The pandemic environment which created the ability for the world to share data from society combined with the power of technology was key to not only helping insurers assess Covid risk but also to deploying an effective vaccine so quickly.
This is according to Pravina Ladva, group chief digital and technology officer at Swiss Re, who was responding to a question raised by Health & Protection at the firm’s media day.
Ladva explained that the pandemic created an environment in which the whole world came together in a virtual community to share insights on what they were seeing geographically.
She added that through harnessing the power of technology, universities and research organisations analysed that data and were able to offer predictions in areas such as which which countries needed the vaccine and which age groups were most affected by Covid.
She added this not only proved useful to the insurance sector but also to the development of a vaccine.
“Not only were we able to use it in our industry,” Lavda told delegates.
“We were able help the health industry around vaccines and deployment and one of the reasons why the vaccine came about so quickly was because of the power of data in society and the power of technology that was able to power that.”