Articles by Barry Rabkin

Rabkin is an insurance industry author and commentator with nearly four decades of experience and more than 20 years of that as an insurance industry analyst. This is part of a series of articles influenced by and/or excerpted from his book titled β€œFrom Stone Tablets to Satellites: The Continued Intimate but Awkward Relationship Between the Insurance Industry and Technology.” The book, published by Wells Media Group, is available at: https://www.ijacademy.com.

Models, Moats and Moat Mortality

Insurance companies, like all companies regardless of industry, should have several management capabilities — a strategy to differentiate themselves in the marketplace, a business model to enable the strategy, a moat to defend the business model, and a plan to …

Collaboration: DNA of Product Development

“It is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) that those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.” – Charles Darwin There are several customer-facing facets an insurance company shows its customers. These include: the …

Real Price of Being an Insurance Customer

The real price of anything is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.” — Adam Smith An insurance company is a portfolio of functional departments replete with skilled professionals providing a spectrum of services to get-and-keep customers. Unfortunately, few insurers …

Solving the Insurers’ Red Queen Dilemma

Well, in our country,’ said Alice, still panting a little, ‘you’d generally get to somewhere else — if you ran very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.’ ‘A slow sort of country!’ said the Queen. ‘Now, here, …

Becoming Truly Digital

Becoming truly digital is going to be a long, arduous, zigzag, stop-and-go journey for all companies involved with insurance commerce regardless of their role in the insurance ecosystem. Insurance commerce becoming truly digital is decades away from fruition. Very few, …

Platforms Are Having a Moment

Platforms are having a moment. Should insurance companies care? Increasingly more firms from different industries say they offer platforms. Technology firms with which your insurance carrier or agency works, manufacturers making smartphones or tablets, payment solution firms like PayPal, and …