Throwback Thursday: Computer warning; Sedgwick’s expansion
Insurance Post’s Throwback Thursday steps back in time to August 1975 to remind you what was going on this week in insurance history when concerns were raised about reliance on computers and Sedgwick was opening offices in the world’s “developing areas”.
28 August 1975: Computer warning
“It is an unfortunate fact that many managements fail to appreciate how dependent they are upon computer systems,” wrote Sue Perry, account executive at Risk Management Consultants.
At the end of summer 1972, she wrote: “Computers take over by stealth! First one, then another essential business routine goes inexorably on to the computer.
“Unfortunately the modern computer’s efficiency is our undoing. There is no way in which it can be satisfactorily replaced with manual methods if it should fail for any reason.”
Showing wisdom and how far ahead of her time she was, Perry added: “The computer is essentially susceptible to three main classes of risk: environmental, accidental and deliberate.”
Sedgwick heads to Singapore
Sedgwick Forbes formed Sedgwick Forbes Private Limited in Singapore as part of the group’s strategy of bring strategy to bring international insurance to what bosses then called “the world’s developing areas.”
The move came just after Sedgwick had opened six offices in the Middle East, bringing the group’s coverage up to 58 offices in 24 countries.
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