Tokyo (SCCIJ) – Hitachi and Swiss Re Corporate Solutions have entered a strategic partnership to offer an industry-first insurance for the risks of digitization. The joint offering helps organizations accelerate their digital transformation while minimizing risk and insuring against unexpected business disruption. The first solutions will go live this month.
The recently built headquarters of Swiss Re in Zurich (© Swiss Re/Leonardo Finotti)
Automation risks
As critical business processes and operations increasingly depend on artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT), private enterprises and public authorities need to manage new digital risks arising from such automation. Swiss Re and Hitachi are addressing this need with their new industry solution. Digital risk refers to the risk of adopting such automated technologies and networks.
The joint solution will help customers embrace AI, IoT, and cutting-edge technologies to maximize productivity, increase automation, implement contactless operations, and reduce downtime. It will also ensure them against any unexpected business disruption. Initially, the offering will target the manufacturing machinery and transport industries.
Triggered pay-outs
A Swiss-Re spokesperson explained that parametric insurance products are planned first. Here, a customer automatically receives the insured sum as soon as sensors activate a defined trigger. This mechanism could be compared to insurance against weather events such as hurricanes. Here, too, the insurance company pays out when a hurricane has moved over a predefined area without a manual damage assessment.
“We are excited to work with a global technology leader like Hitachi to advance corporate insurance through digital market platforms and accelerate the adoption of innovative, smart manufacturing,” said Andreas Berger, CEO of Swiss Re Corporate Solutions.
The Swiss-Japanese partnership would activate machine-sensor data and continuous diagnostics across the industrial sector. “Ultimately, this will enable us to price risk more precisely, ensure effective pay-out mechanisms, and provide a seamless risk management experience that addresses industry inefficiencies,” he said.
World leaders
Swiss Re Corporate Solutions is the commercial insurance arm of the Swiss Re Group. This division employs more than 2,500 people in 50 offices in 19 countries including Japan, with an emphasis on underwriting, claims management, and risk engineering. Hitachi Europe, a subsidiary of Hitachi, is headquartered in Maidenhead, UK. The company focuses on its Social Innovation Business, which includes AI and IoT solutions.
“It is becoming a necessity for businesses to digitally transform and use advanced technologies such as AI to become more agile and automate as much as possible. Also, it is imperative that they can do so with the confidence that their digital risk is mitigated,” said Hicham Abdessamad, Chief Executive, Hitachi Global Social Innovation Business.
Text: SCCIJ with material of Swiss Re Corporate Solutions
