Writing

Written from inside the seat.

Long-form on insurance innovation, design and distribution, published in the trade press rather than posted here. Each note below is why I wrote it and what it argues.

Carrier Management
16 March 2026

The Trillion-Dollar Gap

How user-centered design built tech’s giants, and why insurance must follow

The same user-centered design practices that built companies collectively worth over $10 trillion barely exist in insurance. Most insurers still build products the way they did in 1985: actuaries in a room, regulators in their heads, and customers as an afterthought.

Why I wrote itThe argument I keep having with boards, written down with the numbers attached. Design-led companies outperformed the S&P 500 by more than 210% over a decade. That is not a taste argument, it is a capital allocation argument, and it is why the Product function in this practice starts with the journey rather than the rate.

Read it at Carrier Management →
Carrier Management
16 March 2026

Myth vs Reality

How insurers compete with tech giants on customer experience

The claim that insurance is inherently difficult to design well is contradicted by the companies that have made user-centered design central to how they operate. This is the myth-busting half of the argument.

Why I wrote itEvery reason an insurer gives for why it cannot do this has a counter-example already operating in the market. Written as the companion to the piece above, because making the case is only half the job when the objection is cultural rather than technical.

Read it at Carrier Management →
Carrier Management
15 December 2025

The Hardest Part of Innovation in Insurance Isn’t Technology

It’s culture

Innovation in insurance is not hard because teams cannot build, the opportunities are unclear, or customers will not accept it. It is hard because organisations will not change. The obstacles are habits, incentives, risk aversion and unwritten rules optimised for balance-sheet stewardship rather than rapid learning.

Why I wrote itThe closest thing I have written to a field guide. It is also the honest reason most transformation programmes fail, and the reason the Transformation function here is as much about operating cadence as it is about the target state.

Read it at Carrier Management →
Carrier Management
8 September 2025

On Innovation in Insurance

What a 1922 six-month policy still has to teach the industry

A century ago, customers said the industry had stopped working for them, and one entrepreneur answered with a policy that repriced every six months. Americans are saying the same thing again. Consumers see every other category getting smarter, more predictive and more personalised, and insurance apparently standing still.

Why I wrote itThe piece that sets up the rest. Insurance has had this moment before and the winner was the company that changed the product, not the one that changed the advertising.

Read it at Carrier Management →

These are published columns and they live where they were published. Linking rather than reprinting keeps the rights clean and sends you to the version of record.

The Aude Letter

An occasional letter on where insurance and its adjacent technology is actually going, written from inside the operating seat.

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