By FINTECH Books Contributor, Paolo Cuomo Follow: @pgc_at_work Overused as it is, the phrase ‘start of the journey’ absolutely fits where the InsurTech world currently is. It’s only been in the last 18 months that we’ve actually agreed on the term ‘InsurTech’ having had a go with InsTech,and a minor diversion via InsureTech. It’s not just the variations on country names that makes us feel like cartographers in the middle ages, but also the large parts of the map that are still blank. ‘There be Dragons’ feels as apt when defining the roadmap for InsurTech in the early 21st Century as it did when defining the shape of America  and Australia in the 16th and 17th centuries. The unknown is as bewitching, the discoveries as exciting, the stories as apocryphal; but, fortunately, the dangers somewhat less. Yes, most of the first wave of InsurTech start-ups will, like Icarus, rise rapidly upwards, before crashing to oblivion, drowning plenty of VCs’ money. And,while those whose dreams are crushed by incumbents might feel like Captain Cook being hacked to death in Hawaii, there will be no real blood spilled. Yes, our families may complain they never see us, but we’ve a quick Facetime away, rather than truly out at sea,  while a diet of pizza flat-whites may not help our cholesterol, at least the tomato sauce prevents scurvy. I watched the late-90s mobile internet boom as a somewhat disconnected observer. I’m just loving riding this InsurTech wave, with all the thrill of the hunt but no risk of being gored by a wild boar. In this reflection of the road so far walked  the path yet to tread we reflect on how so small a part of the InsurTech adventure can feel so quite so intense,  why the buzz these first explorers have created is drawing in so many others.