This is a post I put out on my linkedin after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
You know I am always positive - but I can't sugar coat this - things are bad. It feels like a fork in the road or a crossroads. Like a paradigm shifting, with lightning flashes from the thundering rumbles of a coming storm.. We count the days between.
Bad is temporary - so we definitely need to be in mountains-can't-stop-us mode...
Insurance can still play a huge role, though. Recall just before Russia's invasion - talk in the UK was on regulatory reform. I am personally all for the "relaxation" of how insurers and intermediaries could reserve - but...
I have a very specific ask - quite relevant to the issues of the day.
Science. It must go to science. Through the array of sciences (and yes, you'd expect i'd see insurtech and digital innovation as "R&D") lies our salvation. It's a kind of insurance, isn't it?
There's a caveat to this, though- and it is related to the work Liz Foster and I began during the pandemic - Totus Re. We'll be back with a revisit to this concept, I promise.
Helicopter Cash for research
I've long been fascinated by how we only print money for banks - when you could use it (surgically) for other things. I've been doing quite a lot of research about money printing, for a different project. In my view, so long as you can be assured it won't cause inflation - there are reasons to loosen the straps a little and use it for different reasons.
That's the policy I want - science wins - insurance encouraged to pour, literally flood, billions into UK-based science research, almost on a venture basis - then the applied bridge between it and society is funded by standard capital sources. The government can help by guaranteeing downsides - and also using printed capital to support any future systemic issues that solvency liberalisation takes for insurance. Banking is secure because it has flexible top level capital. Insurance needs a "magic money tree". The more I talk to people about it - the more convinced I am.
In the meantime - if we really want a big bang (or to learn its secrets to help us create wealth as we carbon cold turkey!) then science is the way.
This is crazy, I am sure. I've been suggesting crazy policy for a while. But the pandemic was crazy. QE was crazy. QT is even more crazy - losing the UK circa £100bn of real capital because of the losses incurred from QE's made up capital losses.
The idea of continental European war - now that really is crazy. Gas bills - crazy. Cobalt in cars from Congo's open pits - crazy. The world is already... crazy. All we're talking about, here, is leveraging the gift that is insurance float to help society evolve, and fast.
Maybe crazy isn't crazy - it's cure.
So money for science doesn't sound so crazy to me. Feels like we're on a deadline.
