Innovation and regulation – how RDT helps insurers and their customers

When we describe new technology as disruptive, it’s not only because it can bring dramatic improvements and shake up an industry. It’s also because it can challenge the legal and regulatory framework, and could undermine the rules and safeguards that protect consumers and businesses.

Such is the caveat with insurtech, whose breakthrough technologies include the internet of things, cloud computing, sophisticated analytics, telematics, artificial intelligence, and blockchain. Collectively, allied to the power of big data, they provide new ways to identify, measure and control risks, which means we are now asking many questions about the boundary between public and private information.

Big data provides a very revealing and accurate picture for underwriters. Lawyers and regulators may contest the line between accuracy and intrusion, but there is no doubt that reliable data can protect and benefit consumers. As a data enrichment specialist, RDT is continually finding new ways to harness and process data to help insurers and their customers, and is working very closely with insurers and regulators to develop the full potential of new technology.

RDT was the only insurtech company to publicly contribute to the FCA’s study of big data in general insurance, launched in early 2016, which concluded that big data is producing: ‘a range of benefits for consumers’ and ‘encouraging more innovation in products and services and strengthening parts of the customer journey’.

Better use of data helps insurers to know more about their customers in a positive way – one that can create tailored products, fairer pricing, and swifter resolution of claims. Equally, fraudsters are easier to identify, minimising losses that push up premiums for everyone.

Because the insurance landscape is changing so rapidly, with disruptors of all stripes competing for a slice of the insurtech market, regulators do need to keep up – hence the FCA’s big data initiative. The point was made in an article* in the ‘Future of Insurance’, a Raconteur publication distributed last month, which discussed the mushrooming of insurtech startups whose agility exceeds their experience.

Experience combined with speed is what RDT provides. It has deep roots in the insurance industry and a long of history of technology breakthroughs – not least the development of Equator, its platform for centralized rates and data orchestration. Collaborating both with insurers and regulators, RDT is making sure that innovation and regulation go hand in hand, and that data enrichment protects, rather than threatens, consumers.


*Insurtech: UK regulators ahead of the game