The Wording Is the Product: Policy Language, Rating Models, and Intellectual Property in Insurance
By Casey Scott McKay ·
An insurance policy is a document, and the document is the product. That single fact makes insurance the only major industry whose core offering is a copyrightable work filed with a regulator and frequently drafted by an industry body that licenses it to competitors. This article works through that arrangement and the layers underneath it: the rating and catastrophe models that carry the real competitive advantage and are protected by secrecy rather than registration, the underwriting data whose provenance nobody documents, the distribution agreements that hand the brand and the customer relationship to intermediaries, and the claims systems that are bought rather than built. It closes on what an insurer actually owns, which is less than it assumes and different from what it protects.
IP and Technology > General IP | Article | Published 22 January 2025 - Updated 23 May 2025 | Casey Scott McKay - marksy.us
Summary. An insurance policy is a document, and the document is the product — which makes insurance the only major industry whose core offering is a copyrightable work filed with a regulator and frequently drafted by an industry body that licenses it to competitors. This article works through that arrangement and the layers underneath: the rating and catastrophe models that carry the real advantage and are protected by secrecy, the underwriting data whose provenance nobody documents, the distribution agreements that hand the brand to intermediaries, and the claims systems that are bought rather than built.
Keywords: insurance IP · policy wordings · bureau forms · rating algorithms · actuarial models · underwriting data · broker agreements · delegated authority · claims systems · catastrophe models · telematics data · product filings · distribution terms · insurtech · reinsurance data
This is premium Marksy content — the full document is available to subscribers.