The Future of Insurance

Episode Info The Insurance Industry is facing a number of challenges today. And yet the number of strategies tools we can use to overcome those challenges is equally numerous. That's the spirit of the conversations my good friend Nick Lamparelli and I get into whenever we talk, and now, you get to hear what we talk about because we got together to take over Dave Wechsler's InsurTech Rap a couple of weeks ago, and I am releasing that episode on my show for all of you! Highlights from the Show The interview delves into the current challenges and innovations within the insurance market, focusing on the years 2023 and 2024. Key issues discussed include the impact of inflation, tariffs, and natural catastrophes on the industry. The conversation highlights the structural changes in the market, particularly the broken cycle of rate adjustments post-crises, and the ongoing struggle to balance profitability with affordability for both carriers and consumers. Regulatory challenges, such as difficulties in obtaining rate approvals, are examined, alongside the industry's frustration with continuous rate increases. The discussion also explores innovative solutions like parametric insurance, which offers a viable alternative to traditional models, and emphasizes the importance of diversification in business models, especially for mutual insurers. The interview touches on the economic effects of tariffs on trade flow and currency attractiveness, as well as the long-term cost of capital. Audience interaction enriches the conversation, providing additional insights into market challenges and potential solutions. The session concludes with gratitude towards participants and a teaser for future discussions on community-based insurance solutions. Key Points: Market Dynamics and Challenges: The conversation explores the structural changes in the insurance market, emphasizing the broken cycle of rate adjustments following crises. Challenges in finding a balance between profitability and affordability for carriers and consumers are highlighted. Regulatory and Rate Issues: The difficulty in obtaining rate approvals and the impact of regulatory actions on market dynamics are discussed. The conversation touches on the frustration within the industry regarding continuous rate increases and the need for alternative solutions. Parametric Insurance Solutions: The rise of parametric insurance as a viable alternative to traditional models is explored, noting its benefits and cost implications. Diversification and Innovation: The importance of diversification in business models, especially for long-standing mutual insurers, is emphasized. The potential for creative solutions like reciprocal models and community-based insurance solutions is discussed. Impact of Tariffs and Economic Factors: The conversation delves into the effects of tariffs on trade flow, currency attractiveness, and the long-term cost of capital. This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance book series (future-of-insurance.com) from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Guest Bio This episode featured the co-founders of a first-of-its-kind fertility insurance solution called Flora Fertility. Dr. Christy Lane, President and Co-Founder Dr. Christy Lane is global leader of InsurTech, an investor, founder and award-winning health scientist with expertise in AI, digital health, and wearable devices. Dr. Lane is the Co-Founder of Flora Fertility, the Stanford Wearable Health Lab, as well as Founder and former CEO of Vivametrica. Dr. Lane is also a Venture Partner with IA Capital, an InsurTech/fintech venture firm in New York. Dr. Lane has built her career in women's health research since the 90's, and is blazing a new path forward to combine critical components of wearable tech to help inform insurance policy to make fertility treatments more accessible. As a mom of 3, Dr. Lane has gone through IVF herself and deeply understands the emotional and financial challenges of treatment. She has been recognized as Top 40 Under 40 in Calgary, Female Founders of Insuretech Winner and Top 20 Women in Tech. Laura McDonald, CEO and Co-Founder Laura McDonald is the Co-Founder of Flora Fertility, the first individually-owned insurance solution for fertility and women's health. She formerly founded, scaled, and sold Canada's largest financial media company focused on women and wealth and is passionate about educating women about financial freedom and helping them achieve those goals. She has guided product wholesaling for a major insurance company and helped scale a DTC AI model in the e-commerce space to have global market adoption across 100+ countries. She is a mother of four and the author of two best-selling personal finance books and a former media personality in the financial sector.  Highlights from the Show The interview discusses the innovative approach of Flora Fertility, a company co-founded by Christy Lane and Laura McDonald. The company focuses on providing individually owned private insurance coverage for fertility, aiming to address the high demand and financial burden associated with fertility treatments. The discussion highlights the prevalence of fertility issues, with statistics indicating that one in six people may require fertility treatment, a figure recognized by the World Health Organization as a global health issue in 2023. Flora Fertility's insurance product is designed to be accessible and affordable, targeting women aged 20 to 34 with policies ranging from $15 to $70 per month, offering up to $50,000 in coverage for fertility treatments. The founders emphasize the importance of community and education, aiming to create a supportive environment for policyholders that includes perks, benefits, and educational resources. The episode also touches on the broader implications of women's health and the need for more investment and innovation in this area. It highlights the potential for Flora Fertility to change perceptions of insurance among younger generations and to serve as a gateway for other insurance products. The founders' personal experiences with infertility and their professional backgrounds in healthcare and entrepreneurship are key drivers behind the company's mission. Key Points: Innovative Insurance Solution: Flora Fertility offers a unique insurance product specifically for fertility treatments, addressing a significant gap in the market. Global Health Issue: Fertility issues affect one in six people globally, as recognized by the World Health Organization in 2023, highlighting the importance of accessible fertility treatment options. Affordable Coverage: The insurance policies are designed to be affordable, with monthly premiums ranging from $15 to $70, providing up to $50,000 in coverage. Target Demographic: The primary target audience for these policies is women aged 20 to 34, a demographic that can greatly benefit from early and proactive fertility planning. Community and Education: Flora Fertility emphasizes the importance of building a supportive community for policyholders, offering educational resources and additional benefits. Broader Implications for Women's Health: The initiative underscores the need for more investment and innovation in women's health, potentially reshaping perceptions of insurance among younger generations. Founders' Motivation: The personal experiences of the founders with infertility, combined with their professional expertise in healthcare and entrepreneurship, drive the mission and vision of Flora Fertility. This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance book series (future-of-insurance.com) from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Guest Bio Darren Wood is the founder of Recoop Disaster Insurance, a first-of-its-kind, multi-peril disaster insurance product. Darren is an insurance industry veteran, with over 25 years of experience. He previously served as the division president for Holmes Murphy, a top 25 insurance broker, where he was responsible for the delivery of value-added solutions to insurance clients. He also held senior project management and operational leadership roles with Marsh Consumer (now Mercer), focusing on the delivery of employee benefit and affinity solutions to consumers through Fortune 1,000 clients. Darren received his degree in Accounting from Simpson College, earned his Project Management Professional (PMP) designation, and is a veteran of the United States Army.   Highlights from the Show In this episode, we cover the challenges and solutions related to insurance coverage, particularly in the context of natural disasters and underinsurance. The conversation highlights the following key points: Background and Motivation: Darren shares personal experiences from the Gulf War, emphasizing the importance of addressing resource shortages and providing solutions for those in need. Insurance Gaps and Solutions: The discussion focuses on the inadequacies of traditional insurance policies, which are often outdated and not suited to current exposure contexts. Darren is interested in exploring new solutions that can address these gaps effectively. Product Offering: Recoop offers a multi-peril disaster product that provides a lump sum solution to customers. This product is designed to complement existing insurance policies by covering gaps that traditional policies do not address. Distribution and Reach: Recoop has partnered with 22 distribution partners, providing access to approximately 140 million Americans. They are also working with independent agents and larger insurers to expand their reach. Challenges and Perseverance: Darren discusses the perseverance required to succeed in this field, drawing parallels to their military experience. They emphasize the importance of continuous effort and building a strong policy base to increase exposure and coverage. Future Outlook: The conversation concludes with optimism about the future and the potential for new solutions to fill existing gaps in insurance coverage. Darren expresses a commitment to helping others in the industry and addressing the real problems faced by people. Overall, the conversation underscores the need for innovative insurance solutions that can adapt to modern challenges and provide comprehensive coverage in the face of increasing natural disasters and underinsurance issues. This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance book series (future-of-insurance.com) from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Paul VanderMarck is the Chief Technology and Innovation Officer of SageSure, leading the development of its proprietary technology platform and adopting new technologies to continue to advance the user experience. Previously, Paul was a managing director at boutique investment bank Financial Technology Partners, where he worked with a wide range of high-growth businesses across the insurtech landscape on capital raising and mergers and acquisitions. He previously spent 25 years as Chief Product Officer and as a member of the leadership team that grew Risk Management Solutions (RMS) from a startup into a $300 million revenue business while creating an entirely new market and transforming the way that the global insurance industry manages catastrophe risk. He holds a bachelor's degree in civil engineering and a master's degree in structural engineering, both from Stanford University. Episode SummaryThis interview discusses innovative strategies in the insurance industry, particularly focusing on proactive customer engagement and the use of technology to enhance claims processing. Here are the key points: Proactive Outreach: The company emphasizes the importance of reaching out to customers after catastrophic events, rather than waiting for claims to be filed. This approach aims to provide timely assistance and mitigate potential damages. Use of Technology: The integration of AI and aerial imagery allows the company to identify damaged properties quickly after disasters. This technology enables them to prioritize outreach to affected customers, even those who may still be evacuated. Claims Management: The discussion highlights the need to eliminate inefficiencies in claims processing, often referred to as "leakage." By using innovative solutions, the company aims to reduce unnecessary costs while ensuring that customers receive fair treatment during the claims process. Market Adaptation: The company has successfully navigated challenging market conditions, including inflation and increased reinsurance costs, by providing valuable products to agents and maintaining a strong growth trajectory. Customer Satisfaction: The video underscores the importance of customer satisfaction, particularly in claims handling. Engaging with customers during claims processes can lead to higher satisfaction rates, which is crucial for the company's reputation and success. Overall, the episode presents a forward-thinking approach to insurance, focusing on technology, customer engagement, and operational efficiency to improve service delivery and maintain competitiveness in a challenging market. This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

David Worldon is the Founder of Accelerated Innovation, a boutique management consultancy specialising in insurance innovation. Last year they  saved  Australia's largest insurers half a million dollars in fees and shaved a full year off their growth timelines. David has recently published the 2025 General Insurance Innovation Report, assessing and ranking how Australia's largest insurers are innovating to address key industry challenges such as climate change, underinsurance, and rising premiums. His goal is to save leaders $20m in fees and 40 years of waiting to get shit done. David is also the host of Accelerated Innovation's Innovation Insider podcast, which is available at https://acceleratedinnovation.com.au/innovation-insider/ Episode SummaryThe video features a discussion centered around the Australian insurance market, highlighting its unique dynamics, challenges, and opportunities for innovation. Here are the key points: Market Dynamics: The Australian insurance market is characterized by a high level of concentration, with a significant portion of the market share held by a few major players. This concentration influences competition and innovation within the industry. Regulatory Environment: The industry is highly regulated, with recent interventions aimed at addressing systemic issues, particularly following a Royal Commission that scrutinized the sector for malpractice. This has led to a culture of risk aversion among insurers. Innovation Focus: There is a growing emphasis on innovation, particularly in risk mitigation and preparing for natural disasters. Insurers are shifting their strategies to not only rebuild after disasters but to enhance infrastructure and resilience for future events. Collaboration and Growth: Insurers are beginning to collaborate more effectively with each other and with government entities to address challenges such as underinsurance and protection gaps. This collaborative approach is seen as a pathway to strengthening the market. Future Outlook: The discussion suggests a positive outlook for the next five to ten years, with expectations of increased appetite for risk and innovation. The market is viewed as ripe for new entrants, particularly global digital players, which could disrupt traditional distribution models. Personal vs. Commercial Lines: Innovation is more pronounced in personal lines of insurance, particularly through direct sales channels. The commercial lines are slower to innovate, focusing primarily on enhancing broker experiences. This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

As one of the first Insurtech operators turned investor, Dave leads OMERS Ventures Insurtech portfolio which includes investments in well-known players such as Clearcover, Foresight, WeFox and Joyn. Most recently at Hippo as VP of Growth, Dave oversaw the company's execution and strategy around Smart Home and emerging products. Dave's journey in Insurtech started in 2017 while at Comcast Xfinity where he designed a distribution partnership with Hippo to sell homeowners insurance to Comcast's 30M+ customers. In that role Dave secured his P&C license and set up a national agency. Dave was also part of the team at Comcast that led Hippo's $25M Series B in 2018. Additionally, Dave has founded and led several technology startups giving him a deep understanding of the challenges faced by entrepreneurs. Dave is passionate about the intersection of technology and insurance and is a firm believer that we are in the early stages of what will be a watershed moment for the sector. He is an active writer and speaker on the industry. Dave also is a Board Director of Joyn Insurance and a Board Observer for Clearcover, Foresight and WeFox as we well multiple Fintech investments. Dave has a BA in Policy Studies from Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA. He is also a licensed P&C insurance agent. Episode Summary
In this episode, we dive into the evolving landscape of InsurTech with insights from Dave Wechsler, a seasoned entrepreneur and venture capitalist. The discussion covers the challenges and opportunities within the insurance industry, particularly in the context of technological advancements and market dynamics.
 Guest Background: Dave's journey through various startups and their transition into the venture capital world. Insights into the role of technology in transforming traditional insurance practices. Dave started the InsurTech Rap weekly podcast because of his feeling of the importance of networking and collaboration among industry professionals. Current Trends in InsurTech: The impact of AI and machine learning on underwriting and claims processing. Discussion on the shift from legacy systems to modern, tech-driven solutions. Embracing Experimentation: The willingness to experiment and learn from failures is crucial for success in the InsurTech space. As [Guest Name] noted, traditional companies often lack the flexibility to innovate, making it essential for startups to leverage their agility. The Role of AI: Artificial intelligence is reshaping the landscape, offering new tools and capabilities that can enhance underwriting processes and customer engagement. However, it also presents challenges as new entrants can disrupt established players with more advanced solutions. Challenges for Entrepreneurs: Navigating the complexities of entering new markets and the importance of adaptability. The significance of building a strong brand and community in the InsurTech sector. Future Outlook: Predictions for the InsurTech landscape in the coming years, including the role of blockchain and smart contracts. The necessity for established companies to innovate and embrace new technologies to stay competitive. Resources Mentioned: insurtechrap.com Join the show live every Thursday at 2 PM EST for more discussions on InsurTech trends and insights. This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

What will the future of our industry look like, and what does that mean for today's Claims professionals? How can adjusters and others prepare for changing dynamics and increasing complexity? Join Bryan Falchuk as he hosts a panel featuring audience questions on the dynamics and technology shaping where insurance is headed. The panel includes: Erik Bahnsen, Director, Industry Analytics, CCC Intelligent Solutions Ramón Lopez, President, Claim Assist Solutions David S. Milton, Founder & CEO, TelaClaims This discussion was recorded live on April 1st at the 2025 PLRB Claims Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana, and was held right after the panelists shared this views on how things like AI are changing the ways claims can be handled – not just in the future, but right now. Episode SummaryThe panel discussion explores the integration of AI in the insurance industry, particularly in claims processing and adjuster workflows. It highlights AI's role in enhancing efficiency and accuracy while acknowledging the challenges of implementation, such as sentiment analysis. The discussion emphasizes AI as a supportive tool that allows adjusters to focus on complex decision-making, ultimately transforming their roles without replacing human expertise. Key Points AI Integration in Claims ProcessingAI is being increasingly integrated into claims processing to enhance efficiency and accuracy. It helps in tasks such as peer review of claims, identifying overlaps, and performing complex calculations, which traditionally required manual effort. Challenges and OpportunitiesAI offers significant potential, there are challenges in its implementation. For example, attempts to use AI for sentiment analysis in customer interactions were not successful, highlighting the complexity of accurately interpreting human emotions. Future of Adjuster RolesThe role of adjusters is expected to evolve with AI taking over routine tasks, allowing adjusters to focus on more complex decision-making. This shift is anticipated to lower entry barriers and enable more people to enter the field. Policyholder ExpectationsThere is a continuous increase in policyholder expectations, which AI can help meet by providing faster and more accurate service. However, the industry still faces challenges in fully aligning technology capabilities with these expectations. AI as a Tool, Not a ReplacementAI is viewed as a tool to assist rather than replace human decision-making. It operates within set guidelines and is used to support decisions, especially in high-stakes scenarios like large claims. ConclusionOverall, the discussion highlights the transformative potential of AI in the insurance industry while acknowledging the ongoing challenges and the need for human expertise in complex situations. This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Sarah Russell is the founder and managing director of Project Bellwether. Her career has evolved from healthcare into technology more broadly. She is a startup founder, tech executive, and practicing physician working at the nexus of business, planetary health, and machine learning. After founding her first company, she spent the next decade transitioning between entrepreneurial roles and executive management in large organizations such as the VA and Google.  Currently, she is focused on understanding our changing natural world and the implications for businesses, states, and communities. At X, The Moonshot Factory, she leads a team of senior-level experts working on complex machine learning problems, using earth observation data and imagining new categories of business.  Highlights from the Show Understanding Climate Risks The impact of climate change on severe weather events. The insurance industry's responsibility in addressing these challenges. Focus on Wildfires The growing concern of wildfires and their implications for insurers. Development of targeted solutions to manage wildfire risks. Innovative Products Bellwether Predict A forecasting tool for severe weather probabilities. Bellwether Rapid Response Aerial imagery technology for quick damage assessment post-disaster. Bellwether Insure A product designed to help insurers understand and manage wildfire risk accumulation. Absolute Risk Scores Introduction of absolute risk scores for more accurate risk assessments. Comparison with traditional relative risk categorizations. Future Aspirations Vision for predicting interactions between the natural world and built environments. The role of advanced data analytics and machine learning in transforming risk management. Collaboration in the Industry The importance of collaboration among insurers to effectively tackle climate risks. Potential benefits of an integrated approach for communities facing natural disasters. Conclusion: This episode highlights the significant challenges climate change poses to the insurance industry, particularly regarding wildfires. We explored innovative solutions like advanced forecasting tools and rapid response technologies that enhance disaster preparedness. By utilizing absolute risk scores and data analytics, insurers can make informed decisions to better protect communities. Collaboration within the industry is essential for effectively addressing these challenges and building a more resilient future. This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Chris is the CEO of Scout InsurTech, a premier network connecting insurance professionals, startups, and innovators to shape the industry's future. Scout's mission is to drive a comprehensive understanding of the companies impacting P&C, Life, and Health and to identify, engage, and profile these innovative companies as they evolve from early concepts to high-growth players. Chris is a multi-time founder with a background that spans the physical sciences, high-tech product development, and the development and delivery of modern AI solutions across the insurance industry. He is also a frequent speaker on innovation, AI, and insurance technology. When not working, Chris can be found at one of Scout's many networking events at the local CrossFit gym, or at home with his wife and four children, lost in a book. Highlights from the Show The mission of Scout focuses on building private paid membership communities across various cities to foster local engagement and innovation in the insurance sector. Community Engagement: Scount organizes events in different cities, aiming to connect local professionals and provide opportunities for deeper community engagement. Each community hosts an annual event to facilitate networking and collaboration among industry leaders. Startup Support: Chris explains Scout's startup program, which helps early-stage companies connect with major carriers and brokerages. The program includes virtual showcases and opportunities for startups to present their innovations to industry stakeholders. Building Relationships: The conversation touches on the significance of community and purpose in business, contrasting it with transactional models that may lack engagement. Chris expresses his commitment to fostering a supportive environment for innovation and collaboration within the insurance ecosystem. Scout is hosting their two-day conference in Columbus, Ohio on June 17-18, 2025, where various startups will showcase their solutions. Conclusion:
 This episode provides valuable insights into the evolving landscape of the insurance industry and the role of community in driving innovation. Tune in to learn more about how Scout is shaping the future of insurance through collaboration and engagement. This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Melbourne O'Banion is Bestow's CEO and co-founder, guiding the company's vision to modernize the life insurance industry. Melbourne is also a co-founder of BeautyBio and a founding member of Presidio Title, Texas's leading title insurance agency. He serves on the National Advisory Council for BYU's Marriott School of Management and Southern Methodist University's Tate Lecture Series board. Melbourne earned a degree in Finance and Ancient Near Eastern Studies from BYU and resides in Dallas, Texas, with his family. Highlights from the Show Founding Vision:   Bestow was founded with the goal of bringing modern technology to the life insurance sector, which has historically lagged behind other insurance types in terms of digitization. Market Evolution:   The rapid modernization of property and casualty insurance compared to life insurance, emphasizing the potential for growth in cross-selling and bundling products. Strategic Shifts:   The company initially focused on direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales but pivoted to enterprise solutions, recognizing a larger market opportunity in partnering with established carriers. Technology as an Enabler:   How technology is transforming the underwriting process, making it more efficient and allowing carriers to launch products faster. Role of Agents:   Contrary to fears of agents being replaced by technology, Melbourne believes that agents will continue to play a crucial role, especially as tools become more sophisticated and user-friendly. Future of Life Insurance:   The conversation touches on the future of life insurance, with a focus on specialization and the need for carriers to modernize their offerings to meet evolving consumer needs. Overall Takeaways Importance of Adaptation: Companies in the insurance space must adapt to technological advancements to remain competitive and meet customer expectations. Collaboration Over Competition: Partnering with technology providers can enhance a carrier's capabilities and streamline operations, rather than trying to build everything in-house. Consumer-Centric Approach: Understanding the consumer journey is vital for developing effective insurance products and services. Growth Potential: There is significant room for growth in the life insurance market, particularly through innovative digital solutions that simplify the purchasing process. Conclusion: This episode provides valuable insights into the intersection of technology and the insurance industry, highlighting how companies like Bestow are leading the charge in modernizing life insurance for a new generation of consumers. This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Daniel P. Aldrich was born in upstate New York and spent his childhood (and much of his adult life) traveling and living abroad. While living in Tokyo, Japan, he began to wonder how Japan - the only country to suffer the effects of atomic weaponry - could have built up such an advanced nuclear power program. He wrote up his observations in the book SITE FIGHTS published by Cornell University Press. In 2005 he and his family had their home, car, and all of their material possessions in New Orleans destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and began studying what makes communities and neighborhoods more resilient. He published BUILDING RESILIENCE to share these insights on the role of friends, neighbors, and social cohesion after crisis. After Japan was hit by the devastating triple disasters of an earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown, Aldrich wrote BLACK WAVE about the factors that helped people and communities bounce back. Highlights from the Show Understanding Resilience: Daniel Aldrich discusses the concept of resilience, particularly in the context of community recovery after disasters. He emphasizes the importance of community involvement in recovery efforts, rather than solely relying on market or state solutions. Market and State Dynamics: The conversation explores the interplay between market forces and state interventions in disaster recovery. Aldrich highlights the failures of traditional insurance models in the face of increasing disaster frequency due to climate change. Impact of Climate Change: The episode addresses the rising frequency and severity of meteorological disasters, linking them to climate change. Aldrich presents data showing a shift from years between significant events to mere months, indicating a new norm in disaster occurrences. Community Networks: Aldrich shares personal experiences that shaped his understanding of resilience, particularly how community networks provided support during crises when institutional help was lacking. Behavioral Shifts in Insurance:The discussion touches on how rising insurance costs are leading to behavioral changes among homeowners, with many opting to drop coverage due to affordability issues. This trend could lead to a cascading failure in the insurance market. Future of Disaster Preparedness: Aldrich emphasizes the need for innovative approaches to disaster preparedness, including rethinking zoning laws and construction practices to better suit the realities of climate change. Overall Takeaways Community Resilience is Crucial: Effective recovery from disasters relies heavily on community support and involvement, rather than just market or government solutions. Insurance Models Need Reform: Current insurance models are inadequate for the increasing risks posed by climate change, necessitating a reevaluation of how insurance operates in high-risk areas. Rising Disaster Frequency: The data indicates a significant increase in the frequency of disasters, which requires urgent attention and action from both policymakers and communities. Behavioral Changes in Coverage: Homeowners are increasingly dropping insurance coverage due to rising costs, which could lead to broader market failures. Innovative Solutions Required: There is a pressing need for new strategies in urban planning and disaster preparedness to address the challenges posed by climate change effectively. Conclusion: This episode provides valuable insights into the intersection of technology and the insurance industry, highlighting how companies like Bestow are leading the charge in modernizing life insurance for a new generation of consumers. This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Andrew joined QBE as Group Chief Executive Officer in September 2021. With a strong focus on bringing the enterprise together, Andrew has driven performance consistency and progress towards QBE's vision to become the most consistent and innovative risk partner. He was previously the CEO, and before that the Finance Director, of Beazley Group, a specialist international insurer based in the United Kingdom. Prior to this, he held various senior finance roles in ING, NatWest and Lloyds Bank. Andrew's career in insurance and banking spans more than 30 years and he has extensive experience across international markets. Highlights from the Show Sustainable Profitable Growth Andrew emphasizes the importance of sustainable growth in the insurance industry, highlighting the need for a balanced approach to risk and pricing models. He discusses the pitfalls of rapid growth without considering long-term consequences, stressing that growth should be managed sensibly. Innovation and Client Focus The conversation touches on the necessity for the insurance industry to listen to clients and innovate based on their needs. Andrew mentions QBE's commitment to integrating innovation within the company, ensuring that all teams are aligned with customer needs. Mitigation Strategies Andrew discusses the need for the insurance industry to adapt to new normals, particularly in the context of natural disasters【4:2†source】. He advocates for building back better after catastrophic events, rather than simply restoring properties to their previous state. Market Viability and Affordability The episode explores the challenges of maintaining market viability amidst rising costs and the need for affordable insurance. Andrew reflects on the balance between providing coverage and ensuring that it remains accessible to clients. Diversification and Growth Opportunities Andrew discusses the importance of diversification in insurance offerings, particularly in niche markets. He highlights QBE's strategy of exploring smaller, specialized markets that can contribute to overall growth. Overall Takeaways Balance is Key: Sustainable growth in insurance requires a careful balance of risk management and innovation. Client-Centric Approach: Listening to clients and adapting to their needs is crucial for long-term success in the insurance industry. Proactive Mitigation: The industry must focus on proactive strategies to mitigate risks associated with natural disasters and changing environments. Affordability Matters: Ensuring that insurance remains affordable is essential for maintaining market viability. Embrace Diversification: Exploring niche markets and diversifying offerings can lead to meaningful growth opportunities. This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

PROJECT 55 is a community that empowers both individuals and organizations to proactively improve mental health outcomes in the workplace. By providing actionable information, insightful discussions, and collective learning; we empower individuals to prioritize their well-being and build inclusive workplaces that challenge the stigma of mental health struggles. Co-founders Justin Goodman and Brenden Corr join the show to talk about how they're working to support employee mental health within and around the insurance industry. Highlights from the Show We dive deep into the critical topic of mental health within the insurance industry, featuring Brendan Core and Justin, the founders of Project 55. They share their personal journeys, the inspiration behind Project 55, and the importance of fostering open conversations about mental health in the workplace. Project 55 has a mission to change the perception of mental health in the insurance industry. Brendan shares his personal story of sobriety and how it shaped his perspective on mental health. Justin shares his experiences and the challenges he faced with mental health, leading to the creation of Project 55. The stigma surrounding mental health discussions in the workplace and the need for open dialogue. The lack of resources and training for agency owners and employees to address mental health issues effectively. The importance of creating a supportive environment where employees feel safe to discuss their struggles. The upcoming launch of mental health first responder training and how it aims to equip individuals with the tools to support their colleagues. The role of community in mental health recovery and the creation of a supportive online platform for individuals to connect and share experiences. Brendan and Justin emphasize the importance of addressing mental health openly and creating a culture of support within the insurance industry. Their commitment to Project 55 aims to make a significant impact on the lives of many individuals struggling with mental health issues. Visit Project55.org, A platform for resources, community support, and upcoming training information. This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Tim Dillahunt is the head of personal lines underwriting at the Hanover Insurance group.  He is diverse insurance professional with an Underwriting, Marketing and Sales leadership background. Over 25 years of experience at some of the country's leading P&C Companies. Highlights from the Show When a pipe leaks, a hose breaks or some other preventable source of water damage to your home leads to a claim, you can rebuild, but you can never fully recover because of the likely loss of things like family photos and other personally valuable items. And while your insurer can cover the cost of fixing the damage, the emotional toll of being out of your home and dealing with the situation and uncertainty around it is also not something you can recover. That's why Tim talks not just about the clear financial savings of using water leak detection and shutoff sensors, but also the innumerable personal savings that come with it. Stopping claims by identifying water leaks proactively saves money for everyone. It can reduce the size of claims, reducing costs for insurers and helping insureds keep their rates from increasing. It keeps businesses open because they don't need to close their facilities due to water damage or construction. And it reduces the overall cost to insure a pool of risks, helping keep rates lower for everyone. Tim talks about the many ways people and businesses can save from the use of simple water leak detection devices and help control one of the few forms of property claims we cannot easily control, unlike things like wind, flood, hail and wildfire. What kinds of tools can you use to reduce your risk of having a homeowners claim because of a leak or burst pipe? Tim shares ideas from the most basic – a simple sensor that clips onto a pipe and can spot whether you have a slow leak or more catastrophic failure. You may be aware of a burst pipe without the sensor, but slow leaks often happen behind walls and in other hidden places you only notice once they've really spread, and may have lead to mold and other issues that are harder to contend with. And you could have avoided the whole thing with a simple solution. What happens with a pipe bursts in a home or business? What about a museum. Tim shares their first hand experience when a museum that had leak detection sensors installed was able to act immediately when a pipe burst, shutting off the water and mopping up what got out before it ruined any of their extremely valuable artwork and other items. And while there may be a monetary value to the lost items, many may be irreplaceable – like family photos or heirlooms if the same thing happened in your home. Water leak detection sensors can be simple and low-cost. A typical home may need $100 in sensors and $100 in monitoring services for those sensors. But what about the cost of a pipe or washing machine water hose leaking in your home? The Hanover sees that these claims average $7,000-10,000 or more, and could have all been avoided. Why does Tim say, “Water sensors are the new smoke alarms”? About 40% of non-weather loss costs are caused by water. It is the single biggest cause of loss than any other non-weather cause. And yet less than 17% of homes have any type of water sensor, while 80%+ have smoke alarms despite those homes being 6-7x more likely to have a water loss than a fire. Because of all of this, Tim is on a mission to educate people to change that 17% and stop people from suffering these losses. Tim wants everyone to look at the educational resources they've made available on their site at https://www.hanover.com/individuals/customer-resources/proactive-protection-against-water-damage This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Ryan Vigus leads CSAA Insurance Group's personal lines products, including auto, home, umbrella, and pet.  His team develops and manages insurance products and product experiences that serve the needs of AAA Members. Ryan's responsibilities include Product Strategy and Development, Product Management, Actuarial, and Data Science.  CSAA Insurance Group is a AAA insurer that serves AAA Members in 23 states and the District of Columbia.  Ryan has served on the board of directors and various committees for the Insurance Institute for Business and Homes Safety (IBHS) since 2018 and currently serves as the chair of the board of directors.  He has a master's degree in applied mathematics from Bowling Green State University (Ohio) and is a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society. Highlights from the Show California is a massive economy that has had a history of difficult insurance situations. Back in the day, Auto Insurance became a problem, with rates jumping and profitability suffering. California's insurers looked to Homeowners to make up the difference to remain profitable. And then the wildfire situation changed dramatically, putting great pressure on the industry, leaving many with the need to dramatically increase rates, pull out of the state, or both. Homeowners Associations often put in place rules to govern how homes in the development look to uphold standards and consistency across homes. But what happens when those standards are at odds with the decisions that make a home more resilient to things like hail, hurricanes or wildfire? Can you install a better roof, plant different vegetation (or remove it), etc., if it means your home will still be standing when others may not? Colorado has made laws that ensure HOAs cannot restrict a homeowner from doing something that makes their home safer from losses like hail or wildfire. If your home falls victim to a flood or hail damage, and your insurer pays to repair the damage, what if there was a way to enhance how you rebuild so your house is less likely to suffer a loss in the future? Wouldn't the time to make such upgrades be when you're working on those items anyway, like upgrading the type of roofing materials you use when replacing a roof destroyed by hail? That's not how insurance works today. But what if it could be? Ryan shares an interesting perspective as we discussed ways to combat the spiraling cost of buying homeowners insurance by homeowners and providing it to them by insurers. What can you do to materially impact the chance a home suffers a loss in a weather-related event like a hurricane, flood, hail storm or wildfire?At PLRB, we see the impact of better building codes on losses, and many areas have seen the benefit in how newer construction stands up to these weather events. Ryan  discusses one hold up to making your home more resilient at a cost to the homeowner is the availability of subsidized insurance through state FAIR plans that allows people to still get coverage at a low enough cost to discourage investing in hardening your home to loss. This may be contributing to some of the issue states like California have in insurance affordability and viability. What is the long-term solution to making insurance affordable to buy and viable for insurers to sell? Do we have an insurance affordability problem? In California, Ryan  believes we don't. Instead, he says we have a “homes burning down” problem, and we in the insurance industry need to stretch beyond our traditional role of paying after a loss to thinking about how we stop the losses upfront and facilitate that. This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Dawn Walker is an associate director, Industry Relations (DUAE) in AM Best's Strategy and Communications department. Dawn has more than 15 years of insurance industry and risk management experience, and joined AM Best in 2022, initially serving as a senior financial analyst, conducting performance assessments for Delegated Underwriting Authority Enterprises.  Previously, Dawn as a senior risk management analyst at MacAndrews & Forbes Inc., a global mergers and acquisitions firm in New York City. She also previously served as a senior account executive for Alliant Insurance Services, serving its ultra-high net worth book of business.  Dawn received her MBA degree with a concentration in Enterprise Risk Management at St. John's University. She graduated Cum Laude earning a Bachelor of Law degree from the University of Arizona. She holds a Property & Casualty and Life & Health Broker's license, has earned an Associate in Risk management (ARM) designation and is actively pursuing a Charter Property Casualty Underwriter's designation. Highlights from the Show AM Best is known for many things, but mainly for the assessments and ratings they perform on players across the insurance industry. For the Delegated Underwriting Authority Enterprise (DUAE) space in particular, they are bringing transparency to help drive continued growth not only of the DUAE segment, but the product innovation that goes on within it. The level of growth in the delegated underwriting authority space has been huge, getting to $77B in the US alone, and making up 10% of the P&C market globally. The key areas they look at when assessing DUAEs includes Operations, UW Capabilities, Governance and Controls, Financials and Corporate Structure. This analysis helps bring transparency to the sector to help facilitate partnerships while also giving DUAEs a blueprint for how to optimize their operations for growth, stability and, ultimately, success Why do insurers work with Delegated Underwriting Authority Enterprises (DUAEs), like MGAs and MGUs? Can't they just compete in the market directly? DUAEs bring expertise in niches and market segments that incumbent carriers may not be able to build efficiently given their scale, and the relative size of these niches being too small to support the operational cost of a carrier. DUAEs often come with expertise and distribution in the segment, allowing carriers working with them to access new spaces efficiently, quickly and profitably. What can support or stand in the way of the success of a Delegated Underwriting Authority Enterprises (DUAEs), like MGAs and MGUs? AM Best performs assessments of these entities to bring transparency to key success factors insurers would look at when deciding whether to work with a DUAE or not. This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Curtis Goldsborough is the President of National Insurance Inspection Services, an evolving technology and field service provider for P&C underwriting, based in Fresno, CA. He cut his teeth in insurance as an agency owner with Farm Bureau Insurance of Michigan, where he became acutely aware of the friction and pain points associated with underwriting inspections. In 2013, he joined National Insurance Inspection Services on a quest to forge a better path forward for personal lines underwriting.  Curtis was instrumental in the development and launch of the NIIS self-inspection app and workflow, which is now in production environments with over 18 carriers and MGAs around the country, including three of the top ten P&C carriers in the United States. In his not-so-spare time, Curtis produces insurance video content on LinkedIn under the moniker of LO$$ RATIO, with a goal to engage, educate, entertain and inspire insurance professionals around the world. Highlights from the Show Curtis shares about his work to increase education and understanding through his content is trying to help. His main work is as President of National Insurance Inspection Services, who not only helps carriers by performing underwriting inspections, but also developed a self-inspection app that carriers have embraced to increase their understanding of the risks they write and help homeowners reduce the risk they face. Insurers don't get it right on every claim. Yet Curtis believes the industry as a whole does not systematically or intentionally get it wrong, despite the popular narrative in the media. There is a general lack of understanding and education out there that is degrading the general public's sense of the insurance industry and the role it plays in the economy driven by the widespread, negative narrative that is not unlike the narrative that drives engagement in so many other areas. Negativity gets eyeballs and keeps them much better than positivity. Regardless of what drove the current situation with the cost of homeowners insurance and the insufficiency of rates, blame won't solve the problem. That's been the driving force behind the work Curtis does under the name “LO$$ RATIO”, including his viral raps and memes.  As homeowners continue to struggle to find and afford coverage in many parts of the US and carriers struggle to sell insurance at an economically viable rate, Curtis hopes more understanding and conversation helps change the situation. What if insurers allocated even a small proportion of the overall ad spend of the industry to educate consumers and help improve some of the public perception of the insurance industry, and the knock on effect that has on issues like social inflation. That's the dream Curtis has to help drive the necessary shift in the negative dynamic we are struggling with today. This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

At Plug and Play, Andres has directed his passion for innovation towards P&C Insurtech. Helping some of the largest carriers and brokers navigate the technology ecosystem and bringing projects to life. Having participated in multiple investments, he focuses on creating value through infrastructure, optimization, and digitization. With a unique background in world-class restaurants as a former 3 Michelin star chef and having launched 2 startups, Andres brings a keen eye for detail, unquestionable creativity, and a passion for bringing projects from 0 to 1. Andres holds a master's degree in entrepreneurship by Uppsala University and a BSc in Gastronomic Sciences and Culinary Arts from Mondragon University. Graduating Cum Laude and top 5% percentile in both of them. Highlights from the Show Andres shares what Plug and Play does for startups. Beyond just investing, they run programs to help startups find commercial success, even if they aren't portfolio companies and without having to give up equity – both of which are critical to new companies trying to build their business in the insurance industry. AI is obviously a specific topic Plug and Play is looking at, whether that's at ITC or outside of it. Rather than going after the type of buzz generating solutions we hear about like Anthropic or OpenAI, they are specifically thinking about different layers of the tech stack. That includes the foundation layer, like one of their portfolio companies, Archetype, built the foundation for an IoT solution. Andres shared some tips for founders, the biggest one centering around Patience. The speed of change (and sales cycles) in insurance is very long, so you need to have the patience and runway to survive if you want to build something in the industry. This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Mark Holweger is President and CEO of Legal & General America's insurance division, which includes operating companies Banner Life Insurance Company and William Penn Life Insurance Company of New York. He is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the business, ensuring service excellence, continued distribution expansion and achievement of the digital transformation strategy. In 2011, he joined Legal & General Group in the UK where he held a number of senior level positions including Managing Director, Partnerships for Legal & General Insurance and Director of Broker and Intermediary for Legal & General's General Insurance business. In 2018, Mark relocated to the US as Executive Vice President of Distribution and Marketing for Legal & General America. Prior to joining Legal & General, Mark was a co-founder of Coverwise.com, an International digital insurance broker, and held various senior roles at other insurers including RSA Insurance Group UK where he was Distribution Director for Emerging markets and AXA Insurance UK where he was Director of Corporate Partnerships. Mark is an economics graduate and Chartered Insurer. He lives with his wife Rachel in Potomac, MD and has two daughters. Highlights from the Show Note This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Magdalena is a Senior Director and Global InsurTech Innovation Leader at WTW's Insurance Consulting and Technology (ICT). She leads ICT's inorganic growth strategy as well as its interaction with the external insurtech ecosystem globally. She joined the firm as a Senior Economist at Watson Wyatt's Research and Innovation Center in 2005. She has 20+ years of experience in R&D and international strategy consulting and was WTW's Global Head of Research and Analytical Services. Magda holds a M.Sc. in math. Finance and a PhD in Quantitative Economics and Finance. She also holds a professional certificate on Innovation from the MIT Professional Education Program. For the past 10 years she has been solely focused on innovation and strategic consulting for the Insurance Industry, especially around digital transformation, advanced analytics, blockchain, emerging risks and #insurtech. She was among the first to publish and discuss blockchain in the context of insurance and has focused almost exclusively on helping the insurance industry to understand and deploy new technologies since 2014. She is a well-recognized thought leader in insurtech and the implications of new technologies for the risk transfer industry. She has been a prolific public speaker in the past 10 years and in the past couple of years alone, Magda has had over 100 public speaking engagements specific to insurtech and blockchain at various international conferences and summits. She has also published multiple articles, blogs, interviews and audio/visual media on the topic. She sees herself as a blockchain and technology governance crusader and devotes significant time to educational activities, ranging from workshops for executives to sessions at elementary schools and trainings to empower #womenintech. Her main areas of expertise include blockchain, technology and innovation, advanced analytics, MNC internationalization and innovation strategies, emerging markets, global governance, macroeconomic and socio-political risks.  Further, Magdalena has 14 years of teaching experience at European (Germany, UK) and Latin American universities. She also led many research projects for multilateral organizations on microinsurance, financial inclusion and innovation, including pre-2009 projects on alternative currencies. Highlights from the Show Note This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

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 Wesley came on the show in Season 5 to share more of Sola's story, so be sure to listen to that for more background They recently launched a Wind & Hail product that like a hybrid Parametric/Indemnity proiduct in that it is data-triggered, but has validation of the loss through on-site inspection Their product speaks directly to an issue many insurers and homeowners are facing where providing traditional coverage is no longer financially viable yet homeowners are struggling to afford even high-deductible offerings that leave them excessively exposed – and mortgage lenders aren't comfortable with the coverage gap being created Sola's Wind & Hail product is cheaper than the money most homeowners would save by increasing their Wind & Hail deductible if they live in a hail-prone area, meaning they can get back to more complete coverage while saving money over what that coverage would have cost otherwise This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Dennis is general manager of insurance at Intuit Credit Karma, where he oversees the company's fast-growing business unit that encompasses auto, life, home and renters insurance for Credit Karma's more than 120 million U.S. members. Dennis joined Credit Karma through the acquisition of Zendrive, which will enable Credit Karma to accelerate Karma Drive, the company's usage-based insurance product. At Zendrive, Dennis served as CEO where he oversaw the team and company strategy in pursuit of making roads safer through the power of data and analytics. Dennis is a seasoned technology professional, having held leadership roles at LiveRamp, Bertram Capital and Google X. Dennis holds an MBA from Stanford Business School and a bachelor's degree from Virginia Tech.  Highlights from the Show Dennis joined Intuit Credit Karma through their acquisition of ZenDrive, where he was CEO With credit being such a huge part of Auto insurance, it makes sense for a business like Credit Karma to be focused on the space, and help consumers manage their auto insurance rates and coverage as their credit score changes Credit Karma is not exclusively set on Auto insurance, but thinks instead of areas where consumer education and support in navigating something complex can yield better outcomes for them, so there are other possibilities for the business in insurance down the road One key thing to manage will be the issue of Privacy, which has been especially fraught in telematics and IoT-based coverage; Credit Karma thinks transparency and clarity are critical to be sure consumers always know where they stand when it comes to their data  This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Bobbie is Chief Insurance Officer at Coterie - prior to this role, she was Coterie's first VP of Distribution, and Chief Growth Officer.  At Coterie, Bobbie oversees underwriting, capacity, distribution, marketing and agency experience.  Prior to Coterie, Bobbie was the VP of Strategic Distribution at Grange Insurance, cultivating successful strategic partnerships with established, new and emerging distribution partners – with a strong focus on strategy and innovation.  Bobbie started her insurance career as a Commercial Lines underwriter and manager at Society Insurance, and held leadership positions at QBE, SECURA, and Grange Insurance. Bobbie holds a BBA in Marketing & Human Resources from the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. Highlights from the Show Coterie is a Small Business-focused MGA offering core P&C products via agents, founded by David McFarland, who was on the show earlier in their journey to share their story Bobbie Collies joined to lead up distribution, and her responsibilities expanded into her current position as Chief Insurance Officer She gave an update of Coterie's business, including: Evolved distribution efforts that are more focused, scalable and effective, with them now having onboarded 40,000 agents Success in deploying APIs throughout the process, with 50% of transactions happening over API today (and growing) The continued use of AI and ML in their business, which has always been very data and analytics-focused, but they look at new and better ways to evaluate risk and operate the business Growth in average premium from $800 to $1800 over the past couple of years ITC is a great chance for Coterie to meet with a lot of their agent partners to talk about planning for the year ago and to keep a pulse on new technologies and innovations that could move the market and support their business going forward. This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

David Embry, CEO of Mylo, a digital, independent insurance broker that uses AI and people to connect clients with the right coverage for their needs. He is responsible for the overall vision and financial performance of the business as well as developing strategic partnerships. As a seasoned entrepreneur with 20+ years of experience leading financial and insurance companies, David brings deep expertise and innovation to Mylo. Previously President of SelectQuote Benefit Solutions and Managing Director at J.P. Morgan. Highlights from the Show Mylo is a digital broker that was built from within a big, national broker, and today uses technology to match small business and individual insurance customers with coverage They currently write about $4m in premium per month; 65% being small commercial, and the rest being personal lines, plus benefits for small businesses They use AI to keep up with changes in coverage and appetite in real-time rather than having to manually recode their algorithms through some regular review process This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

After ITC Vegas 2024, I had to do a quick recap of the themes that stood out to me, and what I took from it. Highlights from the Show The winner for most-talked about buzzword? AI, obviously The focus, however, was on AI for efficiency An AI-enabled data company talked about the difficulty they have talking about improving UW results, so they only talk about efficiency when meeting with carriers, or they lose the audience (even though they have proof of positive L/R impact) As an industry, I challenge all of us to actually push on the core of the business and not just go for the "easy" sell of efficiency  This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

While the show is on a break for a few weeks, I wanted to be sure you knew two things about ITC Las Vegas 2024: You can save $200 on registration thanks to the deal I scored for my listeners! Just visit http://www.future-of-insurance.com/itc for the discount code and a link to register If you're an insurance company executive, drop me a DM on LinkedIn if you'd like to be a guest on the show while I record in-person episodes at ITC on October 16th Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

In this quick episode, I share that I need to take a break from releasing episodes for a few weeks as my schedule hasn't allowed me to do any new interviews, and, in place of a new episode, I recommend a show you need to be listening to - "What's the Scenario?" with plrb.   To be in the insurance industry means understanding what insurance is all about and how complex the idea of coverage can be. Every week, the team at PLRB disucsses a coverage issue that came to them from across their members. The issues are really interesting, the discussion is rich and easy to follow, and it all just gives you a much better understanding of and appreciation for the work we do in insurance.   You can listen to "What's the Scenario?" with plrb on your favorite podcast platform (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Amazon, etc) or watch it on YouTube.   This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

I'm joined my Insurance and Underwriting veteran and thought leader, Nick Lamparelli, for this episode as we discuss the ideas in the new white paper I'm publishing, "The Economic Viability of Insurance," available starting today for free at http://www.future-of-insurance.com/profit. Highlights from the Show The approaches we have been using to stresses on underwriting profit historically have been cutting costs (focusing on expenses), taking rate, pulling out of markets or segments These approaches proved insufficient to deal with the scale of macro-level pressures insurers faced in 2023, and I would argue will continue to face going forward, like Severe Convective Storms (SCS, or, mainly, hail) and other Natural Catastrophes driven by Climate Change Social Inflation Supply Chain and Labor Constraints Inflation and more We should be looking at new approaches, including How we think about and respond to risk – tools we use to understand risk, select it intelligently to compete on, and harden it when we do choose to offer coverage Move to next-generation approaches to rating that are more dynamic, allowing us to stay ahead of the need for rate change rather than respond far too late and insufficiently Rethinking the products we offer to cover what have been come extremely different exposures from the ones our current products were designed for These solution can take the form of insurtech software or services; E&S/non-admitted product development; Parametric solutions to coverages no longer viable as indemnity products; and so much more Now is the time to really engage in the idea of doing things differently as we are seeing increasing difficulty in aligning prices that are affordable to buy coverage at with prices that are economically viable to sell it at, meaning the market may begin to fail to clear If that happens, other capital can come in and solve for the need for coverage, increasing the pressure insurers have seen on the decreasing percent of risks that are insured against (measured by NatCat losses that are insured vs. not), as one method) Download the paper today, and share it with your network to get more people talking about how we can push our industry ahead. This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

I shared some thoughts triggered by a recent conversation with an executive at an InsurTech solution provider who was voicing frustration with his perception that there seems to be a lot of talk that we are perfect or don't need to look to improve at many carriers. He was curious if this was my observation, as well, and what I thought we could do about it. One thing I know I can do is to talk about it, and help inspire all of you to push your organizations to be humble and honest so we can get back to truly achieving what's possible. Highlights from the Show The biggest danger to our industry is hubris - the sense that are are good enough where we are, or that we're so great, we don't need to open our ears, eyes and minds to feedback and insights from customers, employees, partners and peers I'm seeing more of this than I think we have a right to show, and it's holding the industry back I liken it to a bank robber who robbed 10 banks last year, and 5 this year, holding up their great achievement as if that was an acceptable end state Remember that we can and should respect our progress and improvement, but should never confuse that with being good enough to seizing on the true opportunity in front of us Get $200 of new registrations for ITC Vegas 2024 using code 200ITC1291 at vegas.insuretechconnect.com/register This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Adam Denninger leads Capgemini's global strategy for the insurance industry and manages its relationships with the insurance technology ecosystem. Adam has 20+ years' experience creating and delivering solutions at the intersection of business and technology. He joins the show to share some of the perspective in their World Property and Casualty Insurance Report for 2024. Highlights from the Show A focus Adam shared is the idea of being effective in underwriting This is a combination of accuracy and speed That's about getting better data and being able to act on it faster than we have in the past To achieve speed, it requires changing the entire process for evaluating underwriting performance, changing risk factors and inputs, and changing products rapidly Making this change is like doing open heart surgery on a patient who is actively living their life rather than being anesthetized on an OR table A major theme of Capgemini's research is the confluence of rapidly changing macro factors impacting losses While each factor may have moved like this before, we haven't had so many factors moving at the same time to such an extent and at such speed Adam believes the industry needs to come together to create accurate, easily-accessed data sources for common things we all need, like natural perils Download Capgemini's World Property and Casualty Insurance Report 2024 This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Edouard is the CEO of Stellantis Insurance, having spent his career building new ways to solving insurance-related needs globally. He is responsibile for creating insurance solutions to support Stellantis' growth objectives in their automotive business, where insurance can enable or hinder those aspirations. He formerly worked at Volvo and Stellantis' predecessor, PSA. He joins the show as he winds down his time leading Stellantis' efforts in Insurance, and on the back of a major announcement with Bolt on embedding auto insurance in the US market. We met over a year ago when we were part of research Capgemini was doing on the future of Mobility and its impact on insurance as part of their World Insurance Report in 2023, which Lars Boeing joined the show to discuss. I shared my work on the Future of Auto Insurance with Edouard, and was excited to bring him on the show to discuss his take on the question given his rich background in the space and being a key driver in where things are heading. Highlights from the Show Edouard began his insurance career while still in school, doing his master's dissertation on new entrants into insurance That lead to a roll at Volvo Group to setup an insurance business, which then lead to a roll with PSA (now Stellantis) to build their insurance business Why would car companies (OEMs) get into insurance? Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) - if insurance for a given car model is too expensive, people won't buy your car, so OEMs want to work to control insurance cost as part of TCO Diversification of Revenues - important in any business, and if you run it right, there's attractive margin in insurance Opportunity - insurance is a way to demonstrate to consumers that you care, and the perception of most insurers is that they're against you rather than trying to pay your claims, so OEMs are well positioned to be the solution to that issue But can OEMs succeed? They're very well positioned with existing assets – brand name with high loyalty and affinity, logistics and supply chains, key purchasing moments, repair and distribution networks, deep understanding of the physical product being insured, etc. They have the assets and resources, but the remaining challenge is execution There's also a question of whether the OEM has to be the insurer, or simply partner with insurance providers and capacity This depends on risk appetite, which is trickier in insurance since you don't know the cost of product until after it is sold Stellantis has looked at multiple models, from building their own insurer to partnering with insurers to working with platforms like Bolttech in each of their global markets to meet local needs Partnership matters because, even if you have your own insurer, you cannot and do not want to take every risk that comes in Car dealers still need to make the sale, so they need solutions beyond an OEM's insurer to be sure they don't get forced to say "No" to a customer who needs coverage We discussed whether OEM's push into subscription services means insurance mustbe part of the equation, but there are local regulations that need to be navigated that may not allow this, so Stellantis must have options for customers that could include an embedded insurance offering but has to include other paths The technology we have to enable new pathways for OEMs to sell insurance are completely different than ever before It's important for insurers to create far more technical capabilities to partner with OEMs as most insurers currently are not flexible enough for most OEM needs You can get the report at future-of-insurance.com/capgemini2023 Download The Future of Auto Insurance: Connected, Embedded, Subscribed for free today This episode is brought to you by The Future of Auto Insurance: Connected, Embedded, Subscribed, which you can download for free today, thanks to support from Guidewire. This report is part of The Future of Insurance book series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Ian is the co-founder and CEO of Koffie Financial, a finsurtech platform purpose-built for the trucking and transportation industry. With insurance at its core, Koffie's instant and transparent financial services empower truckers with the modern tools and technology necessary to drive efficiency and safety. He is an entrepreneurial leader at the intersection of data, enterprise markets and geospatial analysis. Previously Ian served as founder/CEO of Urban Mapping, a web-based mapping platform he sold to Pitney Bowes in 2015. Customers included Tableau Software, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Kayak, IAC, CoStar Group. He has also served in a senior role at a startup that acted as outsourced research for the financial services industry, focusing on alternative data to generate alpha for hedge funds. Highlights from the Show Ian has been a serial entrepreneur, including working in the mapping space and how powerful the meta data about locations, and how critical it is to have accuracy in the data He went on to work on catastrophe exposures, with a specific focus on how geology impacts earthquake losses, which gave him more exposure to managing risk and the impact of loss He was drawn to insurance after a stint offering data to hedge funds because it wasn't as 'I win, you lose' as hedge funds where insurers doing worse means they're helping others Koffie was founded initially to look at the difference in trucking equipment, and how that impacts losses They found that midsize and large risks were self-insuring and forming captives because insurers weren't meeting their needs, but small trucking firms (under 100 tractors) can't afford to do that, so Koffie focused on the smaller-end of the market After a year and half, they got capacity in place, required telematics for insureds (first dedicated equipment, and later with an iPhone app) While this was all positive, the business ultimately didn't survive, and was sold to Acrisure in early 2024 Ian learned first hand something he calls the "InsurTech Paradox" Ian thinks, while we'll see a return of funding, it won't return to the situation where there are huge checks being written He also wonders about whether insurance should be incenting better behavior, even if it means the business that's insured doesn't work that day This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance book series (future-of-insurance.com) from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Joshua Morey is the Chairperson of Ori-gen and President of The J Morey Company Inc. Ori-gen amplifies the voice of diverse communities throughout America by providing resources, services, and perpetuation planning for indepedent agents and brokers from diverse backgrounds. With offices in Hawaii, Los Angeles, Orange County, Torrance, and San Jose, California, Ori-gen represents a wide variety of personal, business, and specialty insurance from 40+ national and international carriers. He is a founding Board Member of the Asian American Insurance Network and Asian's in Insurance Podcast, and advisory council member of the Equity in Infrastructure Project. In addition Mr. Morey serves on the Board of Director's for the US Japan Council (Executive Committee), Japanese American National Museum, Little Tokyo Community Council, and was featured on the cover of Rough Notes, and IIABA's national magazine. He is co-founder of KODO Insurance Services (Insurtech) and Chairman of the Board of Arrowood Insurance Services. He has a B.A. in Business Economics, from Wheaton College and a M.A. in Intercultural Studies from Fuller Theological Seminary. In his free time he loves playing baseball and spending time with his wife and three kids. Highlights from the Show Josh is a fourth generation Japanese American, with his great grandfather having immigrated in the late 1800s, and setting up an import-export business in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles The family lost everything when Japanese Americans were sent to incarceration camps during WWII Finding insurance the Japanese American community was next to impossible, so they started their own, and Josh's family started an agency, The J Morey Company, to serve the community, which he runs today Josh's story in taking over is similar to a lot of multi-generational insurance agencies, where the next generation may not be interested in taking over, can't afford to buy the business, or the business is no longer viable, which threatens the legacy of so many family businesses Rather than selling to another agency, Josh worked with a consultant to find a path to keep the business in the family despite not having the financing in place to buy the business That's what sparked the founding of Ori-gen, as a platform to continue the legacy of these companies It's not just about keeping the agencies going, but to support the communities that rely on these agencies in the way his ancestors and their communities needed each other after WWII Josh has also tried to drive more minority involvement in the insurance industry overall, which stems from his sense that this is the best industry and best country in the world That includes engaging the Asian and Pacific Islander community through AAIN (Asian American Insurance Network, where he's a board member), as well as partnering with other groups, like joining NAAIA and Ngozi Nnajiand her Black Friday efforts Josh advocates for DEI efforts because, without them, the industry will miss out on great talent and different approaches that only come from diversity within that talent This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance book series (future-of-insurance.com) from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Bill Pappas is Head of Global Technology and Operations, and is a Corporate Officer and a member of the company's Executive Leadership Team. In this role, he directs a team of more than 43,000 people responsible for technology development, infrastructure, information and cyber security, data strategy and analytics, customer service, operations, crisis management, business continuity and procurement for all lines of business, serving more than 90-million customers across 40+ countries around the world. Pappas joined MetLife in 2019 from Bank of America, where he was the head of operations for the consumer, small business, wealth management and private banking businesses. In this role, Pappas directed a team comprised of more than 50,000 employees and contractors delivering integrated service and operations solutions to approximately 63-million consumers and clients. In addition, Pappas led the global business services team that provided integrated technology solutions across Bank of America. Pappas holds a B.A. cum laude in government and an MBA in international business from Bentley University where he serves on its Board of Trustees. He also is a contributing thought leader as a member of the Gartner Research Board and the Forbes Technology Council.  Highlights from the Show Bill and his team are responsible for everything tied to customers and their experience, and includes roughly half of MetLife's staff with about 60k people Bill has never seen the level of complexity, ambiguity and uncertainty that we have today at any other time in this 30 year Financial Services career, and there's a convergence of these things today that's quite different Many of these issues – supply chain, inflation, political uncertainty, cyber – is the first time we're facing them, so there's no existing playbook for any of these items Customer expectations spiked in COVID, but haven't let up since then MetLife has worked on the process to understand the customer needs, wants and demands Then they look at product and process match up with those customer requirements, and then move to development where there's a gap This takes also look at staff, and how they're supported in supporting customers, so MetLife looks at how it creates and maintains a contemporary workforce, which is something that must be dynamic over time How do skillsets evolve, and how do you ensure your workface has the right skills at any given time Workforces are hybrid, have moving priorities and expectations, and decision making isn't as command-and-control as it might have been years ago They are deliberate in not having technology for technology's sake but only in support of the company's strategic objectives, which helps protect against siloed thinking for any one function Innovation is something they've moved to make it part of every staff member's work as part of the culture's DNA rather than existing in a specific team or group They run hackathons, setup investment mechanisms for new ideas and more to ensure innovation is everyone's responsibility and they're empowered to deliver on it DE&I is important to MetLife and is part of everything they do, but they couldn't operate with such a customer focus without it and the diverse thinking and skills that come with it For example, you cannot develop new, powerful tools like AI without different approaches and mindsets involved or you end up with something out of sync with your customer base They see a shortage of women in STEM, and have been working with universities to drive more involvement by women in STEM career paths, and then looking at how to support them better through their careers; this is something they've also worked with other companies and non-profit organizations in the communities MetLife operates in to help make meaningful progress You cannot move the industry or the market on your own, so MetLife has chosen to convene the industry to help learn together and foster the progress the company is trying to make on macro-level things like talent, AI and more This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance book series (future-of-insurance.com) from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Richard McCathron is CEO and President of Hippo Insurance and has served as a member of the Board of Directors since February 2017. Prior to Hippo, Rick held senior executive positions at various insurance companies including First Connect Insurance, Superior Access Insurance and Mercury Insurance Group. Rick is both a Chartered Property & Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) and a Certified Insurance Counselor (CIC) and sits on the board of directors of Spinnaker Insurance Company and First Connect Insurance. He is an advisor for several other InsurTech companies and holds a BS in Finance from Oregon State University.  Highlights from the Show Rick's insurance career spans a lot of areas, including different carrier functions, distribution and more, and has been at Hippo for 8 years, including his current role as President & CEO 2023 reminded Rick of the Northridge Earthquake and the impact that had on the industry Hail was a major driver of loss in 2023, which coincided with a trend to buy net quota share insurance (QS with a cap for CAT losses) and Excess of Loss (XOL) coverage above that There weren't big events that would trigger XOL coverage, but the small losses exhausted the QS coverage, so many carriers found their balance sheets impacted There's a fundamental shift in insurance around our financials but also consumer behaviors The pricing pendulum swings wildly because cost drivers move fast, but rate filings and approvals move slowly Tech solutions at carriers are helping to narrow the time gap to help with this, especially tech-driven carriers like Hippo Hippo also mixes its approach to the market between their own product, their fronting business that brings in revenue from other players and lines of business, and their distribution arm, First Connect, that brings commission revenue from selling other carrier's products Growth in this context is imperative to be about profitable growth, and Hippo has focused on this now, whereas there was an initial push to grow, generally That means having more specific offerings to specific buyers, like those who would adopt IoT to protect their property Embedding insurance into new home construction, but using its agency to ensure they don't end up with aggregation issues when working with a builder to insure a new development Rick watches reinsurance profitability as a sign of where primary insurers will end up since there's a disconnect in when reinsurers move prices and when primary insurers are able to price that into their filings The fundamentals of insurance aren't changing, but the rate of speed that you have to adjust how you write and the customer demands and expectations continue to change constantly Rick shared his view on AI, where it is real today, but the AI being used now won't be anything like what we will use in 2 years given how fast it's evolving The traditional coverages the industry is selling are increasingly disconnected from what the exposures they insure are and what consumers actually need for protection (and the affordability of the coverage they can get) People want genuine customization in all aspects of their lives, and to know that what they're getting is genuinely built for their needs Embedded insurance – we have to meet customers where they are, like embedding pet insurance in the adoption process or the purchase process for homes or cars Remembering the fundamentals, but that there's a customer at the other end of this, and we have to serve them if we want to ultimately succeed We talked about being proactive on claims Using Parametric coverage is one way to do that since coverage can be delivered instantaneously (or very quickly) Reaching out to customers when we think there's likely to be a claim (like when there's 2" hail in their area), which historically people think leads to buying claims, but Hippo has seen that the claims would come in anyway, but they'll come later and with some form of representation (attorney, public adjuster), so you end up paying more for the claim in the end than if you had handled it correctly from the moment the loss occurred. This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance book series (future-of-insurance.com) from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Charlie Sidoti is the Executive Director of InnSure, an industry-funded not-for-profit with a mission to foster innovation in insurance. InnSure's integrated programs are designed to help insurance professionals and organizations survive and thrive by improving their ability to respond to the disruptive forces that are reshaping the industry. InnSure provides a roadmap for corporate sponsors, experienced industry talent, and outside contributors to connect, innovate and move the insurance industry forward, together. To learn more, visit InnSure.org. Highlights from the Show Charlie Sidoti spent 20 years with large, P&C carriers on the commercial side, and then 10 years in the analytics space around insurance before founding InnSure, which is a non-profit focused on innovation in the insurance industry around climate change They looked at where investment around climate impact was going for the insurance industry, and it tended to be things to help us exit lines or markets faster (avoiding risk, raising rate), and that didn't seem to solve the real issue or be what insurance is meant to do InnSure engages in its mission in a number of ways, including: Climate Risk and Insurance Sandbox Community Embedded Insurance Initiative - to help communities shape their insurability InnSure Corps - multifunctional group from across and around the industry to take newer talent and help them see how to have an impact and grow their abilities as leaders of the future Interacting with government and administering grants and prizes, such as the one from NYSERDA we talked about later in the episode As a non-profit, InnSure can take a position and engage differently than for-profit, commercial enterprises can, including taking a long term view of things and investing with that horizon The Innovation Prize, which is a $5m program from the NY State Energy Research Development Agency that InnSure is administering by giving grants of $500k to $1m The program is helping to foster ideas past the initial risk in commercialization that many great ideas face early in their journey Insurance in particular can help protect NYSERDA's investments in clean tech, clean transportation and clean buildings, with 5-10 ideas to be supported The idea must be relevant to NY, though it can apply to other geographies in the US, too The application process is open through July 22nd, 2024 at https://innsure.org/prize-page Looking forward, the climate issues are very real now and not just talk, and we are starting to talk about things other than raising rates and exiting. You're seeing discussion about Predict & Prevent Parametrics Community embedded insurance, with communities buying coverage for a hard-to-cover area This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance book series (future-of-insurance.com) from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Amir leads Fintech and Insurtech investing at AV8 and has been one of the earliest investors in the Insurtech space. Amir has been an entrepreneur, operator and investor with over 15 years of experience, working with early and mid-stage companies on financing, partnerships and strategic growth initiatives. Prior to AV8, Amir was an investment director and founding team member at Munich Re Ventures where he lead and managed investment efforts for two of the funds and made early bets in Insurtech, Mobility and Digital Health in companies like Next Insurance, Inshur, HDVI, Spruce, Ridecell, Babylon Health etc.. Earlier Amir worked for several venture funds, including Route 66 Ventures, focusing on Fintech and Insurtech, and investing in companies such as Simplesurance and DriveWealth. He began his career in Germany as a network engineer and subsequently at Legodo AG (acquired by Open Text, OTEX (NASDAQ)), an enterprise software startup, where he held several roles in sales, business development and product management until acquisition. In 2019, Amir was ranked 11 out of 100 on Global Corporate Venture's Rising Stars list and was named a “VC Champions Select” by All Raise. Amir lives in San Francisco and holds an MBA from Georgetown McDonough School of Business, a BS in Business Informatics from RFH Cologne in Germany and is currently finishing an MS in Law from Northwestern Pritzker School of Law. Highlights from the Show Amir started investing in InsurTech in the mid-2010s, and spent most of his investing career at Munich Re in their Ventures team, as the third member of the team They started investing in industrial IoT and similar topics since their funding was from Hartford Steam Boiler (HSB) In 2016, there was more of a pivot into InsurTech as it emerged At AV8, Amir focuses on early stage, focused on very early stage to some revenue traction but still pre-series-A generally Their majority LP is Allianz, and the fund is heavily FinTech-focused They like risk taking businesses like MGAs and full-stack carriers because of the long-term returns, plus the difficulty in selling to insurance companies and surviving the long sales cycles Amir has focused on niche markets or areas where incumbents lack digital solutions, and leading with building a new insurance approach and adding tech after it's established Investing in long-term ideas may take longer, but then there's strong moats that can stop competitors from eating your lunch, which is harder to do with short-term ideas or SaaS areas Investment has gotten tough, but there are investors out there still; they just may be looking more critically at profit potential than might have happened in the past InsurTechs that went public and haven't done well were not alone – the market more broadly was pushing a lot of startups to go public so investors could get returns, but for many it proved too soon to go public because fundamentals weren't there yet This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance book series (future-of-insurance.com) from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Guest Bio Yaron Ben-Zvi is an executive with a track record of building innovative businesses in complex spaces, such as insurtech and financial services. Yaron is currently COO at Oka, The Carbon Insurance Company. Oka is de-risking the voluntary carbon market (VCM) for buyers and sellers of carbon credits with first-of-its-kind carbon credit insurance, which provides buyers with financial compensation in the event of credit reversal or invalidation. Previously, Yaron was  CEO of Haven Technologies and Haven Life. At Haven Technologies, Yaron led the build of a modern, cloud-based, and end-to-end technology platform for life insurance that became a key part of MassMutual's transformation strategy. As Founder and CEO of Haven Life, Yaron grew the company into one of the leaders in online term life insurance distribution with its transparent and user-friendly product design. Along the way, Haven Life was recognized by U.S. News & World Report and Investopedia as one of the best term life insurance providers in the U.S.  Previously, Yaron founded Goalmine, an early robo-advisor that was acquired in 2012.  As a leader, Yaron is passionate about creating unique and collaborative company cultures that help teams realize their potential. At Haven, Yaron had the honor to build and lead a team of more than 350 technology and insurance professionals to make life insurance simple and expand access to this critical financial product. Yaron obtained his BA in history and political philosophy from Wesleyan University and his MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Highlights from the Show Yaron joined the show with the Life Insurance startup he founded, Haven After leaving Haven, he was looking for an opportunity in something that connected to his interest in dealing with the climate crisis, which lead him to Oka, which insures carbon offset and credit transactions Companies that use credits and offsets as part of their decarbonization strategy, the founding team at Oka realized there were a number of risks that make this difficult, with Oka focused on post-issuance risks, like Reversal Risks - you buy carbon credit from a forest in Canada, but a wildfire burns that forest down. Or, illegal logging shrinks the forest. These are risks that could release the captured-carbon back into the air. Invalidation Risks - the methodology behind the carbon credit was flawed, like fraud being committed in the actions that lead to the carbon sequestration Oka was only started in 2023, and today has their own syndicate at Lloyd's, capacity from partners, and the technology to support it – with a team of seven people The CEO, Chris Slater, comes from the industry, as do the board of directors, so there's a lot of experience building insurance businesses The carbon market is split into two sub-markets Voluntary Market – companies that are choosing to decarbonize Involuntary Market – government or regulators force compliance with certain standards and timelines Both markets are growing rapidly out of necessity, and there are buyers and sellers that need protection Some buyers want protection if they're newer to the market, or are doing something unproven Some sellers who want to enhance the attractiveness of their carbon credits and to protect themselves from something going wrong that makes it hard for them to deliver or fulfill the credits they've sold This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance book series (future-of-insurance.com) from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Festus William Amoyaw started his career with Amex International Incorporated, a contractor for the USAID in Ghana Trade & Investment Reform Programme, Increased Private Enterprise Performance (IPEP) Component Project as a Market Research and Business Development Assistant. He subsequently worked in an indigenous Ghanaian Financial Institution, HFC Bank (Republic Bank), as a Credit Analyst focusing on Small and Medium Enterprises. In the last decade, he has gathered considerable experience in private equity and impact investment. He worked with GroFin Ghana, a subsidiary of GroFin Capital based in Mauritius, as a Business Development Manager and, subsequently, a Portfolio Manager. He also briefly worked as Investment Officer with Investisseur & Partenaires (I&), a Paris-based Fund Manager of I&P Afrique Entrepreneur Fund of Euro 55 Million in the Ghana Office. From I&P, he moved on to work at Acumen as the West Africa Officer, where he sourced for deals, conducted due diligence and closed various transactions. In 2018 he joined the Regional Offgrid Electrification Project (ROGEP), an Ecowas Center for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ECREEE) initiative funded by the World Bank Group and partners as a Finance Expert. He also acted as the Coordinator for ROGEP before joining WAM. He has worked as a Principal Investment Officer with Women's World Banking Asset Management (WAM) and Consultant for Lendahand and XpressGas Limited. Currently, he is the CEO/Co-Founder of Figtech Limited, a Fintech startup company in Ghana. Fintech has developed an App, MYFIG, to solve the challenges many faces in navigating various financial products. He graduated from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi and the University of Ghana Business School in Agriculture Economics and a Masters in Business Administration, respectively. He is a Certified Digital Finance Expert from the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management. Highlights from the Show Festus started working about 3 years ago on the issue of people in Africa having enough financial protection for retirement or to protect their families, and penetration rates of traditional life insurance products are very low Africa has seen the adoption of mobile payments, even on feature phones instead of smart phones, but that's largely not moved into financial services spending so much as general consumption All of this lead him to co-found Figtech, which is a platform to manage your insurance protection Life insurance is sold by individuals in Africa, but these agents don't tend to stand behind or support the policies after they're sold, so consumers struggle with basic things like updating their address (which requires going to the insurance company's office to change it in person) There are changes needed in the insurance market and regulation of it to see more penetration of insurance Some regulators have been creating more flexible paths for startups and new players to enter the market and grow For example, creating digital distribution licenses They've also allowed for creation of microinsurance that comes along with or is embedded into other products, like insurance you get when you buy more airtime minutes for your mobile phone Figtech was part of the first regulator-organized startup competition three years ago, and that experience helped spark Festus to push to create an insurtech community in Ghana, starting InsurTech Ghana They've been working with other InsurTech communities around the world, and started the first ever InsurTech Ghana conference in 2023, which they're holding again this year Africa is where a lot of new ideas of coverage and ways to protect people are being developed, and we would be smart to foster and watch what's happening there as a source of possible future product innovation ideas for the global insurance market This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance book series (future-of-insurance.com) from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

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 The Future of Insurance book series (future-of-insurance.com) from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

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 The Future of Insurance book series (future-of-insurance.com) from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

This is a short bonus episode to share that there won't be a new episode for a couple of weeks. I also share the message from a recent talk I did on how we, as a legacy industry, can find a path to innovate and evolve. Highlights from the Show Due to some scheduling issues, there won't be a new episode of the show until the week of March 25th, 2024 I recently did a talk on Innovating in a Legacy Industry that had 3 main takeaways Customers - ask them directly, listen to what they say, and deliver to that Culture - empower and involve your people in the change your organization needs to make Speed - you need to be able to move fast (not just faster, but genuinely fast), and also know when to slow down The recent turnaround in Q4 of many carrier's 2023 performance was good, but also dampened the pressure to change, which is unfortunate We all need the reminder that, no matter how well we seem to be doing, we can and should strive to do better This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance book series (future-of-insurance.com) from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Dr. Robin Kiera is the Founder and CEO of Digitalscouting a consulting and marketing agency based in Germany. Robin is an author, renowned speaker, entrepreneur, top-ranked insurance and finance influencer. He started Digitalscouting as an after-work hobby that exploded positively and became a multimedia B2C, B2B and B2B2C consulting and marketing agency – supporting entrepreneurs, c-suits and start-ups in their digital transformations, market-entry, hacking the attention of customers and partners. He joins the show to share about his new book, Attention Hacking: The Power of Social Media Selling in Insurance and Finance, which was recently released in English, that is *the* guide for the insurance and finance industries on how to have real impact and build a following through your social media presence. He shares the insights and hacks we can all put into practice right now unlock the possibilities in our brands, both personally and for our organization. Highlights from the Show To learn more about Robin, check out his first appearance on the show in Season 1, Episode 20  Robin started as an agent at a carrier, and then moved to the startup side In the early-2000s, he saw the changes coming as the Internet grew, and started to speak about it through a blog, public speaking and social media once that took hold He shares some of the key hacks or insights from the book, like the kind of story we need to be telling, the production values we need to hold high in our efforts, and the power of momentum You can get the book and the insights from it at http://www.future-of-insurance.com/attentionhacking This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance book series (future-of-insurance.com) from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

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 Salient 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, Sertis, 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, BirdsEyeView, 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 Elios, 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 insurtechny.com This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance book series (future-of-insurance.com) from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

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. Cake & Arrow 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: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshplevine/ All Cake & Arrow Research Reports Select articles and reports: The mindset shift the insurance industry doesn't know it needs Climate change & Homeowners Insurance We're Anxious but Optimistic: What these 12 people want insurance companies to know about their finances Beyond Burnout: Redefining Benefits for a New Era of Work This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance book series (future-of-insurance.com) from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

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 http://www.future-of-insurance.com/itne) This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance book series (future-of-insurance.com) from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

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 The Future of Insurance book series (future-of-insurance.com) from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

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 this WSJ article 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 Global Insurance Accelerator 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 The Future of Insurance book series (future-of-insurance.com) from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Kobi is the CEO of InsurTech Israel 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 The Future of Insurance book series (future-of-insurance.com) from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

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 LinkedIn. 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 The Future of Insurance book series (future-of-insurance.com) from Bryan Falchuk. Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes. Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.