessment, and risk management, respectively. The beauty of this diversity of thought was that we had disparate applications of data coalescing around the power of resilience. Congratulations to Demetrius Gray, CEO of WeatherCheck, who walked away with the first-place trophy, as well as to all the competitors who made the inaugural Resiliency Innovation Challenge a huge success.

One of the key takeaways from the Challenge was how resilience is benefiting and inspiring people in ways other functions of our industry cannot. Innovation and, more important, awareness of new solutions to manage risk makes the goal of creating safer homes, businesses and communities an attainable one. Young men and women embrace this philosophy.

We saw this first-hand in students who’ve chosen to study risk management and insurance at the Gamma Iota Sigma International Conference in Dallas, TX. There, I was honored to moderate a panel discussion titled, “Plan. Respond. Recover: The Power of Resilience,” with Dr. Nidia Martinez, director of Climate Risk Analytics/Capital, Science & Policy Practice at Willis Towers Watson; Dr. Roger Grenier, senior vice president, Global Resilience, at Verisk’s AIR Worldwide, and Alessa Quane, executive vice president, Chief Risk Officer at AIG.

The panelists shared their perspectives on topics ranging from the value of public/private partnerships in closing insurance coverage gaps; the sometimes overlooked but nevertheless consequential challenges posed to insurers by climate change (e.g., the need to guide energy businesses through “transition risk” while they retool to meet rising market demand for renewable resources); and how insurers are succeeding in building resilience.

Suffice it to say, putting two intensely forward-thinking and forward-looking events like ITC 2019 and GIS’s International Conference into perspective is a tall order. Given the dizzying array of people, places and presentations that blew past us in a single week, it was reassuring to be reminded again of a few key facts. The Insurance Information Institute represents an industry that’s going all-in on reinventing itself to serve customers and make our communities safer and more prosperous. And that many are eager to join the insurance industry in bringing this vision to life. Or to borrow the words of Jay Weintraub, co-founder of InsureTech Connect: “People really care about insurance.”

Sean Kevelighan is chief executive officer of the Insurance Information Institute, a non-profit research, education and communications organization dedicated to improving public understanding of insurance — what it does and how it works. 

Disaster Preparedness, Technology

University of Pennsylvania PennApps XX Hackathon Recap

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By Brent Carris, Research Assistant, Insurance Information Institute

Left to right: Brett Lingle, Zoë Linder-Baptie, James Ballot and Brent Carris

The Wharton Risk Center  and the Insurance Information Institute  co-sponsored the second annual Hack-for-Resilience at PennApps XX, the nation’s oldest and largest student-run college hackathon. Presentations were given by Carolyn Kousky and Brett Lingle of the Wharton Risk Center School; and the I.I.I.’s James Ballot.

From September 6 – 8, 18 student teams used software and hardware technologies to “hack”—conceive and build new apps and devices—ways to combat the risks posed by natural disasters, such as hurricanes, wildfires, and floods. The students also vied to create either a product or service that provided insurance in a customer-friendly manner, a category generally known as Insurtech.

A panel of judges from the I.I.I. and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center selected the winners.

First place in the Insurtech category was Wildfire Protect– a parametric wildfire insurance product designed to provide immediate payouts to insureds that experience property damage from wildfire.

Second place was a tie between Prophet Profit and Navig8. Prophet Profit is an app designed to help households save money by allocating funds in all sectors of the stock market. The Navig8 team created an app to assist the visually impaired communicate during a disaster.

First place in the resilience category was awarded to a hack called Phoenix. This team created an autonomous drone which detects and extinguishes fires.

You can see all other entries and winners here.

Industry Financials, Technology

Live webcast: I.I.I. CEO Sean Kevelighan talks insurance market dynamics at CAS spring meeting

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Sean Kevelighan, I.I.I. CEO

Interested in the state of the insurance market? Tune in to a free live webcast on Monday, May 20th at 11:20 a.m. ET to watch Insurance Information Institute (I.I.I.) CEO Sean Kevelighan talk about the industry at the Casualty Actuarial Society’s Spring Meeting.

Kevelighan will address the insurance market’s financial performance over the last 15 years with a special focus on rising auto costs and on leadership needed to sustain the business model, create jobs and promote/facilitate economic growth. Plus, he’ll touch on InsurTech and digital transformation in insurance.

No pre-registration is required to watch the webcast, just go to this link at 11:20 a.m. to watch the live session.

Technology

Blockchain: the anatomy of a hype

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Remember blockchains?

They were going to change the world. Is there a problem or challenge? Consider using a blockchain. Engaged in a business? Consider the blockchain. Thinking about where to get lunch? Again, blockchain.

No industry would be left un-disrupted. Insurance would never be the same again.

And sure, that all might come to pass someday. Very smart people are working on blockchain applications. But right now it seems like the hype bubble is bursting, at least in the public mind.

Here are Google searches for “blockchain” over the past five years in the “finance” category:

Data source: Google Trends

Here is the search for “cryptocurrency”:

Data source: Google Trends

And just for fun, here’s the valuation of bitcoin:

Data source: CoinDesk

I’m not the first person to notice this, of course. The Gartner “Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies” 2018 report put “blockchains” on the cusp of the dreaded “trough of disillusionment”.

Source: Gartner

Trough of disillusionment. Sounds ominous.

Why the cool down about blockchains? The short answer: expectations have begun to re-align with reality.

There are several reasons why.

Earlier this year I wrote an article for the Actuarial Review about blockchains – and how they might be solutions in search of a problem. In the article, I cited Stephen J. Mildenhall from the School of Risk Management of St. John’s University, who compared a blockchain to a military tank. In theory you could drive your kids to school in a tank. But why would you? Tanks are extremely expensive, slow and inefficient (plus, I’m not sure they’re road-legal). A minivan would be a better solution. Like a minivan, a simple SQL database could probably do most jobs that a blockchain could do, except much more cheaply, quickly and efficiently.

Another big sell of blockchains was that they were theoretically unhackable. As I wrote last year, that’s only kinda-sorta the case. Blockchains themselves might be unhackable (depending on their governance structures), but for a lot of applications they need to connect to that extremely hackable thing called The Internet. Which is why you’re regularly reading about massive cryptocurrency heists.

But just because we’re in the trough of disillusionment (sorry, I just love that phrase), doesn’t spell the end for blockchains. This is a normal process for emerging technologies: a new technology is developed, everyone gets extremely excited, then reality kicks in and the hard (and underreported) work begins of perfecting the technology for real-world use.

I wouldn’t be surprised if blockchains quietly become ubiquitous for some applications in the near future – but how they’re integrated and what kind of real impact they’ll have are anyone’s guess.

In the meantime: beware the hype about any emerging technology.

Technology, Workers Compensation

The future of telemedicine and workers’ compensation insurance

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You can’t talk about workers’ compensation insurance these days without mentioning “telemedicine” at least once. It should therefore come as no surprise that telemedicine was given its own panel discussion at the 2019 Workers’ Compensation Research Institute’s (WCRI) Annual Issues and Research Conference.

(In case you don’t know, the American Telemedicine Association (ATA) defines telemedicine as the “remote delivery of health care services and clinical information using telecommunications technology.” Think of an app that lets you video chat with a doctor, for example.)

The potential benefits of telemedicine to patients, providers, and employers could be immense. Improved access to healthcare services. Fast, personalized care. Treatment efficiencies. Reduced costs. Dr. Stephen Dawkins of Caduceus USA put it this way: “It’s crystal clear, as a provider, that telemedicine is a tsunami that will change the paradigm of medical care.”

Indeed, as Dr. David Deitz of Deitz & Associates noted, telemedicine is almost the perfect storm of improved healthcare services – and is already experiencing exponential growth in the commercial health sector. Citing the ATA, he noted that there were an estimated 1.25 million telehealth visits in 2016 alone – and that some sources estimate that over 400 million of U.S. medical visits could have been telemedicine encounters.

But has telemedicine made inroads into workers’ compensation?

Dr. Deitz pointed out that there is “essentially no quantitative data on [telemedicine] use in workers’ compensation.” Furthermore, he argued that there are several open questions when it comes to telemedicine: what are the appropriate regulations and reimbursement models? Is there a quality trade-off for telemedicine versus in-person encounters? Are there any privacy or cybersecurity concerns?

Kurt Leisure, vice president of risk services for The Cheesecake Factory, offered some preliminary answers when describing his company’s new telemedicine program for worker injuries, implemented in February 2018.

According to Leisure, the program basically works as follows. An injury occurs. If urgent, the injured worker proceeds directly to urgent care or the emergency room. If it’s non-urgent, the worker calls the company’s nurse triage system for preliminary care. If the phone call isn’t enough, the worker has the option of being escalated to a telemedicine program on their smartphone.

What have been the results so far? Generally positive, with the program leading to $153,000 in hard dollar savings in 2018. But Leisure did note that there are still wrinkles that need to be ironed out. Identification of telemedicine candidates during the triage phase needs improvement.  Employee trust in the program could also improve.

But the injured workers seem to approve of the program. “Overall, I’m really excited, there’s a lot of upside potential just in our initial program,” Leisure said. “I think it will explode over time.” One particular benefit of telemedicine could be keeping workers and employers out of the courtroom. “We think the litigation rate is going to drop significantly” with widespread and effective telemedicine, said Leisure.

Indeed, despite some open questions about workers’ compensation adoption of telemedicine, the panel agreed that the industry would benefit tremendously. “Telemedicine basically gives you a conduit through which you can achieve better case management,” said Dr. Dawkins.

Auto Insurance, Technology

Latest Driverless Vehicle Roadblock: Bicycles

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I hope he’s wearing a helmet.

As someone who (perhaps unwisely), likes to bike around New York, I’ve long looked forward to driverless cars. They can’t drive drunk. They won’t drive like reckless teenagers. They won’t threaten to beat me up for ringing my bell (true story).

Even better: they’ll be able to see and avoid me even on a dark and stormy night.

Or so I thought.

As it turns out, bicycles could slow driverless vehicle deployment. Case in point: Holland, land of bicycles.

According to a recent KPMG report, the Netherlands is the country most prepared for autonomous vehicles. The country is actively working to begin autonomous truck platooning on highways; a legal framework has been developed for testing AVs on public roads without a driver; and the country is even preparing a drivers license for AVs.

But whether AVs will ever operate in Holland’s cities is an open question. Because, as an executive quoted in the report put it, “We have a lot of bicycles.” That’s an understatement. According to The Guardian, there are an estimated 22.5 million bicycles for a population of 17 million people.

And unfortunately, as the article notes, bicyclists are unpredictable: “the varying sizes and agility of cyclists, with their sudden changes in speed and loose adherence to the rules of the road, present a major challenge to the [AV] existing technology.”

Such a major challenge, in fact, that KPMG suggests forgetting about ever integrating AVs into a bicycle-heavy environment: just keep AVs and bicyclists separated entirely.

We don’t have as many bicyclists in New York. The city estimates somewhere in the ballpark of 1.5 million casual riders.  But that’s probably enough cycling on our already-crowded, dilapidated streets to put a hold on my dream of a safe, driverless vehicle future. (AVs in Phoenix, meanwhile, have an entirely different problem…)

In the meantime, you would do well to wear a helmet and stop texting!