InsTech - insurance & innovation with Matthew Grant & Robin Merttens

Where is specialty insurance headed in 10 years? (369)

Aug 24, 2025

Guest

Paul Carroll

Tracie Thompson, Global Head of Strategic Clients at Cytora, brings her boardroom expertise; Andy Yeoman, CEO and Co-founder of Concirrus, shares tech insights; and Paul Carroll, Editor-in-Chief at Insurance Thought Leadership, offers industry wisdom. Together, they discuss the potential evolution of specialty insurance over the next decade. Topics include the impact of AI on legacy systems, the shifting roles of brokers, and how economic realities could reshape distribution and underwriting. They also explore whether the protection gap will close or widen.

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INSIGHT

Legacy Is Technology And Behaviour

Legacy problems persist because today's cutting-edge becomes tomorrow's legacy.
Tracie Thompson adds that legacy behaviour and talent matter as much as systems.

INSIGHT

AI Redefines Outsourcing

AI will absorb many outsourced tasks and shift where value sits in the chain.
Toby Kovacs warns AI replaces people who don't critically review its output, not people who add value.

ADVICE

Reframe Broker Remuneration

Brokers should reconfigure remuneration toward fees and value-added services.
Tracie Thompson advises brokers to pool capital and offer differentiated services to stay relevant.

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What will the specialty insurance market look like a decade from now? Will we still be talking about legacy systems and manual processes, or will the model itself have changed?

In this panel discussion from InsTech’s Outpace. Outprice. Outperform event, Robin Merttens leads a conversation with four senior experts on the future of the market and the forces that could reshape it.

Featuring:

Paul Carroll, Editor-in-Chief, Insurance Thought Leadership
Toby Kovacs, Account Director, Google Cloud
Andy Yeoman, CEO and Co-founder, Concirrus
Tracie Thompson, Global Head of Strategic Clients, Cytora

Together, they examine how emerging technologies, shifting client expectations and economic realities are pushing the market to rethink long-held assumptions about distribution, underwriting and talent.

In this conversation, the panel explores:

Whether brokers, underwriters and annual renewals will still have a role
How capital and distribution are bypassing traditional intermediaries
Why outsourcing is being redefined in the age of AI
The impact of legacy behaviours, not just legacy systems
How new models of work and regulation are influencing transformation
Whether the protection gap is closing — or widening

If you like what you’re hearing, please leave us a review on whichever platform you use or contact Robin Merttens on LinkedIn.

Continuing Professional Development

This InsTech Podcast Episode is accredited by the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII). By listening, you can claim up to 0.5 hours towards your CPD scheme.

By the end of this podcast, you should be able to meet the following Learning Objectives:

Describe how AI and automation are reshaping the boundaries of outsourcing in specialty insurance.
List the key areas of the insurance value chain likely to undergo transformation in the next 10 years.
Measure the potential impact of continuous underwriting and data-driven models on policy efficiency and pricing accuracy.

If your organisation is a member of InsTech and you would like to receive a quarterly summary of the CPD hours you have earned, visit the Episode 369 page of the InsTech website or email cpd@instech.co to let us know you have listened to this podcast.

To help us measure the impact of the learning, we would be grateful if you would take a minute to complete a quick feedback survey.