Insurance And The Fourth Industrial Revolution

I have been asked a number of times to provide my perspective on the insurance industry in the time of the Industrial Revolution 4.0. In this piece I’ll do so, but first, how did we get to 4.0? What preceded and led to this brave new world of what’s now called “IR4”?
The first industrial revolution occurred in the late 1700s, with most agreeing that the seminal event was the development of the first mechanical loom in England in 1784. More broadly, the period was defined by mechanized production facilities, usually with the help of water and steam power. The second industrial revolution, in the late 1800s, was defined by the concept of division of labor and by mass production, with the help of electricity.