The Future of Insurance

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

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

Patrick G. Schmid, PhD is an economist and the President of The Institutes' RiskStream Collaborative—a risk management and insurance blockchain & emerging technology consortium. He works with RiskStream's member-led governance boards and oversees RiskStream's products, relationship management, operations, and technology workstreams. Dr. Schmid offers blockchain and emerging technology thought leadership for The Institutes and coordinates the RiskStream's consortium of insurers, brokers and reinsurers with industry participants and technical partners in developing production applications that can lower costs, improve customer experience and drive efficiency across the insurance industry. Patrick was the 2018 recipient of the International Insurance Society's Leaders of Tomorrow award. Dr. Schmid formerly served as the head of The Institutes' Enterprise Research department, where he led a teams of data architects and researchers in developing analytical solutions and market insights. He has also served as the Director of Research for the Insurance Research Council (IRC), a division of The Institutes. In this role, he led efforts to study public policy-related insurance issues, published these research efforts in academic journals and testified on these findings in front of regulators. He has a MA and a PhD in economics from Temple University. He has taught economics and finance at several Philadelphia-area colleges and universities (Albright College, Drexel, Saint Joseph's, Temple, Wharton, etc.). Prior to working in the insurance industry, he worked as an economist for Moody's Analytics, monitoring various economic indicators, creating forecasts and blogging on monetary policy. Highlights from the Show RiskStream is part of The Institutes, which most people will know from their CPCU program and Society RiskStream is setup as a collaborative, which is central to what it's trying to do around bringing the industry together Multiparty business processes enabled by technology so different organizations can exchange data into their disparate systems efficiently and easily to facilitate smoother transactions RiskStream started looking at different use cases that would be applicable, and the first they identified was net settlement in subrogration, and found that a handful of top 10 insurers were already building solutions internally, and one, Liberty Mutual, donated their solution to the collaborative to help move the industry forward This lead to RiskStream's RapidX solution The real value for these solutions really tends to come from the network adoption rather than what any one company gains, so you generally should want broader, easier adoption rather than a single player trying to own it outright RiskStream allows for the scaling of the network effect by getting several players together in a way they can feel safe doing because it's a non-profit, non-competitive body Bringing together so many carriers also allows RiskStream to take in learnings and needs of a wide range of players so that solutions can be more robust than any one of them might design on their own While they've started with a subrogration example, they've also been developing other areas to apply a multiparty solution, including Surety This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance Volume III. The Collaborators, part of the Future of Insurance thought leadership 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 J. Glawe is the President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Insurance Crime Bureau. Mr. Glawe is responsible for leading a united effort of property-casualty insurance companies, law enforcement agencies, car rental companies, and other strategic partners to prevent and combat insurance fraud and crime. Mr. Glawe oversees the operational and intelligence capabilities of NICB employees who are deployed in eight regional offices throughout the United States and Mexico. Prior to joining NICB, Mr. Glawe served as the Under Secretary for Intelligence at the Department of Homeland Security. He was nominated by the President of the United States and received unanimous confirmation by the Senate. Prior to his appointment, Mr. Glawe served as Special Assistant to the President of the United States for Homeland Security, and as the Chief Intelligence Officer and Assistant Commissioner at U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Mr. Glawe also served in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence as Deputy Intelligence Manager for Threat Finance and Transnational Organized Crime, and subsequently on the President's National Security Council. Earlier in his career, Mr. Glawe served as a Supervisory Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a Federal Agent with the United States Postal Inspection Service, and a Police Officer in Houston, Texas, and Aurora, Colorado. Mr. Glawe's numerous honors include the Central Intelligence Agency Warren Medallion and Citation, the Department of Homeland Security Distinguished Service Medal and Citation, the National Intelligence Superior Service Medal, and the Department of Justice Meritorious Public Service Award. Mr. Glawe achieved a Bachelor of Arts in Behavioral Science degree from the University of Northern Iowa and certificate from Harvard University. Highlights from the Show Dave has an almost-30 year career in law enforcement and national security, including serving as the Undersecretary of Intelligence in Homeland Security of the United States, an FBI agent, terrorism agent and a local police officer The NICB sits between insurers and state, local and federal law enforcement to identify criminal networks committing crimes that impact insurers and ultimately drive rates up for the public Fraud is different today. All criminal organizations are driven by money, and the path of least resistance to exploit opportunities to make financial gains are what drives their actions. The evolution of the collection of intelligence and data and using algorithms and tools that are tailored to identifying the networks perpetrating crime When looking at ML, AI, Generative AI, etc, and the possibilities they have to drive more fraudulent claim activity, Dave reminds us to look at what nation states have been doing and the training they're giving to bad actors This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance Volume III. The Collaborators, part of the Future of Insurance thought leadership 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.

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

Theresa Blissing has more than 15 years experience in the insurance industry both in Europe and Asia. Excited by the first signs of change in an industry typically resistant to change, she followed her passions into technology and big data after working with Italian insurer Generali for 10 years. Theresa is responsible for some of the first academic research into the adoption of Big Data into the Southeast Asian insurance business. Prior to starting Accelerating Insurance, Theresa worked with a German management consultancy as Asian Insurance Lead. As a well-recognized expert in the field, her advisory practice now brings to bear a deep knowledge of the InsurTech landscape in Asia and a fundamental understanding of upcoming trends, innovations and new technologies with the experience and know-how for applying it to incumbents. She is also the Founder of the Asia InsurTech Podcast and InsurTech Amplified. Theresa wrote the new book, The Future of Insurance, Volume IV. Asia Rising, as the latest entry in the best-selling Future of Insurance series. Highlights from the Show Theresa comes from an insurance background, with parents who were agents, and her own career having started at Generali She spent some time in Asia for Generali, and then decided to move there in 2015 after being fascinated by the activity in the region, and the developments and possibilities in insurance there While there, she founded the Asia InsurTech Podcast, and recently started another with co-host Michael Waitz, called InsurTech Amplified. For more on her background, you can hear the first time she was on the show in Season 1, Episode 13 Theresa joined the show to share the news that she has written a new book in The Future of Insurance series, volume 4, which is all about startup activity in Asia, and it will be released on October 17th, 2023 (and is already available for pre-order on Kindle) Her aim was to tell the story of different types of startups in different countries and situations, including stories in Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Indonesia and India The companies profiled through first-hand accounts, often written through interviewing the company founders, are: YAS OneDegree Tune Protect bolttech Qoala PhonePe Ping An Habitto One of the things that makes many markets in Asia so interesting for starting an insurance company is how low the penetration and knowledge of insurance is, which forces you to rethink how you enter and grow in the market Embedded insurance comes up very often in the book because of this, including in the case about Qoala, YAS and bolttech Japan is profiled through the case of Habitto, where the issue of an aging population, and a young generation that hasn't been focused on or served creates lessons that many other developed markets are or will soon be facing, like the US and Europe There are three major takeaway lessons that applied across all of the cases and have value to people in different situations, markets and companies: Build a customer-focused business Many insurers are product-centric, thinking about their offering and how to market and run it successfully, rethinking this to start from the customer and their needs leads you to then see how insurance might fit into that equation – or not – which then informs the options available to you to move ahead Embrace change Don't just be open to change, but when things don't go as planned or don't work out, rather than ignoring the failure or looking to blame someone, take learnings and lessons from the experience to do better next time or have more insight about what customers really want (or don't want) Leverage the power of partnerships Ecosystems is a buzzword going around a lot today, but carriers often see themselves at the center of the ecosystem with others buzzing around them, but that's not always the ideal way to do it You can't be good at everything, so you need the right partners to support your goals This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance Volume IV. Asia Rising by Theresa Blissing, part of the Future of Insurance thought leadership 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.

The Global Insurance Accelerator started in 2014 with a mission to drive innovation through the insurance industry. It was formed as a partnership between insurance carriers, innovation leaders, and local governmental leaders in Des Moines. Their goal was to bring a program to the industry that would combine mentor-led programming and early-stage capital to truly accelerate the best founders in the industry. And since ideas and founders could come from anywhere and anyone, the GIA has brought in founders from all over the world in the years since, attracting founders from five continents and invested over $3 million in early-stage insurtech companies. Today, with successful founder exits and an eye for growth in the future, the GIA is ready for the next decade, to bring innovation to the insurance industry through partnerships between companies, mentors, founders, and investors. Dan joined in 2022 as Managing Director. Prior to the GIA, he held roles in innovation, management and strategy, finance, and operations within a number of industries. Dan has an M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a B.B.A. in Finance and Economics from the University of Iowa Henry B. Tippie College of Business. Highlights from the Show This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance Volume III. The Collaborators, part of the Future of Insurance thought leadership 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.

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

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

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