The risk itself is changing
Autonomy, connected assets and continuous data alter frequency, severity and who controls the loss—not merely how accurately we predict it.
JOHAN STRYDOM · PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT ACTUARY
Technology is changing insurance at the level of the risk itself.
Evidence-led analysis of how AI, autonomous systems, connected assets and new data change insurance risk, pricing, products and operating models.
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THE PRICING ACTUARY’S LENS
Eight tests for how technology changes risk, markets, capital and customer outcomes.
One framework, grounded in pricing and product development. Open a test to see the question behind it.
Explore the complete frameworkRisk mechanics
Frequency
How could this change how often claims occur?
Severity
How could this change average claim cost—and the shape of the severity distribution?
Exposure basis
Is the exposure unit we currently use still valid, measurable and causally connected to the risk?
Tail and accumulation risk
Could this limit or amplify large individual losses, correlated events, accumulation and catastrophe exposure?
Market and capital
Price response and selection
How price-sensitive is the market—and how might customers entering, remaining or leaving change the risk mix?
Capital vulnerability
Could naive or under-informed insurance capital be burned before credible experience emerges?
Customer outcomes
Customer expectation
Do customers want or expect change—and will they recognise and pay for the resulting value?
Duty to act
Where Consumer Duty applies, could doing nothing permit foreseeable harm, poor value or another poor customer outcome?
THE REQUIRED CONCLUSION
The Lens must end in a decision, not a list of observations.
DirectionMagnitudeTimingEvidenceResponse
APPLICATIONS OF THE LENS
THE THESIS
Adding AI to yesterday’s operating model is not transformation.
The more important change occurs when technology alters what can be measured, prevented or insured—and product design has to catch up.
Distribution is becoming decisioning
The advantage moves from faster forms to systems that validate, enrich, price and explain a risk while the customer is still in the conversation.
Governance becomes product design
In regulated markets, useful AI needs evidence, controls and a clear point at which a human remains accountable.
FLAGSHIP ESSAY
GEOSPATIAL PRICING · UK MOTOR
Beyond Postcodes
A postcode is a useful key. It is not an explanation of risk.
The essay sets out a practical route from postcode factors to explicit road, traffic, crime, land-use and environmental signals—and the tests needed before they belong in a pricing model.
BUILT, NOT MERELY OBSERVED
A pricing view shaped by building insurance businesses.
I have worked across pricing, underwriting, telematics, product, distribution and technology—not as separate disciplines, but as parts of the same commercial system.
The fuller story25+years in UK insurance
£2m → £40mapproximate MyPolicy GWP growth over 2.5 years
15+years in connected vehicle data
Founder → acquisitionMyPolicy and JURNY acquired by Acorn Insurance
ABOUT
Pricing, product and the systems between them.
I’m Johan Strydom, a General Insurance Actuary with more than 25 years’ UK insurance experience across pricing, product, underwriting, telematics, data science and technology.
I founded and built MyPolicy and JURNY through to acquisition by Acorn Insurance. Today, as Co-Founder, CEO & Chief Actuary of InsureLab.ai, I work where rating, validation, fraud intelligence and governed AI meet the broker and customer journey.
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