Pandemic Podcast Special: Matthew Grant speaks to the industry experts (72)

This week we have a "pandemic podcast" special edition. A series of interviews recorded on Thursday 12 March, the day after the WHO had declared Covid-19 Coronavirus a pandemic.

In this 40 minute edition Matthew Grant sets the scene for exploring the potential for new and established innovation, analytics and data to help manage the spread of the virus in the short term, and improve insurance offerings and understanding and mitigation of the risk in the future. 

Matthew reviews the context of the pandemic to understand how what we are hearing in the news compares to medical opinion, talking to Dr Chris Martin. Whilst there has been modelling of pandemics and research in the medical community, it's been somewhat limited for insurance purposes. Robert Muir-Wood, Chief Research Officer for RMS, the catastrophe modelling company provides an overview of the issues, the impact from an insurance perspective and how Covid-19 can be modelled and losses estimated. 

The impact on the insurance industry will be significant. Sam Casey from Insurance Insider, has been talking to insurers and provides an assessment of the breadth of covers affected, and some of the largest unknowns such as the potential for cancellation of the Tokyo Olympics. Nick Wildgoose, formerly responsible for supply chain at Zurich Insurance, explains some of the challenges and potential pinch points.

SparkBeyond is providing AI tools to help the Italian government understand and manage the spread of the virus and Alex Easaw explains what they have been finding. 

Matthew released a companion article to this podcast on Saturday, available here on Linkedin. We are planning to continue to review the lessons to be learnt from Covid-19, impact on the insurance industry, data sources available and opportunities for innovation. 

Thanks to all our guests for taking the time to speak to us at a busy time, and Peter Roach of Visual Monkeys for the fast turnaround of this episode.