The future of insurance will be written by those who move from predicting the past to architecting the future, transforming risk from a liability to be avoided into an asset to be managed.
— Jim Carroll
Original 2021 statement: Real-time analytical predictive insurance underwriting will be the only actuarial insurance model in the not-too-distant future
What Jim has written about this
From “Decoding Tomorrow: The Way Forward: #6 Insurance - “The future of insurance will be written by those who move from predicting the past to architecting the future, transforming risk from a liability to be avoided into an asset to be managed.”” (September 2025)
Think about it - for centuries, the foundation of the industry has been the actuarial analysis of the past—a model that involves looking at what happened, and indemnifying customers based on that reality. That era is over. A powerful convergence of hyper-connectivity, artificial intelligence (AI), and accelerating, complex risk is forcing a new model, in which insurance is underwritten not by looking at the past, but by underwriting risk based on real-time information and concise information on what might happen next.
The transformation of actuarial science . The actuarial profession is moving beyond historical data tables to a world of real-time, predictive analytics, becoming data scientists who model complex, fast-moving risks.
The leaders who thrive will be those who move beyond the models of the past and embrace a new identity as technology-driven risk architects. The future of insurance will not be built with the actuarial tables of yesterday. It will be underwritten with real-time data, managed with intelligent algorithms, and delivered through seamless digital platforms, guided by a new generation of leaders who are not afraid to build a bolder, faster, and smarter future.
From “The Trends Scorecard: Insurance - What I Predicted, and What Actually Happened” (July 2026)
I have been keynoting the insurance industry for more than 20 years — property and casualty, life, group benefits, reinsurance. CEOs, CIOs, actuaries, brokers, the rooms full of people whose entire job is to price uncertainty. And from very early on, I kept hammering on one idea: that the very nature of risk was speeding up, that the old backward-looking actuarial model was about to be turned upside down, and that the industry was not moving fast enough to keep up. Here is how I framed it for a Property and Casualty Insurers Association audience — a framing I quoted again years later because it had aged so well: The insurance industry today is immersed in a period of unprecedented, relentless change; impacted by hyper-innovation, fast-paced technological evolution, the rapid emergence of new forms of risk, and increasing business market turmoil. Permanence has been torn asunder, as customers and business organizations empower themselves with information, and as underwriting decisions become ever more complex.
This is the one I’m proudest of, because it’s the whole thesis in two sentences. In 2016, in front of a room of senior P&C and life executives, I laid out the structural shift: Predictive analytics will shift the industry away from actuarial based historical assessment to real-time coverage. Policy niches, micro-insurance and just-in-time insurance will drive an increasing number of revenue models.
By 2023, with AI accelerating everything, I distilled the entire decade-plus of these predictions into a single line about the deepest shift in the business: we’re moving from a world in which insurance risk is assessed by actuaries looking back in time, to one that involves real-time or forward-oriented predictive risk analysis. That’s a substantial, significant change, and AI helps to take us there.
From “AI Megatrends - AI In Insurance - A Massive Structural Shift from Risk Assessment to Real-time Underwriting and More!” (April 2023)
The background? The insurance industry was already being rapidly disrupted by tech companies. Existing brokerage and distribution networks are being challenged as more people buy insurance directly online. Predictive analytics is shifting the industry away from actuarial-based historical assessment to real-time coverage. Policy niches, micro-insurance, and just-in-time insurance are driving an increasing number of new revenue models. The Internet of Things (IoT) and massive connectivity are providing for massive market and business model disruption as real-time device reporting provides for instant risk assessment - which allows for lower-cost underwriting. Fast-paced trends involving self-driving cars, the sharing economy, personal drones, swarm-bots, smart dust, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality will either mitigate, accelerate or challenge the very notion of risk assessment and underwriting! What happens when Amazon, Google, or some kid in a garage decides to really change the insurance business model? And then there is the element of risk itself – at a recent global insurance risk summit in Switzerland, I outlined the dramatic new forms of accelerated risk that the industry must now confront (including, obviously the heightened risk of AI itself!)
What is the impact of AI on the industry? To get a sense of that, consider the major trend driving every single aspect of the industry going forward - we’re moving from a world in which insurance risk is assessed by actuaries looking back in time, to one that involves real-time or forward-oriented predictive risk analysis. That’s a substantial, significant change, and AI helps to take us there.
Underwriting and actuarial analysis : AI will help in the entire process of moving insurance away from looking back to asses insurance risk (blood test, urine test) to looking in real-time (blood pressure and other real-time health information) to forward-oriented (DNA-based policies); or in automotive, real-time driving behavior. This is a massive change, and through this, we might be able to use AI can help to automate the underwriting process, reducing the time and resources required to evaluate applicants and price policies. For example, AI algorithms can analyze data on a customer’s age, health, and lifestyle to determine their risk profile and determine the appropriate policy pricing.
Read the full pieces on jimcarroll.com:
Decoding Tomorrow: The Way Forward: #6 Insurance - “The future of insurance will be written by those who move from predicting the past to architecting the future, transforming risk from a liability to be avoided into an asset to be managed.”
The Trends Scorecard: Insurance - What I Predicted, and What Actually Happened
AI Megatrends - AI In Insurance - A Massive Structural Shift from Risk Assessment to Real-time Underwriting and More!