When the unforeseen strikes, insurance practices everywhere are left holding their breath as they lie in wait for the dreaded number – the damage loss estimates – to come in. These numbers are astronomical, to say the least. Almost 70% of all business financial losses arise from only ten circumstances – just ten! with the single largest identified cause being losses resulting from fires followed by aviation crashes and human-related errors.
Last year saw several natural catastrophes that triggered high insured loss amounts, including the California wildfires, and tropical cyclones that passed through Japan, the Philippines, the US and China. Now, insurers around the World are growing increasingly anxious, given the alarming frequency of occurrences in the past decade alone. The economic costs of last year’s 394 natural catastrophe events came up to $225B with insurance covering $90B of the overall total, creating the fourth costliest year on record of insured losses!
Munich Re NatCatSERVICE
Regrettably, when the unforeseen strikes there is a severe loss to both life and property – and hence the substantial loss claims they create. While these figures are in no doubt staggering, they are merely to illustrate the incredible gap between those described above and the largest insurance payouts ever recorded. Here are the top five payouts, in order of value.
The Tohoku Earthquake & Tsunami of 2011 In March of 2011, at closer to three following noon, a 9.1 magnitude earthquake struck off-the coast of Japan. Within the next 30 minutes, while the aftermath of destruction was still being felt, 133 ft. waves rocketed into the sky from the ocean and travelled 10km inland, taking the lives of over fifteen thousand people. While the damages, for the earthquake alone, were estimated over $210B, only $35B was insured and ultimately paid out. The total combined payouts could be much higher.
9/11 Tragedy One of the most infamous and tragic terrorist attacks on a nation’s sovereign soil that will forever be entrenched in mankind’s memory. Soon after, ‘terrorism risk insurance’ became incredibly risky to cover for insurers. Congress reacted by passing the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act in 2002, which provided an assurance of government support after a catastrophic attack. The tragedy caused far-reaching damages that were difficult to estimate, triggering insurance payouts as much as $40B.
Lehman Brothers Collapse At one point, the fourth largest investment bank in the U.S, the 158-year-old firm declared bankruptcy in 2008 after their involvement in shorting subprime mortgage loans through mortgage-backed securities sold in the secondary market from where the risk spread everywhere else. They filed for Chapter 11 protection after an exodus of most of its clients, and the devaluation of its assets by credit rating agencies. The insurance payouts to creditors, taxpayers and private investors totalled over $100B.
The Three Hurricanes of 2005 Three fierce, category-5 hurricanes: Katrina, Rita, and Wilma – hit the U.S., along with 28 other storms in 2005 causing massive damage across the lower half of the country. The storms moving at speeds exceeding 205km/hr caused damages to the tune of $169B. The insurance payouts for Hurricane Katrina alone totalled $45B. It is still one of the costliest natural disasters ever recorded in American history, with a total insurance payout of around $130B.
The Financial crisis of 2008 The global recession of 2008, that spread worldwide from the epicentre of the financial collapse in Wall St. triggered the greatest losses to both companies, individuals and families ever seen in the last hundred years. There is said to be a direct line between the actions of Lehman Brothers in the subprime mortgage crisis to the financial bedlam that endured worldwide, soon after. The payouts incurred by American insurers during that time, although a financially guarded secret, is believed to be as much as $21T – yes that’s T as in, a whopping ‘Twenty-One Trillion Dollars!’
Alliance Global Corporate & Specialty Report 2019
While $89B of the overall insured total of $90B was borne from weather-related disasters, insurers are actively monitoring climate change reports to take in a bigger view of the changes the planet is undergoing – following two back-to-back years of mega catastrophe-event losses.
The ‘Insurance Protection Gap’ or uninsured losses (the lower this value, the better), is a global problem that affects emerging nations and developed countries alike.Properties and economies with high insurance penetration recover much more quickly after a natural disaster than economies that rely on governments for their recovery. The re/insurance industry continues to withstand the payouts backed up with $595B of capital. However, their focus will be on managing the cost of climate change and weather events by helping to further reduce the current protection gap of 60%.
Ratemaking, or insurance pricing, is the process of fixing the rates or premiums that insurers charge for their policies. In insurance parlance, a unit of insurance represents a certain monetary value of coverage. Insurance companies usually base these on risk factors such as gender, age, etc. The Rate is simply the price per ‘unit of insurance’ for each unit exposed to liability.
Typically, a unit of insurance (both in life and non-life) is equal to $1,000 worth of liability coverage. By that token, for 200 units of insurance purchased the liability coverage is $200,000. This value is the insurance ‘premium’. (This example is only to demonstrate the logic behind units of exposure, and is not an exact method for calculating premium value)
The cost of providing insurance coverage is actually unknown, which is why insurance rates are based on the predictions of future risk.
Actuaries work wherever risk is present
Actuarial skills help measure the probability and risk of future events by understanding the past. They accomplish this by using probability theory, statistical analysis, and financial mathematics to predict future financial scenarios.
Insurers rely on them, among other reasons, to determine the ‘gross premium’ value to collect from the customer that includes the premium amount (described earlier), a charge for covering losses and expenses (a fixture of any business) and a small margin of profit (to stay competitive). But insurers are also subject to regulations that limit how much they can actually charge customers. Being highly skilled in maths and statistics the actuary’s role is to determine the lowest possible premium that satisfies both the business and regulatory objectives.
Actuaries are essentially experts at managing risk, and owing to the fact that there are fewer actuaries in the World than most other professions — they are highly in demand. They lend their expertise to insurance, reinsurance, actuarial consultancies, investment, banking, regulatory bodies, rating agencies and government agencies. They are often attributed to the middle office, although it is not uncommon to find active roles in both the ‘front and middle’ office.
Recently, they have also found greater roles in fast growing Internet startups and Big-Tech companies that are entering the insurance space. Take Gus Fuldner for instance, head of insurance at Uber and a highly sought after risk expert, who has a four-member actuarial team that is helping the company address new risks that are shaping their digital agenda. In fact, Uber believes in using actuaries with data science and predictive modelling skills to identify solutions for location tracking, driver monitoring, safety features, price determination, selfie-test for drivers to discourage account sharing, etc., among others.
Within the General Actuarial practice of Insurance there are 3 main disciplines — Pricing, Reserving and Capital. Pricing is prospective in nature, and it requires using statistical modelling to predict certain outcomes such as how much claims the insurer will have to pay. Reserving is perhaps more retrospective in nature, and involves applying statistical techniques for identifying how much money should be set aside for certain liabilities like claims. Capital actuaries, on the other hand, assess the valuation, solvency and future capital requirements of the insurance business.
New Product Development in Insurance
Insurance companies often respond to a growing market need or a potential technological disruptor when deciding new products/ tweaking old ones. They may be trying to address a certain business problem or planning new revenue streams for the organization. Typically, new products are built with the customer in mind. The more ‘benefit-rich’ it is, the easier it is to push on to the customer.
Normally, a group of business owners will first identify a broader business objective, let’s say — providing fire insurance protection for sub-urban, residential homeowners in North California. This may be a class of products that the insurer wants to open. In order to create this new product, they may want to study the market more carefully to understand what the risks involved are; if the product is beneficial to the target demographic, is profitable to the insurer, what is the expected value of claims, what insurance premium to collect, etc.
There are many forces external to the insurance company — economic trends, the agendas of independent agents, the activities of competitors, and the expectations and price sensitivity of the insurance market — which directly affect the premium volume and profitability of the product.
Dynamic Factors Influencing New Product Development in Insurance
To determine insurance rate levels and equitable rating plans, ratemaking becomes essential. Statistical & forecasting models are created to analyze historical premiums, claims, demographic changes, property valuations, zonal structuring, and regulatory forces. Generalized linear models, clustering, classification, and regression trees are some examples of modeling techniques used to study high volumes of past data.
Based on these models, an actuary can predict loss ratios on a sample population that represents the insurer’s target audience. With this information, cash flows can be projected on the product. The insurance rate can also be calculated that will cover all future loss costs, contingency loads, and profits required to sustain an insurance product. Ultimately, the actuary will try to build a high level of confidence in the likelihood of a loss occurring.
This blog is a two-part series on new product development in insurance. In the next part, we will take a more focused view of the product development actuary’s role in creating new insurance products.
This is huge, isn’t it? But, this also raises a question — are desktop/web applications dying?
Developers frequently face this dilemma of which platform to learn for web/mobile app development. Fortunately, hybrid app development platforms and frameworks answer this question. Let me quickly walk you through hybrid mobile app creation before delving deeper into Ionic Framework.
What is a hybrid mobile app?
You might have encountered terms like native and hybrid mobile apps. Developers use these terms to describe the underlying technology behind building the apps. A hybrid mobile app is built using technologies like HTML, CSS, and Javascript, which are compatible with web applications as well.
On the contrary, native apps are the ones that are developed on android/iOS technologies specifically. However, an external user cannot figure out whether an app is a hybrid or native.
Many platforms and frameworks allow building impressive hybrid applications like Ionic, React Native, Xamarin, Onsen UI, PhoneGap, and Mobile Angular UI. In this article, we’ll discuss the Ionic Framework in depth. I’ll also explain why we’re choosing Ionic for hybrid app development. After reading this, you’ll be able to install Ionic SDK, build and run your apps from scratch.
Happy coding!
Why Ionic Framework?
Ionic is one of the most popular frameworks for developing hybrid apps available today. Its complete source code is available on GitHub. With the Ionic framework, anyone can start creating effective android apps just with an idea, a computer, and an internet connection.
Did you notice — I didn’t mention pricing?
That’s true. You need not buy a license for Ionic. Thus, you can start developing apps for free.
Cross-platform: The application you develop once in Ionic is compatible with web, Android, iOS, Windows, and some other operating systems. You’ll only need a handy knowledge of Javascript. Also read – Trending Javascript Frameworks for 2020
Frontend development: Ionic uses AngularJS for front-end development. Angular’s CSS and Javascript features allow you to customize your app with buttons, menus, and several attractive color schemes. You can apply derivative and UI elements while you launch your app on different platforms and whoa! Your app just now got a native look.
Developers community: With a vast and active community, you’ll always find help at hand for any problem you face while developing apps on Ionic.
Cordova plugins: This is one of the best parts of Ionic app development. It opens the doors to native device capabilities beyond pure web applications. With Cordova, you get access to logs, battery, geolocation, camera, etc. to enhance your app performance. And you can avail these all by adding just a few simple codes.
Code reusability: Once you’ve developed an app, you can use the same code with slight changes to build an entirely new app. This will help you a lot in improving your TAT (Turn around time).
Testing: Testers can easily run the script using Cordova commands for both iOS and Android.
Now let’s get started with Ionic Framework!
Quick Installation Guide for Ionic & Components
Let’s start with minimum basic requirements for building your app with the current release of Ionic. Currently, Ionic targets iPhone and Android devices supporting iOS 7+ and Android 4.1+. However, you’ll find some old Android devices, where Ionic apps might not work.
If you’re on Windows, make sure you download and install Git for Windowsand optionally Console2. In this guide, you’ll be executing commands in Git Bash or Console2 windows.
First, we need to install the most recent version of Apache Cordova. It will take your app and bundle it into a native wrapper to turn it into a traditional native app.
To install Cordova, make sure you have Node.js installed and then run the command –
$ sudo npm install -g cordova
Special Notes: Linux Android Note:If you’re using a 64-bit version of Ubuntu, install 32-bit libraries. It is because Android is only 32-bit at the moment. You can use the following command-
$ sudo apt-get install ia32-libs
If you’re on Ubuntu 13.04 or greater, ‘ia32-libs’ has been removed. You can use the following packages instead-
Windows note on Java, Ant, and Android: Install the most recent Java 8 JDK and not just the JRE. Currently, Cordova doesn’t support JDK 9.
Next, create an environment variable for JAVA_HOME. It should point to the root folder where the Java JDK is installed. For example, if you’ve installed the JDK into C:\Program\Files\Java\jdk7, set JAVA_HOME at this path. Post this, add the JDK’s bin directory to the PATH variable as well. As per previous assumption, it should be either %JAVA_HOME%\bin or the full path: C:\Program Files\Java\jdk7\bin
Apache Ant
To install Ant, download the zip file (here), extract it, and move the first folder in the zip to a safe place. After this, update your PATH to include the bin folder in that folder. For example, if you moved the Ant folder to C:/, you’d want to add this to your PATH:
C:\apache-ant-1.9.2\bin
Android SDK
It is important to install the Android SDK. Android SDK provides you API libraries and developer tools which are necessary to build, test, and debug Android apps.
You’ll need to set the ANDROID_HOME environment variable. Point this to [ANDROID_SDK_DIR]\android-sdk directory. For example,
C:\android\android-sdk
Next, you’ll need to update your PATH to include the tools/ and platform-tools/ folder in that folder. Therefore, using ANDROID_HOME, add both %ANDROID_HOME%\tools and %ANDROID_HOME%\platform-tools.
Install Ionic
Run the following command to install ionic:
$ sudo npm install -g ionic
Create the project
$ ionic start todo blank –type ionic1
This will create a ‘todo’ folder in the directory where the command was run. Next, go into this directory and list the contents. This is how the outer structure of your ionic project will look like:
$ cd todo && ls
├── bower.json // bower dependencies ├── config.xml // cordova configuration ├── gulpfile.js // gulp tasks ├── hooks // custom cordova hooks to execute on specific commands ├── ionic.project // ionic configuration ├── package.json // node dependencies ├── platforms // iOS/Android specific builds will reside here ├── plugins // where your cordova/ionic plugins will be installed ├── scss // scss code, which will output to www/css/ └── www // application – JS code and libs, CSS, images, etc.
Configure Platforms
Next inform ionic that you want to enable iOS and Android platforms. Please note, unless you’re on macOS, leave out the iOS platform. So, run the following commands.
Let’s now walk through the anatomy of an Ionic app. Inside the folder (we just now created), we’ve a typical Cordova project structure where we can install native plugins, and create platform-specific project files.
./src/index.html
src/index.html is the main entry point for the app, though its purpose is to set up scripts, CSS includes, and bootstrap, or start running our app. We won’t spend much of our time in this file.
For your app to function, Ionic looks for the <ion-app> tag in your HTML. In this example we have:
<ion-app></ion-app>
and the following scripts near the bottom:
<!– Ionic’s root component and where the app will load –> <ion-app></ion-app> <!– The polyfills js is generated during the build process –> <script src=”build/polyfills.js”></script> <!– The vendor js is generated during the build process It contains all of the dependencies in node_modules –> <script src=”build/vendor.js”></script> <!– The main bundle js is generated during the build process –> <script src=”build/main.js”></script>
These scripts are all generated by the build system, so no need to worry about them.
./src/
You’ll find your code inside the src directory. And you’ll be doing most of the work for an ionic app here. While running the ionic server, the code inside src/ is transpiled into the correct Javascript version, which a browser understands. Currently, it’s ES5. This means that we can work at a higher level using TypeScript, but we can also compile down to the older form of Javascript depending on the browser needs.
src/app/app.module.ts is the entry point for our app.
You’ll notice that every app has a root module, which controls the rest of the applications. You’ll find this very similar to ng-app from Ionic 1 and AngularJS. We’ll also bootstrap our app (using ionicBootstrap) from here.
./src/app/app.html
Here we’ll discuss the main template for the app in src/app/app.html.
First, set the root component to MyApp in src/app/app.component.ts. This will be the first component to load in your app. Typically, it is an empty shell for other components to load into it. We’ll set our app.component.ts template to src/app/app.html. This is how it will look.
Enable USB debugging and Developer Mode on your Android device. Then run ionic cordova run android — device from the command line. This will produce a debug build of your app, both in terms of Android and Ionic’s code.
Please note that enabling USB debugging and Developer Mode may vary from device to device. However, it is easy to look up with a simple Google search. For details, you can check out – Enabling On-device Developer Options in the Android docs.
Production Builds
To run or build your app for production, run
ionic cordova run android –prod –release
(or)
ionic cordova build android –prod –release
This command will minify your app’s code as an ionic source. It will also remove any debugging capabilities from the APK. People generally use this while deploying an app to the Google Play Store.
Sign Android APK
For releasing your app in the Google Play Store — sign your APK file. For this, create a new certificate/keystore.
Let’s generate your private key using the keytool command that comes with the JDK:
Now, you’ll be prompted to create a password for the keystore. After answering the rest of the nice tool’s questions, you’ll have a file called — my-release-key.jks in the current directory.
Note: Make sure to save this file somewhere safe, if you lose it you won’t be able to submit updates to your app!
To sign the unsigned APK, run the jarsigner tool which is also included in the JDK:
If you want to verify that your apk is signed, run apksigner. You can find this in the same path as the zipalign tool:
apksigner verify HelloWorld.apk
Now we have our final release binary called HelloWorld.apk and we can release this on the Google Play Store for all the world to enjoy!
iOS Devices
iOS developers need to generate a provisioning profile for code signing their apps for testing. However, the good news is that you can develop and test your apps on your iOS device without a paid Apple Developer account in iOS9. This is particularly great for developers who want to try mobile development using the Ionic Framework.
You’ll require-
Xcode 7 or higher
iOS9
Creating a Provisioning Profile
First of all, you’ll need to set up a provisioning profile for code signing your apps.
Using an Apple ID
Open Xcode preferences (Xcode > Preferences…)
Click the ‘Accounts’ tab
Log in with your Apple ID (+ > Add Apple ID…)
Once you’ve logged in successfully, you’ll find a new ‘Personal team’ with the role ‘Free’ appearing beneath your Apple ID.
Running Your App
Run a production build of your app with ionic cordova build ios –prod
Open the .xcodeproj file in platforms/ios/ in Xcode
Then connect your phone with USB. Select your phone as the run target.
Click the play button in Xcode
Oops, code signing error! No problem.
Code Signing Your App
It totally depends on whether you’re using Xcode 8 or an earlier version…
Xcode 7 and Earlier
For this, you’ll get a code signing error. It will look like the following image when you try to run the app.
To fix this, click the “Fix Issue” button and then select your “Personal Team” profile.
Xcode 8
In Xcode 8, the code signing error will appear as a build-time error instead of a pop-up.
To select the certificate to sign your app with, do the following:
Go to the ‘Project Editor’ by clicking the name of your project in the ‘Project Navigator’
Select the ‘General’ section
Select the team associate with your signing certificate from the ‘Team’ dropdown in the ‘Signing’ section
Trusting the Certificate
After code signing, you’ll get a launch error that looks like the following image. On Xcode 7 and below versions, you’ll see this automatically. On Xcode 8, it appears next time when you try to run the app.
To remove this error, you’ll have to tell the iOS device to trust the certificate. You can do this in the following steps-
On your iOS device, open the ‘Settings’ app
Then, go to General>Device Management. Here, you’ll find the email address associated with your Apple ID or Apple Developer account, which you used while code signing your app.
Tap the email address
Tap ‘Trust <your_email>’:
After this, go back to Xcode and hit the play button. Or you can run ionic cordova run ios –device from the command line to install and launch your app on your iOS device.
Additional tips while using the Ionic Framework
1. Use or create a yeoman generator
Yeoman is a scaffolding tool that allows you to quickly deploy pre-configured projects. A place to start is exploring some of the Ionic Yeoman generators to see if they meet your requirements.
Ionic Framework does have some excellent inclusions. But, you may want to customize your development environment with tools like javascript linters, code coverage support, emulators, and platform integrations to further improve your application. Yeoman generators also expose you to different folder structures, which you might find better than previous approaches.
2. Just put styles in www?
It may be tempting to rush into things and throw new scss files into the www folder; somewhere near the code for the Ionic styles and then add a reference to your CSS file within the index.html.
Avoid that!
This won’t work with the Ionic Gulp set up. It’s a safe practice to not to add things in there.
3. Put your custom app styles into their own folder
Today, your app might be small and simple. But, it will eventually grow and you might want it to remain manageable. You might be concerned especially when a team of developers will be involved in the project.
Hence, I recommend splitting your app’s custom styles into a neater set of files. It should mirror Ionic’s sass files whenever we’re specifically overriding Ionic itself. You can put these custom app styles into their own sub folder, which will be easy to change/update later.
Now that you know that Ionic is the dominant hybrid mobile development framework, installing it, and using it is also easier as compared to other platforms. Do let me know if you have queries, I’ll be happy to help.
About the author: Anand Nanavaty is a Software Engineer at Mantra Labs. He has been involved in mobile app development for the company’s B2B clients. Apart from coding and experimenting with different application development frameworks, Anand likes trekking and hiking into the greens.
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