It has been nine years since I joined Asia Insurance Review. While I feel like I now have a good grasp of the industry, there always seems to be something else new to learn. Emerging speciality lines, rapidly-evolving risks, the implementation of new technologies and innovative reinvention of old ones – it feels like the industry has been changing a lot faster than it used to.
This might just be the trend of the world at large – everything seems to be moving at a breakneck speed, and not necessarily in good ways, either. Global geopolitics is headed in a worryingly protectionist direction, possibly due to misguided apprehensions against immigration. This extends beyond the clear and obvious anti-immigration sentiment in the US, as right-wing political parties have been gaining traction all across Europe as well.
All of this, however, is just a symptom of the real disease – anti-globalisation sentiment, driven by people who feel like life has become too expensive to sustain, and are searching for an easy target to blame. Insurers, who already have an uphill battle to get people to buy policies, will not have an easy time trying to convince them to spend on ‘unnecessary’ policies during a cost-of-living crisis.
While businesses want to maintain global economic ties and cross-border engagement, this surge in anti-globalisation sentiment does pose a threat to economic growth and international relations.
This begs the question: has the globalisation project failed?
Global trade and the free flow of information – driven by the Internet – have been a boon for the world at large. Entire societies have been uplifted, and constant technological advancements will continue to help developing countries leapfrog entire stages of growth.
But 2024 was the year of misinformation and the World Economic Forum once again named it as the top risk facing the world in 2025. As fast as new knowledge can spread across 5G networks, so too can concerted and targeted efforts at mis- and disinformation. With the deluge of content that is available at our fingertips, even trying to ascertain the veracity of information can lead to many pitfalls. These disinformation campaigns – which have been around since 2016 and have only increased in frequency since then – will continue to stoke the anti-globalisation sentiment.
The Internet is like a fire that has gone out of control – what was once providing illumination and warmth is threatening to become an all-consuming blaze. It is becoming a risk, and the industry must grapple with this risk sooner rather than later.
Even the much-lauded AI has been a big contributor to the misinformation ‘pandemic’. Casual users – who are using ChatGPT as a search engine with increasing frequency – are not cognisant of the risks of AI, and the hallucinations it sometimes produces. The mistaken belief that AI is infallible will lead to more misinformation being spread across comment sections across the globe, at a pace that will be hard to regulate.
All doomsaying aside, these challenges are merely risks, and the insurance industry has always been the foremost expert in risk. If there is anyone who can figure it out, it is all of you. A
Ahmad Zaki
Editorial director
Asia Insurance Review