You’re doomed! You’re doomed! And you’re doomed! You’re all losing your jobs to robots.
Almost everyone in the insurance industry is doomed. That, at least, is the take from a website that predicts jobs at risk of robot replacement in the near future.
According to willrobotstakemyjob.com there is a 92% “probability of automation” for “insurance sales agents.”
“You are doomed,” the site says. This category is defined as those who “sell life, property, casualty, health, automotive, or other types of insurance. May refer clients to independent brokers, work as an independent broker, or be employed by an insurance company.”
The site projects just 9% job growth for brokers by 2024. But, while that sounds dire, brokers are actually in a marginally better position than others in the industry.
Other insurance jobs also predicted as “doomed”, with an even greater probability of role automation, include “Claims Adjusters, Examiners, and Investigators” (98%), “Insurance Appraisers, Auto Damage” (98%), “Insurance Claims and Policy Processing Clerks” (98%), and “Insurance Underwriters” (99%).
Within general insurance roles, only actuaries can see the light at the end of the tunnel. They face just a 21% risk of automation, according to the site.
The website uses as its basis for dooming certain jobs a 2013 study by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A. Osborne titled The Future of Employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerisation? Frey and Osborne examined how susceptible jobs were to computerisation through statistical modelling.
Of course, such predictions are not new in insurance. The doomsayers have been levelling such claims at the industry for years, and yet the industry remains strong.
The consensus opinion among insurers is that many elements of the industry are too complex, specific and nuanced to be replicated by artificial intelligence.
As one wholesale broker, John Guadagno at US Risk Underwriters, told Insurance Business as recently as last month: “There are so many variables in commercial insurance, and that’s the challenge to why someone hasn’t completely automated it.
“I have a firm belief that as much technology as we implement in this industry … you never can fully extricate the human from that equation,” he said.
What do you think? How seriously do you take the threat of a robotic revolution? Leave a comment below with your thoughts.
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