Compared to when I started as a insurance pricing analyst nearly 45 years ago, insurers have better data, including access to third party data, use more rating variables, have better tools, a wider range of analytical methods, can deploy rates faster, and employ more actuaries and analysts. Yet the private motor market as a whole is just as unprofitable now as it was then. This illustrates the Arms War nature of pricing. Any improvements in pricing proves to be temporary as the competition catch up and overtake with the next improvement. A consequence of this is insurers will need to continually invest in improving their pricing just to stay in the Race.

This view underpins my argument that Pricing must be seen as a continuous process and not as either a one off deployment of a set of rates, or just implementing an new analytical approach.