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Download our Summer 2019 Covernotes newsletter which includes the following articles:

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The insurance industry is increasingly taking what could be termed a ‘lie detector’ approach to both insurance claims and insurance proposal form submissions. It is using collaborative approaches and insurance ‘forensics’ to wheedle out and identify individuals and businesses either seeking to defraud insurers through false or exaggerated claims or pay lower premiums by deliberately lying about their risk.

Three-quarters of businesses are estimated to be unprepared for a cyber attack despite, in many cases, leaving the door open for cyber criminals to freely enter their systems. Furthermore, with the ever-growing number of connected devices available through the Internet of Things, the number of doors open to cyber criminals is snowballing. Even a connected fish tank has served as an attack entry point.

Q1 2019 has seen the highest underlying level of company insolvencies of any quarter since Q1 2014, with 4187 company insolvencies – a rise of 6.3% since Q4 2018 and an increase of 5.1% on the same quarter last year. Meanwhile, Q1 2019 has seen 31,257 individual insolvencies – up 15.9% on Q1 2018. But what does insolvency – corporate or individual – mean in insurance terms?

The 21st century world is flooded with ‘personalisation’ options; initials, embossed fashion items, must-guess-who-is-driving number plates, pizzas with just your choice of topping and nobody else’s. Yet, whilst business owners are building their own burgers with zeal, they rarely appreciate that they can have a major influence when it comes to shaping their own insurance policy, by ensuring they thoroughly tell their own individual story.

Punishments are not just fitting the crime but also the potential crime when it comes to health and safety. Additionally, the number of directors and managers prosecuted for breaches has more than doubled in recent years. And, in the last quarter of 2017 and Q1 last year, around one-in-ten prosecutions involved the personal prosecution of a director or senior manager.

The Wimbledon Tennis Championships captivated tennis fans worldwide, whilst serving up around 54,000 balls, 140,000 bowls of strawberries, 10,000 litres of cream and even 5,000 bananas for players to munch on between games.

Within the last nine months we have seen a stark warning, which those declared bankrupt in the past, or those considering this as a course of action in the future should heed carefully, given the potential impact it may have on their insurance status.

Artificial Intelligence (AI), once the stuff of science fiction, powers a whole host of things which are now part of everyday life. Just think of Siri, Cortana or Alexa.

AI is a term that covers a wide range of technologies and capabilities which can be of huge benefit to businesses. This is equally true for the insurance industry, with many insurers exploring both AI and an associated technology – robotics – for functions, from claims handling to fraud detection.

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