Historically, the insurance claims process for property damage starts with a claims professional assessing damage on-site and ends by giving a homeowner a check for fixing the damage. This old model places the responsibility on the property owner to research and vet qualified contractors to start the restoration process, a particularly heavy burden to bear in moments of crisis.

Facing competitive pressure from start-ups and tech giants, traditional insurers are being forced to embrace innovation and change at a rapid pace. Today’s tech-savvy customers expect a seamless and integrated digital experience from their insurers.

Aon PLC and Australian insurtech firm Claim Central Consolidated Pty. Ltd. have established a strategic alliance to automate insurance and reinsurance claims handling, Aon said in a statement Tuesday.

The insurance industry, like so many others, is in a state of upheaval that will continue to play out in 2019. The disruptive forces at work in the industry have come into sharper focus over the past 12 months, and industry players across the board are now in motion as they race to adapt.

Cyberrisks are fast-evolving, posing an ever-changing threat to businesses. According to the annual Allianz Risk Barometer, which surveys more than 1,900 risk experts, cyberrisks have gone from 15th five years ago to now ranking as the second most important peril globally.

The 2008 animated Pixar movie “Wall-E” follows the refuse-based adventures of a sentient, autonomous trash compactor whose primary function was to clean an abandoned city on a now-deserted planet Earth, long ago having been abandoned by humanity.

First, they came to replace the supermarket checkout person. Now they’ve come for the risk managers. Technology and automation, that is.

Smart cities are entering a new phase, as not only are city leaders readily installing digital solutions to improve efficiencies, such as cutting down the minutes spent on a daily commute, but residents are now able to use their smartphones as the keys to the city that unlock further capabilities by injecting additional data into the ‘smart’ ecosystem, according to a 2018 report from the McKinsey Global Institute.

Delivering exceptional customer experience requires near-real-time service when a customer has a new claim. In a market that has the highest customer acquisition costs, it’s paramount for property and casualty insurers to keep the customers they have by making their experience as positive as possible.

The industry used to be a tech laggard. No more. Though there’s still much work to be done, most insurers are now better-positioned to capitalize on their investment in technology.

The commercial transportation industry in North America is “barely keeping up with the loss trends,” according to a casualty underwriter at Swiss Re. The market is under “significant pressure” following a 5-10-year period where the frequency and severity of losses shot up and insurance rates lagged behind.

ACORD has partnered with L&T Infotech to develop digital standards for insurers. The goal of the new standards and reference architectures is to enable more microservices-powered communication protocols, helping insurance companies quickly deploy the transformative initiatives craved by carriers across lines of business.

Unique uses of technology as evidence, which is a growing part of court cases, has earned a local prosecutor national recognition for convictions in two notable area cases.

State Farm will continue to use drones in its insurance operations. The insurer was granted a first-of-its-kind national waiver by the Federal Aviation Administration that will allow drone operations over people and flights beyond a pilot’s visual line of sight through November 2022.

I am supposed to be at CES in Las Vegas this week. Colloquially known as the “Consumer Electronics Show,” CES is the largest technology exposition and conference in the world. Last year 189,000 people swarmed sessions and exhibits in 11 Las Vegas locations to catch a glimpse of the technology that will change our lives in the near future.