2010: A PAS Odyssey?

In Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, and its sequel, 2010, the computer–HAL 9000 (or just “HAL” for short)–supposedly went “live” in 1992 (or 1997 in the book). HAL was capable of speaking, understanding speech, seeing via cameras, recognizing emotions, and much more. At the time the movies were released (1968 and 1984, respectively), these seemed like rather futuristic goals. Of course, we now have systems in call centers that record conversations and recognize emotions, and an extension to Microsoft’s Xbox 360 possibly scheduled for release in 2010 is expected to see entire bodies and faces, interpret emotions, understand natural language, and even simulate its own emotions (search YouTube for “Project Natal”). The most seemingly unlikely aspect of 2010–from a technology perspective–was perhaps the Pan Am Space Clipper service, noting at Pan Am, “The Sky Is No Longer the Limit.” And while Pan Am is long gone, space tourism is nearly ready to, well, take off.

So, now that we will all soon have science fiction-like computing devices in our living rooms–not to mention the multitouch, gesture computing-enabled devices that pass for cell phones–surely the early systems that would have been prevalent in 1968 and even 1984 must be gone at long last! As we are all well aware, though, this is far from true. While there are is no hard data, there are most likely more than a thousand legacy policy administration systems in use by insurers today. However, at least the majority of core system purchases now are finally focused on modern systems.

As 2009 came to an end, the fear that dominated the economic landscape was giving way to mere doubt and even some optimism. Property/casualty insurers had a standout year among financial services firms, especially since 2009 was an extremely light hurricane season. Life/annuity writers got a strong reprieve as the financial markets had good–and, more importantly, steady–growth.