In recent years, Insurtech innovations, driven by technologies such as artificial intelligence and blockchain, emerged in the insurance industry, with the promise of improving efficiency. However, while the positive impact of technology on insurance companies’ efficiency is expected, literature assessing it empirically is scarce, when it comes to recent technological change. Focusing on the US public P&C insurance sector in the period 2012–2018 and relying on both nonparametric (two stage DEA) and parametric (SFA) approaches, it emerges that on average insurance companies were not able to leverage on technological innovations to improve their efficiency. On average a relative level of efficiency among companies, according to a two stage DEA model, was quite stable in time, while the SFA approach shows that the distance between efficient and less efficient firms slightly increased. Moreover, we found one very efficient firm, almost a leader of the market in terms of efficiency, and a homogeneous group of followers, indicating that there is vast scope for improvement for less efficient companies. Nevertheless, even the most efficient company impaired its efficiency over time, suggesting that neither the leader nor on average the followers properly leveraged technology to improve their efficiency. In a competitive scenario, with new players’ entrance and fierce competition, inertia may seriously affect their positioning. Academicians, managers and policymakers should carefully consider the effects that a non-improvement of efficiency following technological change may have on market structure, competition and regulations, potentially opening to further discussion on how technological innovations adoption should be facilitated.

近年来，以人工智能、区块链等技术为驱动的保险科技创新在保险行业兴起，有望提升效率。然而，虽然技术对保险公司效率的积极影响是预期的，但在谈到最近的技术变革时，对其进行实证评估的文献却很少。以 2012-2018 年期间美国公共财产险行业为重点，依靠非参数（两阶段 DEA）和参数（SFA）方法，发现保险公司平均无法利用技术创新来提高效率. 根据两阶段 DEA 模型，平均而言，公司之间的相对效率水平在时间上相当稳定，而 SFA 方法表明，有效率和低效率的公司之​​间的距离略有增加。此外，我们发现了一家非常有效率的公司，在效率方面几乎是市场的领导者，并且有一群同质的追随者，这表明效率较低的公司还有很大的改进空间。然而，即使是最有效率的公司也会随着时间的推移降低其效率，这表明领导者和平均追随者都没有适当地利用技术来提高效率。在竞争场景中，随着新玩家的进入和激烈的竞争，惯性可能会严重影响他们的定位。院士、管理者和政策制定者应仔细考虑技术变革后效率未提高可能对市场结构产生的影响，