Industry insiders, students, and many others will be gathering in Tuscaloosa today to talk insurance.
Today is I-Day, or Insurance Day, at the Bryant Conference Center at the University of Alabama. The event has been going on for 35 years and offers insurance professionals the chance to learn from leaders in their field.
This year’s theme is Insurance Evolution: Resilience in a Tech-Disrupted World.
Dr. Bill Rabel chairs the Insurance and Financial Services program at UA’s Culverhouse College of Business. He says the keynote speaker today is Dr. Bharat Balasubramanian of UA’s Center of Advanced Vehicle Technologies.
“Now, Dr. B, as everybody calls him, has spent 40 years of his career at Daimler Benz over in Stuttgart, Germany. All of their autonomous driving, all of their safety features, everything related to technological development.”
And he’ll be using that expertise to explain how advances like autonomous vehicles will impact the insurance industry, then discussing those changes with a panel of other experts.
Dr. Rabel says another session will address the benefits of encouraging and even subsidizing storm resilience; that is, making homes and other buildings better equipped to stand up to hurricane-force winds.
“Because the difference in making these small expenses up front as opposed to having your house blow down and have to replace it. It’s just – the benefit-cost is very, very high."
Insurance agents, attorneys and CPAs are also able to earn continuing education credits through the event. Any profits go to fund scholarships for Insurance & Financial Services, Risk Management, and Actuarial Science students at the University of Alabama.