Future Imperfect. Competence-Building in the Insurance Industry in Response to Predictive Genetic Testing.

This exploratory study of knowledge investment in the life insurance industry aims at examining the impact of increasing medical knowledge on the actuarial practice of life insurance companies. A huge literature exists on the innovative dynamics of a number of service industries. In the service industries, knowledge is often taken to be highly embedded in day-to-day operations or to be received through the purchase of equipment from other sectors. Indeed, most of the available studies of innovation in the service industries focus on the introduction of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in banking and insurance. Most of these studies focus on the impact of ICTs on the way recipient organizations do traditional things, and how this leads them to introduce new products (see Hecht 2001 and the seminal work of Barras 1990).