2018 has been another banner year in the broker M&A world, with deal numbers on par with those in 2017. This M&A activity among brokers is continuing even this late in the year. Among notable recent announcements, Marsh reportedly plans to acquire JLT while this week EPIC announced plans to purchase Integro Insurance Brokers.
First, there were just usernames. Then came usernames and passwords. Then came multifactor authentication (MFA), which requires something you know, such as a username and password; something you have, such as a one-time password token; or something you are, such as biometrics using your fingerprint or a retina scan. Now frictionless identity access management (IAM) is the “soup du jour” as companies work to make MFA more effortless for the end user. Many of the chief information security officers with whom I've spoken attribute the lack of MFA adoption in the enterprise and in web applications to the amount of friction it causes for the end user.
Annuities sales are on the rise. LIMRA SRI expects the total sales for fixed income annuities to be around $70B for 2018, matching the trend of increasing sales in each quarter. Wink Inc. found that non-variable deferred annuity sales are up 46.2% from this time last year. While industry experts predict that this rapid growth will slow down in 2019 and 2020, carriers should still prepare for plenty of activity in the annuities space.
Back in 2015, Novarica declared it “The Year the Future Arrived” for insurers – predictions that had been percolating for years finally broke through into reality. In particular, we cited four items: the entrance of major internet giants into the sector, the use of wearables to drive life insurance customer experience, IoT-based risk management, and direct online sales of small commercial insurance.