Will technology make insurance obsolete? That was the stark question posed by William Hartnett, a former Microsoft and ACORD executive, in his opening address to the 2017 Global Insurance Symposium, April 26-27 in Des Moines, Iowa. The annual event is sponsored by a coalition of Iowa insurers, reinsurers, system vendors, university insurance departments, and the state’s insurance department. Citing the exponential growth and declining cost of computing power, Hartnett said “a lot of technology today is getting to the point where it’s essentially free.”