The Future of Insurance

For over a century, the Insurance industry has stood by people at the worst moments of their lives, and kept the risk of these moments from standing in the way of people pursuing their dreams. But the industry, and the demands of the people we serve, are changing. The Future of Insurance podcast brings you thoughts from leaders from across the industry to help inspire and inform how we can all help evolve into the future. Brought to you by Bryan Falchuk, industry veteran and author of the best-selling series, "The Future of Insurance: From Disruption to Evolution"

The Future of Insurance Podcast – Wayne Slavin, Co-Founder & CEO, Sure 04/09/2024

The Future of Insurance Podcast – Chetan Kandhari, Chief Innovation & Digital Officer, Nationwide 04/02/2024

The Future of Insurance Podcast – Chetan Kandhari, Chief Innovation & Digital Officer, Nationwide As Chief Innovation and Digital Officer, Chetan is accountable for leading the company’s digital vision and maturing our enterprise digital capabilities and expertise while creating new customer-centric products and services for members and partners. Chetan is a visionary leader who has repeatedly developed high performing teams to work towards a common vision and purpose. During his 18-year career at Nationwide, Chetan successfully delivered several of the industry’s largest transformations, with more than $1B in investment towards creating single core platforms for Policy, Claims, Customer and Data. In his tenure as the leader of digital and innovation, Chetan and his teams have advanced Nationwide’s strategy through digitization of customer journeys and the development of a robust innovation portfolio. Leading with a people-first philosophy, Chetan has fostered a culture of experimentation and collaboration, guided by a strong commitment to customer-centricity and focus on technology based innovation. His ability to anticipate and embrace change has accelerated innovation efforts and amplified key business outcomes for Nationwide. Chetan holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from The Ohio State University, a Master of Science in Information Systems from Miami University, and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Muskingum University. Highlights from the Show Chetan runs the enterprise innovation and digital area, which is here to help focus on what's coming in the future They think about the meta trends impacting insurance, insureds and insurers like autonomous driving, climate change, GenAI and more Nationwide thinks about three things when looking at how to structure your innovation efforts so it's not just a hobby but something that has actual tangible benefit As an industry, there are several things that hold us back, including the standard answers (regulation, it's not a sexy industry), but also things like what we sell not being easily understood / being complex; because the cost of product is unknown at the time of sale, it's very risky to do something new in the space because you won't know if it was a big mistake until it's been far too long to do anything about it; there's a misnomer in the idea of innovation being about something completely new but rather something disruptive Gen AI is something Nationwide has been looking at, and doing some real, tangible things with, mainly focused on how to enable their people to be materially more empathetic much faster Horizon 3 outlook is very much about how connected things impact what Nationwide does Chetan says we need to decide who we are, first movers, fast followers or laggards This episode is brought to you by book series () from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of , available to stream or download on , , and and more. /episode/index/show/futureofinsurance/id/30484973

The Future of Insurance – Paige Halam-Andres, Managing Director, Innovation, Highline Beta 03/26/2024

The Future of Insurance – Paige Halam-Andres, Managing Director, Innovation, Highline Beta Paige leads Highline Beta's Corporate Innovation group that works at the intersection between venture capital, startups and enterprises businesses. Her background is in using qualitative, quantitative and behavioral research to shape and build new companies, products and services. During her time at Highline Beta she's worked with numerous Insurance firms to think through investing in innovation or spinning out new ventures. Highlights from the Show Highline Beta is a hybrid corporate innovation studio and venture capital investor that works with corporate partners to help bring ideas they are working on to fruition internally or as a standalone business, in the US and Canada Insurance is interesting to Paige because of the constraints itself, which present interesting things to work around and through, which pushes for great moments of innovation Some themes they have worked on include Embedded insurance, for example helping an existing carrier allow its idea for embedded to develop outside of their core so it could move faster and more freely and get to market Technical themes like AI (and, yes, GenAI) and how it can be used, especially internally, to improve how we work and the results we can achieve, whether on expenses or losses A major challenge to insurance innovation is the data we have and have access to, and doing so in a way that respects privacy, both legally and for people's comfort levels There are differences between the US and Canada, like how Canadians don't have to buy health insurance and how each state in the US has different rules and regulations, which can complicate deploying a single approach to an idea across the country For AI, we're still at the early stages of implementation, which are largely around making incremental improvements, especially around efficiency To reach a five or 10 year outlook, that will take changing a lot of the internal systems, both technical and operationally, around, for example, whether a process has any human interaction at all (like the handling of a claim), and how to enable that Looking ahead, connecting products, data and consumers will lead to better insurance products that better meet people's needs, but also allows us to start to make meaningful progress on the Predict & Prevent notions we hear a lot of talk around today This episode is brought to you by book series () from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of , available to stream or download on , , and and more. /episode/index/show/futureofinsurance/id/30376383

The Future of Insurance – Bryan Falchuk on Culture & Opportunity (Bonus Episode) 03/12/2024

The Future of Insurance – Dr. Robin Kiera, Author of "Attention Hacking" 03/05/2024

The Future of Insurance – David Gritz, Co-Founder, InsurTech NY 02/27/2024

The Future of Insurance – David Gritz, Co-Founder, InsurTech NY David Gritz joins the show again, this time solo, to share some of the important themes he and his InsurTech NY co-founder, Tony Lew, are making the center of their 2024 Spring Conference. Those themes, AI and Analytics, are each powerful and important in their own right, but the interplay of the two is exponentially more impactful for the future of the insurance industry. The Spring Conference will again focus on practical and impactful applications of AI and Analytics from across P&C, Life and Benefits, with speakers and panelists from across the industry, as well as outstanding networking opportunities. Highlights from the Show InsurTech NY is an ecosystem that acts as an international gateway for startups, brokers, investors and insurers to come together to make the world more resilient through insurance solutions David's experience with an insurtech startup is told in The Future of Insurance, Volume III. The Collaborators March 20th and 21st is the InsurTech NY Spring Conference at Chelsea Piers in NYC, with this year's themes being AI & Analytics and how they can improve underwriting, claims outcomes and more They try to make the content practical so people can walk away with ideas about implementation and impact, with thoughts like how AI can make you more efficient, which can allow your people to dig into the things that take more expertise and therefore drive better results The framing for the event is focused on some key questions Will AI stick in the industry? If so, what kinds of AI and applications are likely to be more than just buzz? How can Analytics help with the highly volatile state of the world today, and the way volatility in different areas is so intertwined, like labor, inflation, war and climate risks? How does AI coming together with Analytics change things? They have a startup in their accelerator called looking at this type of question precisely ITNY also has launched a VC Fund, and are launching their second fund now, with a few areas of focus The growth of Excess & Surplus (E&S) lines as a way for startups to serve a niche that existing players can't serve effectively today A portfolio company, , focuses on multi-family property risks and combine insurance with a tool to drive better property management and upkeep to reduce losses and rates Reducing the friction in insurance transactions, which is a broad theme A portfolio company, , combines all the tools an underwriter needs in one screen to make it easier to take in underwriting inputs from different sources like weather tools smoother and faster Increasing the availability of coverage to more parts of the market to make the world more resilient , who makes disability insurance easier to buy, helping to solve for the extremely low penetration rates of the coverage (only 14% in the US, and just 5% in the UK) The second day Keynote is a panel around startups getting to profitability, with three major insurtech CEOs on stage Jack Kudale, CEO and co-founder of Cowbell Cyber Alex Timms, CEO and founder of Root Insurance Rick McCathron, CEO of Hippo You can get more information and tickets to the ITNY Spring Conference at This episode is brought to you by book series () from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of , available to stream or download on , , and and more. /episode/index/show/futureofinsurance/id/30042038

The Future of Insurance – Josh Levine, Founder & CEO, Cake & Arrow 02/20/2024

The Future of Insurance – Josh Levine, Founder & CEO, Cake & Arrow Josh Levine is the founder and CEO of Cake & Arrow, an experience design and product innovation company that works exclusively with insurance companies to create digital products and services that are grounded in real customer needs. With over 25 years practicing human-centered design methodology, Josh has led innovation initiatives for some of the world’s largest carriers and distributors including MetLife, Travelers, Chubb, Aflac, The General, and American Family. A designer by trade, Josh is most passionate about helping insurance companies leverage a design-driven mindset to create authentic and meaningful relationships with the customers and employees they serve. is a UX Design and Product Innovation company that works exclusively with the Insurance industry. We believe empathy sparks opportunity. Our human-centered design approach helps carriers, distributors, and service providers create breakthrough digital experiences that drive results. For more than 20 years, we’ve helped the insurance industry make buying, selling, and servicing insurance better for everyone, by design. Highlights from the Show Cake & Arrow is a UX and product innovation design firm focused solely on insurance, starting from human needs (of the customer) They leverage design and human centered mindsets to help the insurance industry make buying, selling and servicing people better What's holding us back? Josh shared several reasons We are wired to think about our company and our industry – competitor intelligence – and so we look at what we and our competitors think or are doing rather than starting with customer intelligence If you don't, you'll miss the shift in customer trends, challenges and interests We have a tendency to jump into solution mode, which means we put a lot of resources into projects that take years to implement, but they may not be the right things to be working on, so we're expending a lot of time and resource on things that aren't what we should really be working on We measure progress by the number of features we roll out rather than the impact on the customer The intent to innovate is there, however, so Josh has great hope for the industry's ability to move forward Key Lines from the Episode Josh's LinkedIn: Select articles and reports: This episode is brought to you by book series () from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of , available to stream or download on , , and and more. /episode/index/show/futureofinsurance/id/29908703

The Future of Insurance – Stacey Brown, Founder & President, InsurTech Hartford 02/13/2024

The Future of Insurance – Stacey Brown, Founder & President, InsurTech Hartford InsurTech Hartford Founder and President (and Godfather of InsurTech), Stacey Brown, joined the show to share what drove him to start the community years ago, how it’s evolved into a thriving, international source of impact for the future of industry, how the InsurTech Hartford Symposium is evolving for its fourth year, and the exciting launch of communities in Chicago, Atlanta and now New England. Highlights from the Show Stacey started his insurance career in an IT role, and had an opportunity to grow his path into the digital opportunities that started to surface in the 2010s In 2017, looking at the developments in the space, he saw a need to build a community in Hartford to foster the opportunities in the region because of its unique confluence of companies, educational institutions and local and state government He started InsurTech Hartford to drive networking in the space, but also to help grow the community itself through a variety of activities, like working with local schools (high school and college) on their programs, letting startups pitch their solutions, and more, including their annual InsurTech Hartford Symposium This year's Symposium will be at Mohegan Sun, April 17-18 Programming will feature a single track so the event can be more focused and communal There will be roundtables and other ways for people to work together on issues more directly The networking space will continue to be big, open and inviting to encourage sharing of ideas, building of relationships and learning about all the great solutions out there They've expanded to help grow similar organizations in other cities, starting with InsurTech Chicago and InsurTech Atlanta On February 28th, the first event of the new InsurTech New England will take place in Boston's Seaport district, with a panel, Meet the Startups session and lots of networking as we start to build a community to serve the rest of New England (register at ) This episode is brought to you by book series () from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of , available to stream or download on , , and and more. /episode/index/show/futureofinsurance/id/29908563

The Future of Insurance – Tomer Kashi, Co-Founder & CEO, Voom 02/06/2024

The Future of Insurance – Tomer Kashi, Co-Founder & CEO, Voom Tomer is CEO and Co-Founder of VOOM. VOOM is an InsurTech pioneer, crafting cutting-edge, usage-based insurance solutions for the future of mobility. Among VOOM products are VOOM&Fly/SkyWatch - the leading digital drone insurance product in North America, VOOM & RIDE - the world's first pay-per-mile motorcycle insurance product, and VOOM & Drive - auto insurance tailored for the unique needs of gig drivers. Before VOOM, Tomer spearheaded award-winning, interdisciplinary technological projects in the Israeli Prime Minister's Office cyber unit. Tomer is a graduate of Israel’s elite technology program “Talpiot”, and holds an MBA from Tel Aviv and a BSc in computer science and physics from the Hebrew University. Highlights from the Show Tomer is a computer scientist and physicist by background, and started his work in an elite unit in the Israeli Defense Force's technology unit, and met his cofounder, Ori After completing their service, they wanted to start a new business, and eventually started a drone insurer, SkyWatch, which is the largest drone insurer in North America today, and Voom, a mobility insurer SkyWatch saw success because they built a best-of-breed risk assessment platform, as well as a core system that allowed great flexibility in distribution (including embedded), data and more that they call the Voom Core Voom is focused on mobility insurance, like motorcycle, ride-sharing solutions and other auto and mobility related insurance products The strategy has been to identify a specific category, look at what would be needed to truly delight customers and serve their needs, and try to deliver that, which they've used to go into several spaces beyond their initial drone product One example is how they've address motorcycle coverage Many motorcycles (70%) are occasional-use products, so paying for coverage for regular use seems not to make sense Voom offers the first pay-per-mile motorcycle product, based on sending a photo of your odometer to calculate mileage For traditional insurers to innovate in small segments (relative to their overall scale) is hard because the lift isn't enough for the size of their bottom-line, so customers end up being overlooked and stuck with products and CX that becomes outdated They think of changes in mobility in three ways: New platforms - beyond cars, moving into drones, e-scooters and more Increased connectivity - data connections impacting underwriting, loss prevention and more (like their pay-per-mile motorcycle product) New utilization - changes in ways of using platforms, like ride-sharing changing how cars are used The future of mobility insurance isn't something Tomer claims to know what will happen in the long term, despite all the predictions out there, but he does see some things emerging and some things as technology proof Regardless of autonomy, some people will still want to drive for the pleasure of it, including motorcyclists New ways to use mobility products will keep emerging, and they will require coverage designed for that specific solution, like when Uber or Turo came to be This episode is brought to you by book series () from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of , available to stream or download on , , and and more. /episode/index/show/futureofinsurance/id/29674228

The Future of Insurance – Wesley Pergament, Co-Founder & CEO, Sola 01/30/2024

The Future of Insurance – Wesley Pergament, Co-Founder & CEO, Sola Wesley is CEO and Co-Founder of Sola Insurance based in Atlanta, GA. Wesley comes from a tech background and jumped into the insurance industry at a flood insurance startup where he was tasked with working on the data side with private and FEMA flood maps. Realizing this data was telling us exactly where the damage is, Wesley became obsessed with how data can be used to automatically trigger an insurance claim payout. Sola is starting with supplemental tornado coverage for homeowners but plans to expand into every type of natural disaster to help people cover their deductible and immediate expenses. Sola has already been approved in 15 states as the first ever admitted personal lines parametric product, is fully reinsured through Lloyd’s of London, and has partnered with hundreds of insurance agencies across the Midwest and Southeast. Highlights from the Show Sola Insurance is a new class of financial insurance products that helps homeowners cover their deductible and immediate expenses after natural disaster events Sola is developing new products that pay period faster and more transparently so they can get back on their feet Right after a disaster, there's an immediate need for assistance while you wait for a traditional claim to get handled (even if it's handled quickly) Deductibles have increased across many lines of insurance, with homeowners choosing $2,500 deductibles twice as frequently just over four years ago, which is more than most Americans have saved for emergencies Many homeowners policies or coverages within them have significantly higher deductibles, like for wind or quake The pressure to increase deductibles is only getting worse, as discussed in we mentioned The cost of capital and providing insurance for carriers is going up, with 30% increases in reinsurance The initial product is a Tornado parametric coverage, which is the first time a startup has launched an admitted parametric product They have capacity from Beazley and fronting from Spinnaker They've just had their first two claims after the Hendersonville tornado outside of Nashville, Tennessee, and paid both within 60 hours of the tornado touching down They see this as complementary to existing coverage, and have seen a lot of interest and support from independent agents who are looking for ways to create coverage to fill in for increasing deductibles to keep insurance affordable With the original HO policy developed in the 1950s, Sola is trying to create solutions for what risk looks like today Their next priority is Wind & Hail, which is segmented out on traditional HO policies and is a frequent cause of loss Wesley started Sola in the in 2021 and is young, along with his co-founders, and they haven't let that stop them or slow them down in an industry where tenure and tradition continue to carry weight Wesley credits a two things with their success despite their age: An innate sense of curiosity, which helped him to really get into the issues at hand and stay open to learning People can't deny the work that you've done, so the team has ensured they keep delivering and proving themselves, balancing the need to spend time building relationships with delivering tangible milestones and results This episode is brought to you by book series () from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of , available to stream or download on , , and and more. /episode/index/show/futureofinsurance/id/29472458

The Future of Insurance – Kobi Bendelak, CEO, InsurTech Israel 01/23/2024

The Future of Insurance – Kobi Bendelak, CEO, InsurTech Israel Kobi is the CEO of that established by him to promote and lead the Israeli Insurtech ecosystem. The company has four areas of activity, investments, Bizdev, media and Acceleration program. All that activities make InsurTech Israel as the leading and most active company in the Israeli Insurtech. Kobi was the founder and CEO of Reshef Insurance Brokers, part of Migdal / Generali Insurance Group. Kobi has 22 years of experience in the insurance industry and holds a BA in Management and an MA in Law from Bar Ilan University and he is a Colonel (Reserve) in the IDF. Highlights from the Show Kobi started an MGA in Israel that grew to be the largest in the country that he sold to Generali After some time off, he saw a need to create a way to strengthen the insurtech ecosystem in the country Tel Aviv has almost 200 insurance startups, and InsurTech Israel supports them with four pillars Investment Business Development Exposure Accelerator They partner with other organizations, including BrokerTechVentures, AIG, Aon, AF Group, Dell, Milliman, ResourcePro, Xceedance and others They work across the entire value chain and space in insurance Insurance works on trust, so their core mission is really to help build trust in companies in the ecosystem there Tel Aviv has been a hotspot for innovation more broadly, which Kobi attributes to a very social environment, open mindsets of the people to embrace new ideas, and infrastructure from the government and supporting areas like venture capital Right now is obviously a very difficult time for anyone in the area, and only adds to the uncertainty and need for great leadership for startups Kobi shared the initial shock after Black Saturday in October After a few days, they realized they cannot stay in shock, and must continue or they will lose their momentum and place in the industry It's a time where the country is clearly in the midst of trauma and the impact that's having on the community is visible One reason Kobi believes Israel has so many startups is the way it faces major strife and disaster and comes back stronger, which builds resilience and toughness to press through great challenges Today, the main focus for InsurTech Israel is to support their startups with fundraising as they found many of their members were planning to raise soon and need support there given the way the war is impacting fundraising and these startups need to make it through to their next raise This episode is brought to you by book series () from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of , available to stream or download on , , and and more. /episode/index/show/futureofinsurance/id/29472423

The Future of Insurance – Bobby Touran, Co-Founder & CEO, Rainbow 01/16/2024

The Future of Insurance – Bobby Touran, Co-Founder & CEO, Rainbow Bobby Touran is the CEO and co-founder of Rainbow. He is a founder, CEO and operator with over 15 years of experience in insurance and software development, having previously founded Pathpoint, a digital insurance brokerage focused on retail agents and their E&S risk. Follow him on . Highlights from the Show Bobby is an entrepreneur, with the second half of his career being focused on insurance, including starting a digital E&S exchange, and now co-founding an MGA called Rainbow Rainbow is an MGA focused on specific niches or verticals in small commercial, using that focus to enable better underwriting and service to the space Their initial focus is on providing BOP to restaurants, which they view as an area that will always need coverage and is going through dislocation today as some traditional players have pulled back They can connect third party datasets that are super-specific to a vertical for better understanding of the risk and not just to enable faster application completion time or quote turnaround They also have expert underwriters who really understand the vertical rather than looking to automate underwriting out of the equation In terms of moving into new verticals vs. investing in growing out their first vertical of restaurants, they see plenty of room for growth in restaurants today as they add more states or deepen their distribution relationships with their agents, but they also have a rubric of sorts to help them identify where to move next in terms of new verticals Their relationships with agents and brokers and the underlying platform they've built should allow them to scale and expand efficiently without having to build it all from scratch with each new vertical The focus on a handful of codes for a given vertical helps them stay focused and clear on what they do (and don't do), and the systems, processes and skills needed to support their business They've also built their platform with modularity but also in-house so they aren't beholden to constraints of other systems or vendors They get better underwriting results through three prongs to their strategy Their system has their risk selection built in from the start so they can weed out risks they aren't positioned to underwrite quickly and early for their agents, and the criteria can be very nuanced, specific and inter-connected They have access to deep data on their vertical, and keep eyes on it over the life of a risk so they can get a truer picture of risk early and often They have experienced human underwriters, who not only look at the risks, but also provide differentiated service to their agents and brokers which is something their distribution partners call out specifically as a reason they like working with Rainbow Bobby thinks there's a lot of opportunity today, even in this investment environment, but it requires demonstrating genuinely good underwriting results at the heart of your business When some in the market run away from a space that needs to be served, Bobby sees a moment of opportunity to see if a better approach can be deployed to then successfully and profitably seize on that market dislocation This episode is brought to you by book series () from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of , available to stream or download on , , and and more. /episode/index/show/futureofinsurance/id/29444388

The Future of Insurance – Adrian Jones, InsurTech Investor 12/19/2023

The Future of Insurance – Adrian Jones, InsurTech Investor Adrian Jones is venture capitalist in insurance and former reinsurance executive. Organizations that he has been a part of have invested in 40+ young insurance sector companies. Adrian has been a Board director or observer at eight young companies including distributors, carriers, and service providers in insurance. Before joining HSCM Ventures as a Partner in 2021, he was Deputy CEO of P&C Partners at SCOR, where he set-up and led SCOR P&C Ventures. From 2010 to 2016, he was head of strategy at RenaissanceRe. He started his career in 2001 at Bain & Co and has lived/worked in New York, Paris, Bermuda, Brussels, and Stockholm. Comments made by Adrian are made in a personal capacity only and should not be associated with any organization to which he is afiliated, employed, or an investor. His comments are solely for educational purposes and do not represent recommendations or research. Highlights from the Show Adrian started in consulting, then worked in reinsurance and venture investing He has been looking at the headcount in the InsurTech sector starting with data from mid-2020, and saw that employment has increased from about 75,000 to over 100,000 In the downturn, there was a retrenchment, with companies reducing staff by 31% on average, with the bulk of that being driven by mid-sized companies (200-1000 employees) There's been a lot of movement recently, between startups and incumbents, and people from outside the industry coming into it (and vice versa) This also portends the changes we've now seen in the traditional insurance companies, especially in admitted carriers, some of which have been reducing staff Adrian spoke at ITC on lessons from early InsurTechs (founded after 2008) who are now worth $5 B or more, and looked into what lessons we can learn from their success He noted 7 lessons from their experience A surprising finding is that technology is not the differentiator He found leadership teams that were experienced, entry into dislocated markets, partnership and support with regulators, and time to prove their model's success "Insurance is a business of compounding reserves over time, and many young businesses haven't had the chance to prove that their compounding machine works? You can see his slides at Insurance isn't about the giant TAM and high traction for Adrian, who would rather see less traction but the right traction rather than getting lots of traction that ends up being bad business Adrian has also seen reinsurers support the new InsurTech risk takers, whether backing programs where 100% gets ceded, to even carriers where they're ceding 40-60% of the premium (whereas an established carrier seeds 6% on average) He didn't see the reinsurance veto people predicted We talked about how to address the issue where coverage is too expensive to buy and too cheap to sell in some pockets today, and what role parametric could play in solving that He sees parametric as a good solution, but in niche situations like a deductible buy down You face basis risk and a need for distributors who are willing to educate consumers while taking potential E&O exposure if insureds are unhappy when their loss isn't paid because the parametric trigger wasn't met This episode is brought to you by book series () from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of , available to stream or download on , , and and more. /episode/index/show/futureofinsurance/id/29135728

The Future of Insurance – Juan de Castro, COO, Cytora 12/12/2023

The Future of Insurance – Juan de Castro, COO, Cytora Juan de Castro is COO of Cytora, leading product strategy, sales, distribution, partnerships and operations. He was previously UK COO at Hiscox (FTSE100), and lead Group Strategy and Corporate Development at the Group level, reporting to the Group CEO. Before moving into Insurance, Juan was a senior manager at McKinsey’s Silicon Valley office, focusing on growth strategy and operational improvement engagements for Fortune 100 companies. He worked across a number of different industries, from Tech to Utilities and Financial Services, with a special focus on digital strategy and operational turnarounds. A Computer Engineer by training, he started with a technical career owning P&L responsibility in a professional services division, building and leading engineering teams. He holds a Master’s degree from Stanford Graduate School of Business and a Computer Engineering degree from Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Highlights from the Show Juan came to Insurance from consulting in Silicon Valley, and admits he didn't realize how much he didn't realize that justified the sense some have of the industry being behind, like not knowing the cost of the goods you're selling when you sell it He also found that we spend a lot to bring customers in, only to decide they're out of appetite, especially in the direct channel, where his carrier work focused Serving as COO of Hiscox UK, he focused a lot on the expense ratio, but worked on driving up premium per underwriter rather than cutting costs, which he sees as less sustainable or impactful He found getting the data you really need to do this is hard, like where underwriters spend their time or lose it Once you had the data, you had limited tools to deliver on what you discovered, like how to identify the right risks quickly and then get them to the right underwriters Juan sees a growing focus on the end-to-end workflow of underwriters, much like how manufacturing transformed in the Industrial Revolution New tools enabled the flow of work and automation New energy enabled speed and deploying tools that weren't possible before Automation allowed the new fuel and tools to push product through the system This is actually very similar to how underwriters work, and we're in the midst of the same type of drivers coming online New tools, like AI and Gen AI New fuel, meaning better internal and external data New ability to deploy automation that didn't exist before, so risk can flow (which is the idea behind Cytora's podcast that Juan hosts, called ) This is a moment where underwriters can rise above the transaction to focus on macro-level issues and engage with brokers In the mid-market area that Juan and Cytora focuses, he talks about 10 Click Underwriting This is about using tools to remove the excessive number of steps and handoffs internally so risks can come in and be quoted within hours instead of days or weeks This includes using third party data and artificial intelligence to take in submissions, analyze and prioritize them in conjunction with a rating engine, to present prioritized opportunities to underwriters with the transactional work done for them When it comes to AI, Juan is interesting in enabling both the early adopters and those who are on the sidelines, unsure of what to do You need to have the right controls and safeguards, like not sending proprietary data to the LLMs to protect carrier's IP LLMs allow carriers to overcome historic roadblocks to digitization, with three examples he shared: Ingesting submissions from brokers and taking the insights from them without having to train models on hundreds or thousands of examples Mapping data, once extracted, so your internal systems can understand, like taking in varied occupancy reports in a way that informs a rating engine and record of risk system without a person having to make sense of it Bring together UW guidelines and the book of business to help guide underwriters on how to handle a specific risk – something you'd need years of coaching, shadowing and training to achieve otherwise Juan thinks the horizon for adoption of AI is different from past technology like IoT because the benefits aren't theoretical, they're real, tangible and demonstrable, so he believes the industry will move faster here This episode is brought to you by book series () from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of , available to stream or download on , , and and more. /episode/index/show/futureofinsurance/id/28788693

The Future of Insurance – Jean-Christophe Garaix of Liberty Mutual Re & Andy Thompson of Safehub 12/05/2023

The Future of Insurance – Jean-Christophe Garaix of Liberty Mutual Re & Andy Thompson of Safehub Jean-Christophe Garaix, Head of Agriculture & Parametric Insurance for Liberty Mutual Reinsurance, and Andy Thompson, Co-Founder & CEO of Safehub, join the show to discuss their collaboration on addressing earthquake exposure. Using Safehub's IoT sensors, they've been able to design a parametric insurance product that's live in Mexico City – one of the most quake-prone areas in the world – that brings building-specific shake accuracy to the adjusting of claims. This allows for an affordable coverage that can be provided quickly while solving for the basis risk inherent in previous earthquake data like shake maps. Together, they're working to create great resiliency through the network effect of improved and more point-specific data coming together to paint accurate pictures of risk and how it plays out. Highlights from the Show Jean-Christophe (JC) Garaix oversees the parametric business for Liberty Mutual Reinsurance, looking for external / third party index for the basis to adjust a risk Andy Thompson, co-founder of Safehub, is a structural earthquake engineer by background who became acutely aware of the lack of individual-building performance during earthquakes and other shaking events, and sought to create a sensor-based solution that's easy to deploy to solve this Existing tools are about regional effects, which are helpful for municipalities or disaster response efforts, but not useful for a specific building, where the impact of one building could be completely different to that of a neighboring building Safehub has been working with many building owners for years to help with business continuity, maintenance and general management of their properties, but thought this could increase resilience by solving the basis risk issue JC talked about by partnering with an insurer The size, simplicity and stand-alone nature of Safehub's solution allowed Liberty Mutual to extend a coverage like this to smaller insureds in addition to their large property clients For parametric coverage to succeed, JC jokes that you need education, education and education Liberty is looking at similar solutions for other types of events, like cyclones where there is broad-brush data, but they need to measure the wind speed at a specific location to offer coverage for an individual property Today, the issue is less about data availability (which was the issue a decade ago), and more one of product design A barrier to adoption of the kinds of sensors that allow for solutions like this has been the complexity of installation, making the commercial market more attractive for such products Bringing asset-specific data in a bigger network allows for more resiliency and protection by enabling parametric and other innovative products that can close protection gaps, offer cover options This episode is brought to you by book series () from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of , available to stream or download on , , and and more. /episode/index/show/futureofinsurance/id/28692988

The Future of Insurance – ITC Recap with Nick Lamparelli 11/28/2023

The Future of Insurance – ITC Recap with Nick Lamparelli Nick and I sit down once again to talk about all the things on our mind. We recorded this in the hotel the morning after ITC 2023 ended, so we recap the event a bit, talk about insurability in Florida and how the rest of the nation is likely to follow that state, Hurricane Otis and more. As always, Nick is a source of a ton of knowledge, perspective and new thinking on what is and what could be for our industry. Highlights from the Show Nick is the Managing Partner of Insurance Nerds, and has just co-founded the Insurance Advocacy Forum of Florida It is an alliance of carriers, brokers, reinsurance brokers, insurtechs, claims professionals and more to advocate for and promote a healthy, stable insurance market Efforts in Florida will be important for the rest of the country since it's generally been a few years ahead of where the rest of the country has ended or will end up given the changing loss patterns driven by climate change and liability costs You need the conditions in place for risk capital to come in and the regulatory structure for the flexibility to use that capital efficiently and effectively and to drive the innovation needed to create product options for consumers to be able to afford to buy coverage and for carriers to be able to afford to offer them At ITC, Nick saw a lot of GenAI talk, but the substance behind it wasn't always there This is driven by the need to compete for airtime and investor attention when GenAI is so hyped up in the conversation ITC has so much going on thematically that it's hard to say what the single theme of the event is It's really more of a networking opportunity given the concentration of people you need to see all being together, though the logistics of seeing so many people when you're running around and being grabbed by people who want to talk is tricky Nick also saw a lot of private meetings rather than trying to fight through the crowds, including bringing people into town since so many of the folks they'd need to talk to are there anyway Outside of ITC, Nick has had conversations with several mutuals who are seeing a need for E&S paper to take advantage of risk opportunities that their strict, admitted underwriting guidelines won't allow them to write Insurance only works at scale, so finding ways to stay viable as a business if you have to contact too far could be a real risk for carriers who are left with pulling out of markets as the only tool in their tool box Hurricane Otis went from Tropical Storm to Cat 5 Hurricane in just 12 hours, which is incredibly rapid This puts pressure on modelers to be able to accommodate for and predict that behavior This was also a strong example of the power of good building codes; Acapulco was built to withstand earthquakes given that this is the main CAT exposure the area faces, so a Cat 5 hurricane basically hollowed out the buildings there because they were only built to stand up to tropical storms Floridian buildings are increasingly built to Cat 5 standards, especially in South Florida, so Nick believes the same storm in Florida would have left the buildings able to reopen within days instead of the extent of rebuilding needed This episode is brought to you by book series () from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of , available to stream or download on , , and and more. /episode/index/show/futureofinsurance/id/28515482

The Future of Insurance – Tanguy Catlin, Senior Partner, McKinsey & Company 11/21/2023

The Future of Insurance – Tanguy Catlin, Senior Partner, McKinsey & Company Tanguy helps companies build out their digital capabilities to deliver rapid results and sustained growth. He leads the McKinsey Digital hubs across North America and Mexico. Until recently, Tanguy shepherded the firm’s property and casualty insurance work in North America. In his client work, Tanguy helps leading global financial-services firms with analytics transformations, digitally enabled business model transformations, and core-technology-modernization programs. He also serves insurance clients more broadly on issues ranging from strategy and organization design to claims and underwriting. In addition to his client work, Tanguy frequently contributes to industry publications and authors reports, and white papers on issues confronting the insurance industry. Through his undergraduate and graduate studies, Tanguy was a Siebel scholar and Fulbright fellow. He is a trustee of Carano for Children, a former member of the MIT Sloan alumni board and of the Massachusetts chapter of March of Dimes, a non-for-profit organization that works to improve the health of mothers and babies. Highlights from the Show Tanguy is a Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company, working in their Insurance practice, and co-leads their digital practice, which covers such important things as AI McKinsey is talking to insurers, car makers, regulators and others around the concept of mobility Current Auto insurance products were designed for an industry in decline, where combustion cars without sensors or data are being replaced by things that look similar, but are fundamentally different, which means the existing products aren't going to be fit for purpose We're at the early stages of that transition, but this is when carriers should be thinking about how to respond They see a world in the not-too-distant future where 30% of mobility will be ride-sharing, 50% of vehicles will be Evs, and that has profound impacts on Auto insurance As evidence of this, look at the very high take-up rate for Tesla Insurance where it's available The pace of change will be slower than some say given that the car fleet needs to change over to newer vehicles with new capabilities Distracted Driving is working against the improvements in loss reduction faster than safety tech can lower it, so losses are increasing despite more tools to combat them You will see more partnerships amongst those who succeed, while those less open to partnership will struggle When it comes to AI, Generative AI is not just a buzzword, but is a real disruptor that will have tremendous impact because it's about content creation, which AI has never been able to do before Generative AI can tackle the one thing robots or computers couldn't – empathy at a human level Given that delivering insurance service is a moment of empathy, that means GenAI can be profoundly impactful in insurance in a way that no other technology could be The technology and training the models isn't the hard part of this, but culture, change management and getting the data available cleanly in the cloud is the hard part The dynamics have and are changing so much that Tanguy observes that the industry seems to be losing relevance, as shown by declining rates of CAT losses covered by insurers, which has dropped over time He sees the solution being around the massive unlock of moving from protection to prevention, which changes the importance of what we do With the support of investors behind insurtechs working on solutions and carriers willing to collaborate, there is hope Interestingly, while there was fear that Big Tech was coming for Insurance, they are so critical to cloud-based solutions that they can also be part of this collaborative effort This episode is brought to you by book series () from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of , available to stream or download on , , and and more. /episode/index/show/futureofinsurance/id/28492946

The Future of Insurance Podcast – Rob Schimek, Founder & CEO, bolttech 11/14/2023

The Future of Insurance Podcast – Rob Schimek, Founder & CEO, bolttech Rob is the Group Chief Executive Officer of , the fast-growing international insurtech, responsible for the company’s development and growth around the world. With more than 30 years’ experience in the financial services industry, Rob has previously held senior leadership roles in insurance, including President and CEO of AIG’s commercial insurance businesses worldwide and Chief Executive Officer of the Americas for AIG. Prior to that, Rob served as President and Chief Executive Officer of EMEA and was the Chief Financial Officer of AIG’s global property and casualty business. Before joining AIG, Rob was a partner at Deloitte & Touche L.L.P. where, for 18 years, he used his public accounting experience to serve global financial institution clients, including MetLife, The Prudential Insurance Company of America, and Merrill Lynch. Rob is a C.P.A. He earned his M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a graduate of Rider University in New Jersey and Chairman of the Rider University Board of Trustees. Highlights from the Show Rob started as an accountant, and then moved to AIG He left AIG with a lot of lessons of what to do and what not to do, and used that to start bolttech as a an insurance distribution solution for the industry They work on embedded insurance, but with a broad definition of the term Bolttech runs an insurance exchange, connecting buyers and sellers of protection and insurance, and current have a scaled solution that's doing 25 homeowners quotes a minute, every hour of every day (that's 36,000 per day for just one line of business) Their take on embedded allows for the flexibility to offer choice of carrier and product, but also thinks much more broadly about how insurance can support the transaction around the core product it provides protection around, rather than trying to be the center of the transaction itself bolttech intentionally does not think about insurance as the center of the transaction, which helps them to think about other moments and areas to connect into the needs of the consumer rather than a single buying moment Part of this comes from the understanding insurers don't need to do or solve for everything themselves, and finding ways to solve a customer's needs whether it's with something you built or not is better than trying to force your own solution when it's not fit for purpose Two things have been holding embedded back from living up to the hype yet Before that, bolttech recognizes that they're fast but their partners aren't always as fast, so they need to slow down while helping their partners to speed up so they can meet in the middle The first element slowing things is the idea of DIY – I don't need anyone else to be able to build an embedded solution It is possible, but it is slower than if you worked with someone else Second, many players are working on embedded solutions in pockets, which end up being disjointed and subscale rather than what would be possible if we could connect those points together so they can help each other grow When you try to build the entire embedded solution alone, you will move slower and less ideally than if you cooperated and connected to others working on the issue, too You really need to think in the really big picture of everything around the customer rather than any one product, or even just insurance Rob thinks about bolttech as building the rails that enable the trains of products customers need can be delivered, regardless of who builds or sells the products themselves This episode is brought to you by which features bolttech, available at ) by Theresa Blissing. Follow the podcast at for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of , available to stream or download on , , and and more. /episode/index/show/futureofinsurance/id/28515458

The Future of Insurance – ITC Recap with Ema Roloff 11/07/2023

The Future of Insurance – ITC Recap with Ema Roloff Ema Roloff is a passionate educator and digital transformation expert with a unique background in teaching and over a decade of experience guiding companies through their digital evolution. She is the co-founder of and the Host of . Ema has received prestigious awards and accolades, including the RISE 35 under 35 Award and recognition as an Industry Influencer by InsurTech Hartford. Ema's diverse experience spans various industries, enabling her to identify patterns and facilitate insightful discussions that transcend industry boundaries. With over 300 expert interviews conducted in Digital Transformation and Innovation, Ema is a trusted voice in the field. Highlights from the Show Ema and her husband run a sales consulting firm called Roloff Consulting for companies in the insurance space to help companies sell the way people want to buy, using education and digital channels At ITC this year, Ema has seen A change from just talking about the hot, trending topics like GenAI, and trying to get into practical ways to take advantage of the tech A meaningful use of AI as an example was what IRYS did to use in-context support for agents driven by the data IRYS has on the agency's business to support things like marketing activities and book management This was only possible because of the way the data model behind the solution has been contemplated with tools like this explicitly in mind Ema also was engaged in a panel about attracting and keeping new talent Updating tools and processes can make the industry more attractive to new comers to the industry Reverse mentorship is another way to help the industry do better at meeting the needs of new or different talent than we've ever had, and broaden the understanding of more senior people in the industry This episode is brought to you by book series () from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of , available to stream or download on , , and and more. /episode/index/show/futureofinsurance/id/28515422

The Future of Insurance – Tim Hays, CIO, Mountain West Farm Bureau 10/31/2023

The Future of Insurance – Tim Hays, CIO, Mountain West Farm Bureau Tim Hays has spent the last couple decades leading digital transformation efforts for pharmaceutical & manufacturing companies. With a track record of over 30 successful full-life-cycle ERP implementations, he has been constantly at work transforming companies through technological innovation & business intelligence. Tim is currently Vice President & CIO of Mountain West Farm Bureau & 360 Insurance companies where significant digital transformation is being enabled by the implementation of the Guidewire Cloud Insurance Suite, and multiple cloud ready platforms. He currently lives in Colorado & Wyoming with his wife of 26 years and their children. Outside of really enjoying his work, if it involves gasoline or gunpowder, he’s probably into it! Highlights from the Show Tim has done ERP modernization projects 34 times across different industries, and he sees them being the same despite the context being so different Scope, budget, time all seem to be problematic, where we run out of money, cut scope or need more time when we get to the end of the project Tim sees this as a fundamental failure of project management starting in the first 90 days rather than happening at the end Projects that don't finish on time as a surprise didn't know half way through that they didn't have enough runway to finish the second half, which means they don't know what a days work looks like Mountain West setup weekly steering committee meetings so they could make decisions at speed once While they finished the work in 12 months, because of the past failed attempts, they wanted to take time with testing and release to ensure people were comfortable and had trust in what came out To deal with the desire to customize the solution to look like what they always had, Tim said, "I don't care what you don't like, but I really care about why it won't work, and then we need to address that" You have to make decisions at speed, once. Rework kills you. The way you do this is in how you organize the project That means having the right people in the project – people who are painful to lose from the business Having these people gets you the right insights about what the system needs to do, and forces you to move fast because you can't afford to keep them out of the business for years on end Don't ask people what they want since they'll just tell you what they already have, but new They demoed new development early and often, and there were no contractors doing the demoes so Mountain West's people owned what was being built and grew more and more comfortable with what they were putting out The way they went about this resulted in a system that has allowed 70% straight through processing (from 0% before), writing 50% more business with fewer people They're more efficient, but it's really about how much faster they are now, moving from taking 3-5 days for a policy change to minutes Making product changes and updates in a single sprint (30 days) instead of 6 months (at best) Ultimately, they can make better decisions with better information in the moment This episode is brought to you by , part of the thought leadership series () from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of , available to stream or download on , , and and more. /episode/index/show/futureofinsurance/id/28414205

The Future of Insurance – Patrick Schmid, President, RiskStream Collaborative 10/24/2023

The Future of Insurance – Patrick Schmid, President, RiskStream Collaborative Patrick G. Schmid, PhD is an economist and the President of The Institutes’ RiskStream Collaborative—a risk management and insurance blockchain & emerging technology consortium. He works with RiskStream’s member-led governance boards and oversees RiskStream’s products, relationship management, operations, and technology workstreams. Dr. Schmid offers blockchain and emerging technology thought leadership for The Institutes and coordinates the RiskStream’s consortium of insurers, brokers and reinsurers with industry participants and technical partners in developing production applications that can lower costs, improve customer experience and drive efficiency across the insurance industry. Patrick was the 2018 recipient of the International Insurance Society’s Leaders of Tomorrow award. Dr. Schmid formerly served as the head of The Institutes' Enterprise Research department, where he led a teams of data architects and researchers in developing analytical solutions and market insights. He has also served as the Director of Research for the Insurance Research Council (IRC), a division of The Institutes. In this role, he led efforts to study public policy-related insurance issues, published these research efforts in academic journals and testified on these findings in front of regulators. He has a MA and a PhD in economics from Temple University. He has taught economics and finance at several Philadelphia-area colleges and universities (Albright College, Drexel, Saint Joseph’s, Temple, Wharton, etc.). Prior to working in the insurance industry, he worked as an economist for Moody's Analytics, monitoring various economic indicators, creating forecasts and blogging on monetary policy. Highlights from the Show RiskStream is part of The Institutes, which most people will know from their CPCU program and Society RiskStream is setup as a collaborative, which is central to what it's trying to do around bringing the industry together Multiparty business processes enabled by technology so different organizations can exchange data into their disparate systems efficiently and easily to facilitate smoother transactions RiskStream started looking at different use cases that would be applicable, and the first they identified was net settlement in subrogration, and found that a handful of top 10 insurers were already building solutions internally, and one, Liberty Mutual, donated their solution to the collaborative to help move the industry forward This lead to RiskStream's RapidX solution The real value for these solutions really tends to come from the network adoption rather than what any one company gains, so you generally should want broader, easier adoption rather than a single player trying to own it outright RiskStream allows for the scaling of the network effect by getting several players together in a way they can feel safe doing because it's a non-profit, non-competitive body Bringing together so many carriers also allows RiskStream to take in learnings and needs of a wide range of players so that solutions can be more robust than any one of them might design on their own While they've started with a subrogration example, they've also been developing other areas to apply a multiparty solution, including Surety This episode is brought to you by , part of the thought leadership series () from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of , available to stream or download on , , and and more. /episode/index/show/futureofinsurance/id/28334138

The Future of Insurance – David Glawe, President & CEO, NICB 10/17/2023

The Future of Insurance – David Glawe, President & CEO, NICB David J. Glawe is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Insurance Crime Bureau. Mr. Glawe is responsible for leading a united effort of property-casualty insurance companies, law enforcement agencies, car rental companies, and other strategic partners to prevent and combat insurance fraud and crime. Mr. Glawe oversees the operational and intelligence capabilities of NICB employees who are deployed in eight regional offices throughout the United States and Mexico. Prior to joining NICB, Mr. Glawe served as the Under Secretary for Intelligence at the Department of Homeland Security. He was nominated by the President of the United States and received unanimous confirmation by the Senate.  Prior to his appointment, Mr. Glawe served as Special Assistant to the President of the United States for Homeland Security, and as the Chief Intelligence Officer and Assistant Commissioner at U.S. Customs and Border Protection.  Mr. Glawe also served in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence as Deputy Intelligence Manager for Threat Finance and Transnational Organized Crime, and subsequently on the President’s National Security Council.  Earlier in his career, Mr. Glawe served as a Supervisory Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a Federal Agent with the United States Postal Inspection Service, and a Police Officer in Houston, Texas, and Aurora, Colorado.  Mr. Glawe’s numerous honors include the Central Intelligence Agency Warren Medallion and Citation, the Department of Homeland Security Distinguished Service Medal and Citation, the National Intelligence Superior Service Medal, and the Department of Justice Meritorious Public Service Award. Mr. Glawe achieved a Bachelor of Arts in Behavioral Science degree from the University of Northern Iowa and certificate from Harvard University. Highlights from the Show Dave has an almost-30 year career in law enforcement and national security, including serving as the Undersecretary of Intelligence in Homeland Security of the United States, an FBI agent, terrorism agent and a local police officer The NICB sits between insurers and state, local and federal law enforcement to identify criminal networks committing crimes that impact insurers and ultimately drive rates up for the public Fraud is different today. All criminal organizations are driven by money, and the path of least resistance to exploit opportunities to make financial gains are what drives their actions. The evolution of the collection of intelligence and data and using algorithms and tools that are tailored to identifying the networks perpetrating crime When looking at ML, AI, Generative AI, etc, and the possibilities they have to drive more fraudulent claim activity, Dave reminds us to look at what nation states have been doing and the training they're giving to bad actors This episode is brought to you by , part of the thought leadership series () from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of , available to stream or download on , , and and more. /episode/index/show/futureofinsurance/id/28291949

The Future of Insurance – Sudheendra Galgali, VP & Head of Innovation & Digital, American Modern 10/10/2023

The Future of Insurance – Sudheendra Galgali, VP & Head of Innovation & Digital, American Modern SG leads the Innovation and Digitalization team at American Modern, the US P&C subsidiary of Munich Re. In this role, he is accountable for delivering on the company’s Digital strategy and roadmap as well as the long- term Innovation agenda with a focus on transforming the way we do business. He is also the Business Sponsor for American Modern’s strategic digital transformation initiative. In addition, SG is driving a culture of innovation in the organization with a focus on customer experience, experimentation, and learning. His team focuses on key market trends like the disruption of the insurance value chain, Internet of Things, and AI- driven customer experience capabilities. He is an Innovation Executive in the global Munich Re innovation team and engages with insurtechs to accelerate the pace of innovation within American Modern and Munich Re. SG started with American Modern in December 2014 as the technical program lead on the Business Transformation program. In this role, SG was responsible for the operational delivery of the new AMsuite system. He transitioned into his current role in August 2017. Prior to American Modern, SG has over 20 years of experience in varying management positions spanning tactical technical execution to strategic business roles, in small startup companies to a Fortune 500 organization. He has worked in various industries including technology, healthcare, and consulting. Over the past 10+ years, he has served in various senior management positions focused on innovation, product management, strategy and delivery. He holds a degree in mechanical engineering from India and an MBA from University of Phoenix (USA). He resides in Cincinnati with his wife, two daughters and a ‘labradoodle’ dog. Highlights from the Show American Modern, part of Munich Re, is a Personal Lines Specialty carrier, focused on risks standard carriers don't tend to write like manufactured, vacant and vacation homes; boats, RVs, collector vehicles, etc. American Modern is on their second major transformation, with the first being almost a rebuilding of the entire company to enable the second transformation they're working on today They had 60 products, with different versions of each one in each state Multiple core systems Different agent agreements and commission structures Multiple writing companies to manage all of this across This all made change to difficult, even for simpler ones The decision was to change everything, meaning revamping the entire org from the ground up, in what they refer to as an inside-out transformation 1 technology platform (Guidewire) 1 underwriting company Clean up the products and processes, and move to just 11 products 1 commission structure for all agents The biggest change was the people part because everything every employee did would be impacted This took 8+ years, starting in 2013/2014, which meant it was started by one CEO and persisted in by a new CEO The new transformation they've recently begun is to move their operation to the cloud and digitizing everything external to the company In hindsight, some changes or things they'd do differently Go to the Cloud from the start (which wasn't an option when they did the first transformation) Planning for the go-to-market much earlier, recognizing the complexities in launching in each state despite what seemed to be the same across states, which they pivoted early to doing but would have done from the start looking back While they did change management internally, they learned how important it is, and upped their game in that respect in the second transformation Lastly, don't outsource your transformation, absolving yourself of responsibility to do it or knowledge of what's been done, so be sure to balance in-house and consultant resources This episode is brought to you by , part of the thought leadership series () from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of , available to stream or download on , , and and more. /episode/index/show/futureofinsurance/id/27600561

The Future of Insurance – Theresa Blissing, Author of "The Future of Insurance - Asia Rising" 10/03/2023

The Future of Insurance – Theresa Blissing, Author of "The Future of Insurance - Asia Rising" has more than 15 years experience in the insurance industry both in Europe and Asia. Excited by the first signs of change in an industry typically resistant to change, she followed her passions into technology and big data after working with Italian insurer Generali for 10 years. Theresa is responsible for some of the first academic research into the adoption of Big Data into the Southeast Asian insurance business. Prior to starting Accelerating Insurance, Theresa worked with a German management consultancy as Asian Insurance Lead. As a well-recognized expert in the field, her advisory practice now brings to bear a deep knowledge of the InsurTech landscape in Asia and a fundamental understanding of upcoming trends, innovations and new technologies with the experience and know-how for applying it to incumbents. She is also the Founder of the and . Theresa wrote the new book, , as the latest entry in the best-selling Future of Insurance series. Highlights from the Show Theresa comes from an insurance background, with parents who were agents, and her own career having started at Generali She spent some time in Asia for Generali, and then decided to move there in 2015 after being fascinated by the activity in the region, and the developments and possibilities in insurance there While there, she founded the , and recently started another with co-host Michael Waitz, called . For more on her background, you can hear the first time she was on the show in Theresa joined the show to share the news that she has written a new book in The Future of Insurance series, volume 4, which is all about startup activity in Asia, and it will be released on October 17th, 2023 (and is already available for ) Her aim was to tell the story of different types of startups in different countries and situations, including stories in Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Indonesia and India The companies profiled through first-hand accounts, often written through interviewing the company founders, are: YAS OneDegree Tune Protect bolttech Qoala PhonePe Ping An Habitto One of the things that makes many markets in Asia so interesting for starting an insurance company is how low the penetration and knowledge of insurance is, which forces you to rethink how you enter and grow in the market Embedded insurance comes up very often in the book because of this, including in the case about Qoala, YAS and bolttech Japan is profiled through the case of Habitto, where the issue of an aging population, and a young generation that hasn't been focused on or served creates lessons that many other developed markets are or will soon be facing, like the US and Europe There are three major takeaway lessons that applied across all of the cases and have value to people in different situations, markets and companies: Build a customer-focused business Many insurers are product-centric, thinking about their offering and how to market and run it successfully, rethinking this to start from the customer and their needs leads you to then see how insurance might fit into that equation – or not – which then informs the options available to you to move ahead Embrace change Don't just be open to change, but when things don't go as planned or don't work out, rather than ignoring the failure or looking to blame someone, take learnings and lessons from the experience to do better next time or have more insight about what customers really want (or don't want) Leverage the power of partnerships Ecosystems is a buzzword going around a lot today, but carriers often see themselves at the center of the ecosystem with others buzzing around them, but that's not always the ideal way to do it You can't be good at everything, so you need the right partners to support your goals This episode is brought to you by by Theresa Blissing, part of the thought leadership series () from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of , available to stream or download on , , and and more. /episode/index/show/futureofinsurance/id/28088690

The Future of Insurance – Dan Israel, Managing Director, Global Insurance Accelerator 09/26/2023

The Future of Insurance – Alex Frommeyer, CEO, Beam Benefits 09/19/2023

The Future of Insurance – Alex Frommeyer, CEO, Beam Benefits Alex Frommeyer is the co-founder and CEO of , a digitally-native employee benefits company that offers dental, vision, life, disability, and supplemental health coverage for employers of all sizes. The company simplifies and modernizes the $100+ billion ancillary benefits industry through its intuitive online platform, self-service tools, AI-powered underwriting, and thoughtful coverage for improved overall wellness. Its Beam Perks™ program offers incentives to members and rewards them for healthy behaviors. Beam has raised over $160 million in funding and is available in 44 states across the U.S. Learn more at Highlights from the Show Fro was on the show around the company he co-founded and is CEO of, Beam Benefits, was in The Future of Insurance, Volume II. The Startups Beam started as a dental insurer, but 18 months ago spread to other benefits products in response to customer needs and their focus on those needs Beam looks at established ancillary benefits and emerging ancillary benefits Established are things like dental, group health, short and long term disability - products Beam has grown to include in its portfolio Emerging ancillary benefits are driven by generational changes – things like pet insurance, mental and tele-health - and some purely new products like cancer coverage, and some non-insurance products in the wellness arena This growth of products is about employers looking to create value for their employees rather than just coverage, which is different from P&C Beam is a very customer-driven business, looking at what customers want or need, and let that define the kind of products they design (or don’t) This helped as they setup their initial IoT-based, connected tooth brush and dental insurance to their move to non-IoT-based products A lot has changed since Fro was on last time in the industry and with InsurTech investing For Beam, they set a 2 year window to become Beam Benefits, and they’re at or ahead of schedule in that transformation Benefits is more primed for new product introduction, with one key factor being brokers Beam came out very counter to Zenefits in that they were pro-broker, and listened to brokers’ desire to not have everything change all at once, but do it more methodically He’s seen an interest in changing so many things amongst some startups so quickly that the product becomes unrecognizable to the market and therefore struggles to take hold Fro sees a transition from phase 1 to phase 2 companies, which means some will go out of business, but there’s also been an aggregate increase in employment in the space A lot of founders have had to be heads down building or on the defensive for the prevailing tone of negativity from the focus on the failed startups or poor performers, and there would be benefit to the space to give some attention to celebrate what has worked well or been done to great benefit Fro is optimistic about what customers will experience because of the presence of insurtech in the space Fro see insurance existing on two axes - the risk transfer side and the customer experience side, and where the most innovation will be He believes, if AI delivers on its promise, the impact on the risk axis will be profound This would lower the capital required to start new coverage solutions, allowing more startups to try to innovate in the space He also sees the benefits world more directly impacted by the experience axis to catch insurance up to where other consumer industries are This episode is brought to you by , part of the thought leadership series () from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of , available to stream or download on , , and and more. /episode/index/show/futureofinsurance/id/27963498

The Future of Insurance – Lisa Wardlaw, CEO, 360 Digital Immersion 07/25/2023

The Future of Insurance – Lisa Wardlaw, CEO, 360 Digital Immersion Lisa Wardlaw a highly-experienced insurance executive with decades of experience. Lisa's entrepreneurial drive and deep industry knowledge can help your startup succeed in the insurance industry. She supports companies with unique perspectives and an authentic desire to innovate the insurance marketplace. Lisa's thought leadership and ability to create innovative insurance solutions across P&C, life, and health insurance is leveraged to provide guidance and solutions for insurtechs across North America and globally. Highlights from the Show Lisa works with corporate clients on innovation and supports insurtechs on their business strategy, go-to-market and sales and more Her career spans over 25 years in the insurance industry, having worked in roles at different insurers across finance, strategy, innovation and other functions Lisa talks about being expert on both longitude and latitude You need to be able to go deep in insurance You also can really stand out by going wide in your experience and what you bring to conversations to rapidly process the operational How of the issues you face Lisa referenced by Scott Hartley in this conversation You need to learn to think, not to know Knowing is presumed, while the art of thinking and asking the questions of why Lisa sees people struggling with is looking at things as at the present state rather than looking at things that aren't that could be That means we do a lot of tweaking and iterating rather than rethinking While we need to recruit new people into the industry, we need to be sure we don't lose the people in the industry today that can fuel change and growth because of the existing expertise we need for the change we still have to make Investors need to be aware of and reasonable to the market contract conditions for startups to have a fighting chance And founders need to be aware of the burn they face so they don't find themselves in a bind and needing to change their business model just to survive This episode is brought to you by , part of the thought leadership series () from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of , available to stream or download on , , and and more. /episode/index/show/futureofinsurance/id/26821020

The Future of Insurance – Jeff Radke, Co-Founder & CEO, Accelerant 07/18/2023

The Future of Insurance – Jeff Radke, Co-Founder & CEO, Accelerant Jeff Radke is CEO and Co-Founder of , a technology-fueled insurance platform that empowers MGUs to more effectively and confidently serve small and medium enterprises. He has spent his career working across all areas of the insurance value chain, from underwriting to reinsurance in global markets. Prior to Accelerant, Jeff spent a decade at Argo Group International Holdings, but he became frustrated with thelegacy system’s antiquated technology and emphasis on maintaining their position in the value chain over doing right by the customer. This inspired him to co-found Accelerant to enable data-driven innovation and collaboration that puts customers first. Accelerant rebuilds the way that underwriters share and exchange risk to improve outcomes for everyone, with a focus on the SMBs that power our global economy and their niche insurance needs. Highlights from the Show Jeff started his career in Reinsurance, which gave him an interesting perspective on insurance having looked at it from the end of the value chain Accelerant runs a risk exchange, meaning they connect MGAs/MGUs/Program Administrators (who they call Members) with risk capital on the other side of the platform that likes the kinds of Specialty risks these members are writing In between those parties, Accelerant's platform tries to make the regulatory and system complications as uncomplicated as possible by solving for them for their members It's almost the opposite of what a fronting carrier is, and is more of a portfolio manager of risk They try to provide stability of capital and appetite and the ability to capitalize on every opportunity an MGA finds They've also become a way for existing insurers to get into the E&S or Specialty space without having to build the technology stack, distribution relationships or underwriting talent It's very hard to build a business that can write large, esoteric, specialty risks and the higher volume E&O/PL, BOP and GL It's a completely different human skillset and tech capability to keep a tight watch and understanding on how small, Specialty Lines portfolios change over time They do monthly deep dives with their members to see if anything has changed with appetite, underwriting review, etc. to see if there's a potential driver of performance changes so they can react before it's ballooned out of control Traditionally, program administrators haven't gotten the detailed data they need on things like regulatory compliance, loss trends, filings, etc., and Accelerant has worked to be as transparent as possible rather than treating their information as proprietary or something not to share One reason Jeff thinks E&S will stay strong and not just be a fill-in for what can't go Admitted at the moment is because of the need to keep flexing on product and rate at a speed that the regulatory path cannot keep up with, especially with resource constraints there This episode is brought to you by , part of the thought leadership series () from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of , available to stream or download on , , and and more. /episode/index/show/futureofinsurance/id/27426156

The Future of Insurance – Steve Shaffer of Homesteaders Life & Brent Williams of Benekiva 07/11/2023

The Future of Insurance – Steve Shaffer of Homesteaders Life & Brent Williams of Benekiva Steve Shaffer, CEO of Homesteaders Life, and Brent Williams, CEO and Co-Founder of Benekiva, join the show to share more behind-the-scenes details about the relationship their two companies have built. Homesteaders became Benekiva's first customer while also taking on the role of first investor in a story full of lessons, insights and guidance about how a startup so new its founders still had day jobs and a nearly-120-year-old mutual insurer can work together to change both organizations. Their story is the final case in the new book in series, . Highlights from the Show Benekiva is a digitized claims, servicing and new business platform for insurers Brent came up in the industry and saw the need for it first hand, and when he couldn't find a solution, he set out to build it Homesteaders pays over 60k claims per, and saw the need for Benekiva's help, and knew it would be faster to partner than build it themselves Benekiva went about things in a different way than was the norm in the industry, where most vendors over-promise and under-deliver; while people don't necessarily intend this, Benekiva almost goes 180 on the whole mindset to be completely transparent and honest about the good and the bad For HLC, they also invested in Benekiva, which was their first insurtech investment, and their first true innovation investment This took a lot of purposeful action and willingness to challenge themselves culturally to actually change their organization and how they think about innovation They didn't have the scale to create a $100m venture fund or setup a big innovation team, but neither of those things would have had the same broad effect on the company as a whole They drew a wall between the investment and client side because there could be unintended consequences of melding the two As they got into the project, they started to notice that they were deviating from the 80/20 rule to more like 99/1, where a very small number of outlier requirements were holding up the whole project, which lead to one of the tougher spots in the project They found that a consultant was working between the company, dragging the project – and their contract – out, rather than helping to move them to completion This helped inform new values for HLC, including being bold, which shows up in how they work across the business today Brent shares how different it is to build a great piece of tech vs. installing or delivering a great piece of tech, which is a whole other level of task That brings in all of the complexities of your client on top of any questions about your technology This episode is brought to you by , part of the thought leadership series () from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of , available to stream or download on , , and and more. /episode/index/show/futureofinsurance/id/27260994

The Future of Insurance – Lars Boeing, VP, Capgemini Invent 07/03/2023

The Future of Insurance – Lars Boeing, VP, Capgemini Invent Lars Boeing is a Vice President in Capgemini Invent’s Insurance Practice and leads Capgemini’s global Future of Claims offering. He has been working for 20+ years in consulting and corporate strategy roles, primarily on strategic projects, process optimization/ intelligent automation projects and business model redesign programs. Prior to joining Capgemini in January 2014, Lars was engaged with an FS firm in Germany where he was part of the corporate strategy department as well as the in-house consulting unit supporting the company’s different business lines. His engagements at Capgemini Invent include the design of various Future of Claims strategies and roadmaps for P&C personal lines and commercial lines insurers, leading large-scale Transformation programs, the process optimization using process mining, RPA and AI solutions for P&C and Life Insurers in Claims and other areas, design of digital strategies, assessing and maturing DevOps and SAFe organizations, implementing new regulations, the redesign of ways of working and Organizational Change Management for insurers, banks and captive finance firms. Lars holds an MBA from HHL Handelshochschule Leipzig, a Master’s degree in Banking from the Frankfurt School of Finance as well as a Master in Economics from University of Goettingen. Highlights from the Show Lars is a Vice President at Capgemini, and was part of the work in their annual World Insurance Report, which focused on the future of mobility insurance in the 2023 edition The question is around what the shifting patterns of mobility mean to insurance, and how insurers can start to take actions today to prepare for a movement from insurance the asset of mobility today, a car, to the experience of mobility tomorrow across different modalities and moments, even if people don’t own cars They also look at how we break from the interactive pattern of product development to truly creating coverage that insureds need as their situations evolve Innovation has struggled in the industry often because the people responsible for it are separate from the main business, so they struggle to get new ideas into the core of the business For example, if we look at embedding insurance into mobility, it’s looking at mobility itself as a service, and then thinking about how an insurer can be helpful across the experience and not just in offering coverage; are there ways the insurer can help coordinate mobility or provide safety guidance and support throughout a journey across different modalities, etc? The nature of what is being insured is changing, and CG talks about ACES - Autonomous, Connected, Electric and Shared - when they talk about vehicles in the future They see 8x growth for this space, while traditional Auto/Motor insurance will still be there, but will retract The nature of risk is changing, too, where it’s not just about Auto Liability, but also software and cyber security risks as cars are connected and software-defined They think carriers should think about 4 things What is the value proposition carriers should think about offering in the future, and is it based on actual customer behavior and not what we say their behavior is? How do we use that value proposition to change our business model? What culture and capabilities do we need to have to support this model? What is the risk management we need around these new products? The report was built with very broad perspectives from across insurance, tech, auto manufacturers and more You can get the report at This episode is brought to you by , part of the thought leadership series () from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of , available to stream or download on , , and and more. /episode/index/show/futureofinsurance/id/27152463

The Future of Insurance

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