Profiles in Risk

Tony chats with Vishal Sankala, Co-Founder and CEO at Outmarket AI, they are an insurance operating system that helps brokers grow revenue, cut coasts, and reduce risk. They aim to help brokers do their admin work 2-3x faster and it's all built with the core design principle of letting you work the way you work without having to change your processes. A great conversation you shouldn't miss!Vishal Sankala: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vishalsankhla/Outmarket AI: https://outmarket.ai/

Tony chats with Curt Hess, US Executive President at Vitesse US, they are a global treasury and payments solutions provider connecting the claims ecosystem with their unified financial infrastructure platform. Claims payments can get incredibly complex, with multiple parties, multiple approvers, and lots of friction and operational and capital inefficiencies. Vitesse solves a lot of those inefficiencies and gives you visibility into how every dollar moves through your claims.Curt Hess: https://www.linkedin.com/in/curt-hess-81425251/Vitesse US: https://www.vitesse.io/Video Version: https://youtu.be/59zPQewpr4Y

Tony chats with Will Demitro, President at Recon Risk. Will had a successful Underwriter and then Carrier Sales Manager career, before deciding to bet on himself and open an independent agency. We chat about his career and why he left the carrier world to start an agency.Will Demitro: https://www.linkedin.com/in/williamd31/details/experience/Video Version: https://youtu.be/Mt86dxvDDts

Tony chats with Ted Vandenberg about his 35 year insurance career integrating insurance and what we now call Analytics.Ted Vandenberg: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwardvandenberg/Video Version: https://youtu.be/cRQzkTlcVjk

Tony chats with Amrish Singh, Co-Founder and CEO at Liberate, they create customer facing AI workers for insurance agencies and carriers. They AI can answer phone calls, emails, SMS, and a lot of the other activities that don't require a license. A fascinating conversation you don't want to miss!Amrish Singh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amrishsingh/Liberate: https://www.liberateinc.com/Video Version: https://youtu.be/3FG9PTlI15Y

Tony chats with Alex Rodov, Founder at Emtech Group, a widely recognized pioneer in software QA testing. We talk about why software QA testing is now a huge deal in the era of developers using AI to create code, and how Emtech can help.Alex Rodov: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexrodov/Emtech: https://emtechgroup.com/

For insurance agents and brokers, being a trusted advisor is the holy grail of professionalism. When your clients rely on you for advice, you are creating value for them beyond the insurance policy.Becoming a trusted advisor means that you are bringing wisdom and advice, and that it is thoughtful, precise, and predominantly accurate. Over time, your credibility goes up, and credibility is a major pillar of trust.In this Profiles in Risk episode, Nick spoke with Marketing Expert Paula Warden and Zywave's Director of Content Cloud Jamie Nelson about how agents and brokers can become subject matter experts and thought leaders using content strategies. They specifically looked into using Zywave's Content Cloud library with examples from both Jaime and Paula on how agencies and brokerages have successfully used these strategies to drive inbound traffic, leading to new business opportunities.Slapping ChatGPT into your agency for content development is not the solution to becoming a thought leader using content...it will likely produce a lot of erroneous information, that could be counterproductive. Content Cloud uses thought leaders to generate the content for you to then share with your marketplace. A useful feature to have for agencies looking to driving inbound traffic and wishing to remain lean and mean.Zywave Content Cloud Website:https://www.zywave.com/content-cloud/Paula Warden - https://www.linkedin.com/in/paula-warden-44904912/Jaime Nelson - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamienelsonwi/

Tony chats with Evgeny Alexandrov, Founder and CEO at Pilotbird, a lifestyle analytics company that analyzes social data points focused on helping evaluate claims for the US market. A fascinating episode you shouldn't miss!Evegny Alexandrov: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evgeny-aleksandrov/Pilotbird: https://www.pilotbird.com/Video Version: https://youtu.be/pit2BOSFzG8

Tony chats with Diane Delaney, Executive Director at PRMA, the Private Risk Management Association, the non-profit association built to bring together the high net worth insurance community. This is a fast growing and fascinating area of insurance and the PRMA serves it in many ways from education, to conferences, to advocacy, and more. A great episode!Diane Delaney: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diane-m-delaney/PRMA: https://www.privateriskmanagement.org/Video Version: https://youtu.be/GX8if6sKABwThis episode of Profiles in Risk is sponsored by Zywave:Whether an insurer, agent, or service provider, the insurance industry is changing fast. Traditional growth strategies are no loner working. Unlock new levels of efficiency, resilience, and profitability with Zywave. Explore Zywave at: https://www.zywave.com/

Tony chats with Yandy Plasencia, CEO & Founder at DataHaven. This is an update episode, Yandy was on the show in Ep. 675. DataHaven is a core infrastructure company solving the foundational data problem. Their core focus is on making sure there are no data silo and data is available where it is needed to make the best decisions. This episode is about how the company has grown over this last year and the biggest learnings along the way.Yandy Pasencia: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yandyplasencia/DataHaven: https://www.datahaven.software/Video Version: https://youtu.be/CLBfiVv2TGsThis episode of Profiles in Risk is sponsored by Zywave:Whether an insurer, agent, or service provider, the insurance industry is changing fast. Traditional growth strategies are no loner working. Unlock new levels of efficiency, resilience, and profitability with Zywave. Explore Zywave at: https://www.zywave.com/

Tony chats with Asaf Lifshitz, Co-Founder & CEO and Upasana Unni, COO at Sayata, an AI enabled markeplace for small commercial insurance that started in Cyber and then expanded. They recently got acquired and learned a LOT through that process, which is what the big focus of this conversation is about.Asaf Lifshitz: https://www.linkedin.com/in/asaflifshitz/Upasana Unni: https://www.linkedin.com/in/upasana-unni/Sayata: https://sayata.com/Video Version: https://youtu.be/K0CKO8O0BE4Prior Sayata Episodes: https://youtu.be/J_kJVAnd3Hk?si=S3VUTKJuZ_yThP5e and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYYb0YM3mCQThis episode of Profiles in Risk is sponsored by Zywave:Whether an insurer, agent, or service provider, the insurance industry is changing fast. Traditional growth strategies are no loner working. Unlock new levels of efficiency, resilience, and profitability with Zywave. Explore Zywave at: https://www.zywave.com/

Tony chats with John Stammen, CEO at Convr, they are an underwriting workbench for Commercial P&C insurers, brokers, and MGAs of all sizes.John Stammen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnstammen/Convr: https://convr.com/Video Version: https://youtu.be/yOR3hbvBRNYThis episode of Profiles in Risk is sponsored by Zywave.Whether an insurer, agent, or service provider, the insurance industry is changing fast. Traditional growth strategies are no loner working. Unlock new levels of efficiency, resilience, and profitability with Zywave. Explore Zywave at: https://www.zywave.com/

Tony chats with Debbie Brackeen, EVP Chief Innovation Officer & Corp. Development Officer at CSAA about their approach to innovation, how a 100 year old insurance company can truly innovate, and more. A very interesting conversation you shouldn't miss!Debbie Brackeen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debra-brackeen/CSAA: https://csaa-insurance.aaa.comVideo Version: https://youtu.be/jTN4uFfzJiY

Tony chats with Rose Hancock, VP of Product Management at Zywave, a leading software provider helping insurance agents, brokers, carriers, and service providers, really provide that service multiplier. From product creation, to distribution, to client services, they can help in every step of the insurance distribution process.Rose Hancock: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rose-hancock/Zywave: https://www.zywave.com/Video Version: https://youtu.be/D5sgFv9OiFA

Tony chats with Zac Townsend, CEO at Meanwhile, the first and only life insurance company denominated in Bitcoin. Built in Bermuda with its entire balance sheet denominated in Bitcoin, and with a worldwide monopoly on Bitcoin life insurance, this is one fascinating conversation you should not miss!Zachary Townsend: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zactownsend/Meanwhile: https://meanwhile.bm/Video Version: https://youtu.be/uVBr-D8-Mvc

Tony chats with Charles Johnson, Head of Product Growth at Insuraviews, they provide strategic insights through advanced analytics of insurance rate filings. They take all the rate fillings through a robust ingestion process and layer on analytics and AI to give you powerful insights. This is a game changer, especially for smaller carriers that don't have a large competitive intelligence team.Charles Johnson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charles-johnson-actuary/Insuraviews: https://www.insuraviews.com/Video Version: https://youtu.be/e4-5n8TPEOc

Tony chats with Andrew Kelly about PLUS, the Professional Liability Underwriting Society. Tony is obsessed with insurance education but has spent his entire career on the P&C side. This is a great introduction to the world of continuing education on the Professional Liability side and why you should dive in! We talk RPLU, CPLP, Exec PLP, and more.Andrew Kelly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewjkelly/Video Version: https://youtu.be/hAPRbLjFDKA

Tony chats with award winning innovator Meg Duty, SVP at Puritan Life and Canvas Annuity. Puritan Life is a life carrier started in the 1950s which they have now turned into an all-cloud shop. They built Canvas Annuity, the first all digital annuity platform. An incredible story of true innovation, opening up a product to a whole new market, and all without alienating your existing distribution channels. Lots to learn from this one. A cannot miss episode!Video Version: https://youtu.be/tjh5xgSPbPs

Tony chats with Chak Kolli, PhD, CTO at Magile Software. Insurance companies are struggling to understand the risks of AI and Magile Software is here to help them understand and manage that risk better. A fascinating conversation you cannot miss!Chak Kolli: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chak-kolli/Magile Software: https://www.linkedin.com/company/magile-software/Video Version: https://youtu.be/XT0q6dkFT6Q

Tony chats with Tim Lovett, Head of Enterprise Division at Blitz, they are a new fully digital API-enabled commercial lines E&S carrier that can service the entire distribution ecosystem from direct, to retailers, to wholesalers.Tim Lovett: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timlovett/Blitz: https://www.blitzinsurance.com/Video Version: https://youtu.be/5ttJvASdaJ0

Tony chats with Mel Faxon, Co-Founder & COO at Hey Mirza, they are basically Turbotax for government benefits. Her Mirza is focused on helping lower income people connect with the variety of programs they might qualify for, from their home, in their native language.Mel Faxon: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melanie-faxon/Hey Mirza: https://heymirza.com/Video Version: https://youtu.be/dg3rZFa-cW4

Tony chats with Rich Benci, CEO at Omega Benefits, they help HR teams communicate benefit information to their employees, a task more complicated than I ever expected.Rich Benci: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richbenci/Omega Benefits: https://omegabenefits.net/Video Version: https://youtu.be/iFskLfY1Z0g

Tony chats with Nakita Devlin, CEO & Founder at Ric, the first parametric catastrophe product focused on the employee benefit market! Their parametric managing general agent will host micro parametric products with the first one being a parametric flood product for rain across the US. The plan is for this to be the first of many climate parametric products offered as an employee benefit. A very interesting concept and a conversation you shouldn't miss!Nakita Devlin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nakita-devlin-38155916/Video Version: https://youtu.be/tYxf7MTEhfo

Tony chats with Frano Sain, CEO at Hero Response, they offer a unique monitoring system that improves profitability and lowers waster on all water related claims. It saves the contractors from having to go back every day to see if the equipment has finished drying the loss.Frano Sain: https://www.linkedin.com/in/franosain/Hero Response: https://heroresponse.com/homeVideo Version: https://youtu.be/dhwqFws83ls

Tony chats with Mitch Matthews, Success Coach and Creator of the DREAM THINK DO Podcast.Mitch Matthews: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mitchmatthews/Video Version: https://youtu.be/bRZWIj77y_M

Tony chats with Peter Teresi, Co-Founder & CEO at Certificial, they are a network that sits between insurance and all other verticals focused on the certificate of insurance process from a PDF (that often needs to be made multiple times and only proves the policy was active at the time it got made) to a living document that is a truly smart Certificate of Insurance.Peter Teresi: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pete/Certificial: https://www.certificial.com/Video Version: https://youtu.be/FEaZ2H5NfsA

Tony chats with Paul Vacquier, Founder & CEO at Beagle Services, they provide last mile deployment and expertise of leak detection technology facilitating partnerships with carriers and others needing to prevent water damage. Uniquely they use plumbers they hire as employees, not a contractor network. They provide water damage prevention to carriers in a device agnostic way.Paul Vacquier: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulvacquier/Beagle Services: https://www.beagleservices.com/Video Version: https://youtu.be/07Rlr73X3CU

Tony chats with Danny Aronson, CEO and Ann Boger, COO at Tuned Care, they are revolutionizing hearing health benefits by helping employers offer full spectrum hearing care for their workers. Currently only 11% of workers have any hearing coverage and historically it's merely a discount on hearing aids. Tuned Care brings a much more comprehensive approach to protecting our hearing throughout our lives. A super fascinating conversation!Danny Aronson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dannyaronson/Ann Boger: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ann-boger/Tuned Care: https://www.tunedcare.com/Video Version: https://youtu.be/n5uymOdMt0c

Tony chats with Sharon Henzler, after about 8 years in the industry Sharon went to her first insurance conference, the Future of Insurance Fest at Santa Monica Pier. They chat about what the conference was like and how it changed her approach to insurance conferences going forward. A great listen for all early career insurance pros.Sharon Henzler: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharon-henzler-000/Video Version: https://youtu.be/xwHH3nl53p4

Tony chats with Paul Prendergast, Co-Founder and CEO at Kayna, they make it easy for vertical SAAS company to do embedded insurance.Paul Prendergast: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulincork/Kayna: https://www.kayna.io/Video Version: https://youtu.be/_OYgTHmXE7I

Tony chats with Nishant Tomar, Chairman and CEO at DigsFact, they are leveraging AI to accelerate virtual inspections both during underwriting and post-loss. They can help with property, vehicles, and toys. In 2 minutes the policyholder can do a guided video or photos and be done while getting the carrier all the info they need.Nishant Tomar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thenishanttomar/DigsFact https://digsfact.com/Video Version: https://youtu.be/2cR8yllASz4

Tony chats with Emma Corcoran, Strategic Facilitator, Women's Leadership Champion & Consultant. We talk about her career in insurance and her work now as an independent consultant.Emma Corcoran: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-corcoran-1b851022/Video Version: https://youtu.be/N_-V_-BJHnU

Tony chats with Love Redin, Co-Founder and CEO at Vantel, they build AI tools for middle market commercial insurance producers to help them process documents, find coverage gaps, compare quotes, review contracts, and more.Love Redin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/love-redin/Vantel: https://vantel.com/Video Version: https://youtu.be/V9lqVj8r9uY

Tony chats with Liam Harris, Co-Founder and CEO at ThreadWise, they are a commercial co-pilot for commercial insurance communications starting with email. They believe that while commercial brokering is complex, the tools shouldn't be. Their goal is to clean the data before it gets dirty and allow brokers to do the work they're licensed to do. Their biggest focus to start with is the submission workflow.Liam Harris: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liam-harreys/ThreadWise: https://threadwise.ai/Video Version: https://youtu.be/1AhcQxGlfsw

Tony chats with Gregg Golson about his career in claims, his involvement in CPCU, advice for the next generation, and his consulting endeavors.Gregg Golson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregggolsoncpcu/Video Version: https://youtu.be/ieaJ7VAAbQ8

Tony chats with Jake Tamarkin - Co-Founder & President at Everyday Life Insurance, they are building the premiere life insurance platform for everyday people. They are an independent life insurance agency that caters to people that want to do business online. They use machine learning and other tools to help people find the best fitting Life product for them.Jake Tamarkin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jake-tamarkin/Everyday Life: https://everydaylifeinsurance.com/Video Version: https://youtu.be/pazFw5gARAU

Tony chats with Rose Hall about her fantastic career in insurance and innovation.Rose Hall: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rose-hall-pe/Video Version: https://youtu.be/qnLiXvowv2g

Tony chats with Toby Hung, Co-Founder and COO at 1Fort, they are an all-in-one solution for commercial insurance agents to grow revenue and save time and money. Their AI digs through your book and finds cross-sale opportunities, analyzes the risk exposures based on third party data, and even gives you talking points to make the sale. It can also help submitting on different carrier portals, creating proposals, and much more.Toby Hung: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tobyhung/1Fort: https://www.1fort.com/Video Version: https://youtu.be/EnbC_xebC6c

Tony chats with Santoash Rajaram, Founder at Stitch Studio, they are building an insurance specific AI platform making AI agents. They believe that in order for AI to be adaptable to insurance organizations have to be able to embed them in the existing value chain of what's happening in the organization already. And you need to create an infrastructure that allows agents to be rooted in the insurance knowledge and the organizational knowledge.Santoash Rajaram: https://www.linkedin.com/in/srajara/Stitch Studio: https://stitchstudio.ai/Video Version: https://youtu.be/O1eyE7JjhIo

Tony chats with Todd Hawk, Founder and CEO At Elisa For Life, they are an insurtech in the Life Insurance space solving a difficult issue in that space, the younger generation of buyers don't respond well to cold-calling or mailers. Elisa for Life is an embeddable digital advisor and digital sales assistant. The prospect answers a series of questions, gets scored, educated, and then Elisa makes a broad recommendation leaving the agent a lot of room to work with. Their goal is to help independent agents compete with tech companies in selling Life in a modern way.Todd Hawk: https://www.linkedin.com/in/todd-hawk-b5a99748/Elisa For Life: https://www.elisaforlife.com/Video Version: https://youtu.be/N-EDoGGID9Y

Tony chats with Arlind Mucaj, AVP CDO Exchange & Partnerships at Verisk, Chief Experience Officer at Insurtech Hartford about his career and what they're building at Insurtech Hartford.Arlind Mucaj: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arlind-mucaj-mba-scaled-agile-black-belt-831b03b/Video Version: https://youtu.be/4qcRDSYVIwI

Tony chats with Scott Thompson, long-time insurance recruiter. We chat about the insurance industry past and present, especially when it comes to the recruiting environment.Scott Thompson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottthompsontn/Video Version: https://youtu.be/I_SKhJBQ8ZQ

Tony chats with Lars Helgeson, Founder and CEO at Easy Aftercare, they have applied CRM technology to radically improve patient compliance through a series curated personalized text messages and videos leading to 30% better outcomes and 40% reduction in unneeded calls back to the providers office. An amazing example of how existing technology can be reimagined in new and innovative ways!Lars Helgerson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/larshelgeson/Easy Aftercare: https://www.easyaftercare.com/Video Version: https://youtu.be/i8qliK-9mTE

Tony chats with Patrick Girouard, Founder and CEO at District Cover, they are a small business insurance platform solely focused on broadening insurance access within cities and especially areas where traditional carriers have shied away or struggled to serve. They underwrite at a block by block or even business by business level of granularity allowing them to be much more accurate without needing to use credit. A very interesting approach and conversation!Patrick Girouard: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-girouard-84842934/District Cover: https://www.districtcover.com/Video Version: https://youtu.be/vt5QVRlrUbc

Tony chats with Matan Slaghter, CEO at Armadillo, the first tech enabled home warranty program. Matan originally talked about Armadillo on Ep. 251 and now returns to give us an update and make an announcement of some unique improvements they have made to their offerings.Matan Slagter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matan-slagter/Armadillo: https://www.armadillo.one/PIR Ep. 251: https://youtu.be/O0o3XPTyOC0?si=X051N_PCORHliowtVidero Version: https://youtu.be/QaiOsi3NmHw

Tony chats with  Alicia Burke, Director of Portfolio and Product Development at The CAS Institute, we chat about ICAS a wholly owned subsidiary of the Casualty Actuarial Society that offers analytics professionals and their employers the opportunity to certify skills specifically as applied to property and casualty insurance. Their Certified Specialist in Predictive Analytics (CSPA) and the International Society of Catastrophe Managers (ISCM) designations are hands-on and in partnership with The Institutes. A great conversation about continuing education on the analytics side of the industry.Alicia Burque: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliciaburke/The CAS Institute:  https://thecasinstitute.org/Video Version: https://youtu.be/hRKkfqejYDw

Tony chats Luis Ricci Maia, Co-Founder and COO at Trag, they are a Brazilian insurtech helping their clients understand climate risk they're facing in agriculture and help mitigate that risk through parametric and weather derivatives. Brazil is the largest exporter of crops in the world and only 10% of those crops have any insurance, so this is massive opportunity.Luis Ricci Maia: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luisriccimaia/Trag: https://www.trag.agr.br/Video Version: https://youtu.be/kO9aVMSH6O4

Tony chats with Kerry Macca about the Kerry Macca - Women in Insurance Initiative and their live event at the RISE Leadership Summit.Kerry Macca: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerrymacca/Women in Insurance Initiative: https://www.linkedin.com/company/women-in-insurance-initiative/posts/?feedView=allVideo Version: https://youtu.be/bsDpdPt2JUo

Tony chats with Niti Jain, Founder & CEO at medml.ai, the first underwriting platform created by actuaries. After 10 years of experience in pricing Life, Health, and P&C she was tired of extremely manual underwriting processes so they set out to create a better underwriting platform.Niti Jain: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niti-nj-jain-b6083b73/medml.al: https://medml.ai/Video Version: https://youtu.be/w9hE4ZJn9Ps

Tony chats with Michael Derkacz, Business Development at Ai.Law and Ai.Claims. They are a single claim file application, they generate a claims analysis report that summarizes complicated files and it does very powerful analysis to superpower your claims adjusters. It provides next steps for the claim and helps newer adjusters think like an experienced adjuster!Michael Derkacz: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-derkacz-6b4549113/AI.Claims: https://Ai.ClaimsVideo Version: https://youtu.be/-bmz4aBlMLU

Tony chats with Chris Bean, CEO & Co-Founder at Skytree Scientific, they are revolutionizing how insurers assess lightning risk. Their platform analyses property data and delivers a risk score in minutes allowing for faster underwriting, better pricing, and fewer losses. It also generates mitigation strategies for the policyholder. This technology came from an engineering process in Europe and is now available at an affordable cost for the insurance industry. A super interesting conversation you shouldn't miss!Chris Bean: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-bean-tech/Skytree Scientific: https://skytreescientific.ai/Video Version: https://youtu.be/eYwETZkCOMs