While it is often easier for P/C insurance and reinsurance executives to rally around incremental innovations, in order to really transform their organizations they need to fund some moonshots, innovation experts said recently.

During a Carrier Management Virtual Roundtable in October (“Is Insurance Innovation Overrated?“), Jeffrey Bohn, chief research and innovation officer for Swiss Re Institute, endorsed a portfolio approach to innovation funding. Such an approach plays into the natural tendency of business leaders to focus on incremental changes while also saving them from devoting time and money on innovative disruptions that fall beyond their comfort zones—and defy typical return-on-investment measurements, he explained.

“It’s the incremental work that any given executive can get behind because they can see the path or at least they can envision how they’re going to get to new revenue and new value,” Bohn said, responding to the moderator of the roundtable, Mike Fitzgerald, principal analyst, Insurance, at CB Insights, who asked Bohn to share a perspective from the front lines of selling innovation inside a company.