Translating technological innovation into efficiency: the case of US public P&C insurance companies

In recent years, Insurtech innovations, driven by technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain, emerged in the insurance industry, with the promise of improving efficiency. However, while the positive impact of technology on insurance companies’ efficiency is expected, literature assessing it empirically is scarce, when it comes to recent technological change. Focusing on the US public P&C insurance sector in the period 2012–2018 and relying on both nonparametric (two stage DEA) and parametric (SFA) approaches, it emerges that on average insurance companies were not able to leverage on technological innovations to improve their efficiency. On average a relative level of efficiency among companies, according to a two stage DEA model, was quite stable in time, while the SFA approach shows that the distance between efficient and less efficient firms slightly increased. Moreover, we found one very efficient firm, almost a leader of the market in terms of efficiency, and a homogeneous group of followers, indicating that there is vast scope for improvement for less efficient companies. Nevertheless, even the most efficient company impaired its efficiency over time, suggesting that neither the leader nor on average the followers properly leveraged technology to improve their efficiency. In a competitive scenario, with new players’ entrance and fierce competition, inertia may seriously affect their positioning. Academicians, managers and policymakers should carefully consider the effects that a non-improvement of efficiency following technological change may have on market structure, competition and regulations, potentially opening to further discussion on how technological innovations adoption should be facilitated.