Insurance is Human

Almost a year ago, I felt impelled to bust the cliché that insurance is boring. In that blog post, I called out the idea that any industry that touches every imaginable peril individuals, families, businesses, and communities face could reasonably be considered dull.

Today -- as I dig back into work after spending two days at the Society of Insurance Research (SIR) annual conference in Las Vegas -- I feel similarly impelled to take on a different myth: That, because of its focus on statistical analysis and the dollars-and-cents aspects of risk, the insurance industry is out of touch with day-to-day human concerns.

I get it. I’m no one’s quant. Until becoming immersed in this big-numbers industry, I probably shared this perspective. I might even slip back into it from time to time, when the conversations become a bit too actuarial for my all-too-verbal nature.

In his opening remarks, Mike Meyers, SIR president and lead competitive analyst at USAA, used a phrase that the cynic in me thought a bit hokey. He referred to the conference -- the first major in-person event for SIR since the pandemic -- as a ‘family reunion.’ As the event proceeded, though, it really did feel that way.