The Leadership in Insurance Podcast - Insurtech & Innovation

 Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Christian Macht, CEO of Element Insurance - the Berlin-based start-up and leader in insurance digitization.   We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide variety of topics such as:   Is there anything you learned from the insurance market that surprised you?   Investing in start-ups - Insurance being surprisingly not boring..!  The deep integration of the value chain within the insurance   Playing a part in changing the structure of insurance  Is insurance broken?  Discussing rapid growth   The challenges of providing both parts of the ‘insur’ and the ‘tech’  The B2B2X dynamic   Looking at alternative business models   Building a relevant insurance product that will continue to be relevant in the future   The value of spending on marketing vs customer engagement   The room for improvement in insurance   Setting up a company without the legacy of a traditional insurer   The importance of a trusting relationship with a customer   The challenge of changing the traditional insurance delivery model and customer experience   Cultural resistance to change   The advantages of being  more consumer-centric   The makings of a successful partnership   The importance of a USP  How do you maintain a strong culture during rapid growth?  The idea of culture being fluid and evolving   How do you specifically describe a culture which is constantly evolving?  Bringing a co-ceo on board   Thank you Christian for your time, it was great to speak to you!       This Podcast was brought to you by FinPro, an executive recruitment business that works in the Insurance and Insurtech space       Our host in FinPro Director, Alex Bond      Please like and subscribe if you enjoyed this podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Taylor Perkins, co-founder and CTO of Slope Software, who offer an actuarial modelling platform that helps insurance companies understand and quantify their risk so that they can make better decisions about their business.   We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide variety of topics such as:   How approaching the market with a developed product was a key factor in Slope Software's success    However this meant working evenings and weekends   What were the unique challenges for Slope Software?   Life insurance, 30 year contacts and the challenge of ‘thinking in decades’ Demonstrating the ROI of a platform   Taylor’s background in being outside of insurance and how this brings an innovative perspective   Innovation in the insurance industry  Innovation vs adoption   Increasing innovation on the p&c side   The life cycle of insurance contracts   How innovation mirrors life cycles   The inherent problems in innovation teams  The importance of organisation-wide buy-in for successful innovation   What were the biggest surprises when entering the insurance industry?   Is there an incentive for a profitable, traditional insurance business to change?   The danger of being too comfortable in a position and risk-averse   The ripple effects of a small mistake   The threat of not embracing new technologies   Small constant change as opposed to large upheaval   Do you think the tech-side of insurance needs to do something to attract new talent?  How fostering and cultivating innovation will attract talent   The importance of recruiting people who enjoy solving problems   “Business owner or entrepreneur?”  Does advanced modelling risk making the current skills of actuaries obsolete?  Will actuaries exist in 10 years?  The necessary time input to become an actuary, years (7-10 years!)  10000 years to become an expert, 20000 years to become an actuary   Technology replaces the junior level roles, not the advanced roles   How does this impact the journey and journey of becoming a fully certified actuary?  Does embracing technology impact job enjoyment?  Slope Software's new funding! Their plans to move upmarket and focusing on enterprise-level clients, build and grow the Slope Software team and expand internationally!   Thank you Taylor for your time, it was great to speak to you!       This Podcast was brought to you by FinPro, an executive recruitment business that works in the Insurance and Insurtech space      Our host in FinPro Director, Alex Bond      Please like and subscribe if you enjoyed this podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

 Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by James Poole, founder and managing director of Agile Risk, a venture-backed risk intermediation team based in London who's aim is to drive down the cost for clients by securitising risk.   We had a great conversation where we covered a wide variety of topics such as:  - What are Agile Risk doing that is different from the status quo? - The importance and influence of a businesses purpose  - The universal objective of driving down the cost of risk for clients  - Agile Risk's approach of creating a new asset class  - The increasing demand for insurable risk in capital markets  - Investing in reinsurable risk - The misperception there being insufficient data in this particular area of insurance risk and  the risk being too complexed to understand  - Capital markets are structured around the allocation of real debt and equity capital and cash - How important is culture in driving change? - Our ingrained resistance to change  - Embracing forward looking models, eg. Monte Carlo risk model  - Hindsight as a hindrance to change,  - The three perennial certainties; change, principles and choice  - These constant changes drives need for constant movement and reevaluation  - Seeing the loss of a team member as an asset and an opportunity to embrace change  - Can insurance businesses be too profitable to change?  - "If it ain't broke don't fix it?!" - There is no fundamental requirement for a business to change, rather change is driven by the purpose of the business  - Solely profit-driven businesses being naturally imbued to be resistant to change - Speed being highly valued in start-ups and the issues this can create - Could  insurance benefit from engaging with other forms of capital? - How do you avoid group think? - The opportunities and perspectives brought into a business through continuous learning   Thank you James for your time, it was great to speak to you!     This Podcast was brought to you by FinPro, an executive recruitment business that works in the Insurance and Insurtech space     Our host in FinPro Director, Alex Bond    Please like and subscribe if you enjoyed this podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

 Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Matt Carter & Mark Huxley, co-founders of Cognitive Risk -  the strategic digital change consultancy focusing on insurance and technology which operates in the space where 'insur meets tech' and helps businesses get smarter.   In this conversation we talk about:   - 'Smart insurance' - what does that mean to you? - Connecting smarter insurance  - Reimagining the relationship with the customer and asking are you working in an environment where you have a quality relationship with the customer? - What can we do for the consumer? - Taking a new perspective on the conversation around insurance - The importance of understanding the values of your business  - How Cognitive Risk seeks to become the connective glue between the thinkers, doers and executers - Facilitating and utilising existing technology  - The technology is there so what are the challenges? - The inherent challenges which insurance faces due to time scales - How do you mitigate risk whilst being open-minded to new technologies?  - How do you facilitate the use of existing technologies?  - What are the more macro challenges? - The risk of going with the new unknown  - And the benefits of the journey  - Risk being paramount to everything - Insurance is not about trying to create a new process rather the challenge of shifting to adopt the new  - The need for partnership is imperative  - Corporate culture and understanding what innovation is going to look like inside your own organisation  - Process thinking vs system thinking  - The importance of micro-innovation - "The digital age is over, we are know in the intelligence age" - Insure Scale Up providing a support mechanism and providing a community space for those who want to improve the insurance   Thank you Matt for your time, it was great to speak to you!   This Podcast was brought to you by FinPro, an executive recruitment business that works in the Insurance and Insurtech space   Our host in FinPro Director, Alex Bond   Please like and subscribe if you enjoyed this podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Matt Duke, Head of Global Actuarial & Analytics Services at Xceedance.   In this conversation we talk about:  - Why work with actuarial as a consultancy as opposed to having in-house capability? - Does consultancy work suit that entrepreneurial mindset? - Is it harder to attract actuaries to a consultancy business?  -  Reimagining the employee experience post-pandemic – how do we make the quality of work better? -  How Matt identifies as a business leader with actuarial qualifications rather than an actuary first - How will the role of data science impact Actuaries – is an actuary required anymore? -  Actuarial exams are the basis – experience is what makes a great actuary -  Automation opportunity within Actuarial as enablement to more products and services -  Where does Actuarial science fit within the data analytics suite of an insurer today? -  Role of regulated environment in analytics – limitations, and challenges -  Does hyper-personalization of risk mean we make some people un-insurable? - Reducing the insurance as a public good argument? -  Hiring vs re-training? - Why don’t we do more with improving internal skills? -  Cryptocurrency and Insurance – is it viable? -   The future of actuarial? - Quantum computing and RPA – Bots?  - Collaboration in the Insurance market? Look for places where the market is un-profitable – auto insurance as an example  Thank you Matt for your time, it was great to speak to you!  This Podcast was brought to you by FinPro, an executive recruitment business that works in the Insurance and Insurtech space  Our host in FinPro Director, Alex Bond  Please like and subscribe if you enjoyed this podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky to be joined by Alvaro Sanz Perez, co-founder of Cleverea the Barcelona based digital insurance provider.In this conversation we talk about: Innovation throughout the entire value chain of insurance Appealing to a millennial customer Differentiation through improved customer experience Doing things digitally without losing the human touch The challenges of creating an insurtech start-up without any insurance background Is insurance broken? Expanding into Portugal and the benefit of cultural similarities Cross-selling being fundamental to Cleverea’s success and the advantages of being multiline Multiline as a risk strategy The investment landscape in the Spanish Insurtech market The need for a ‘European ambition’ for funding and looking beyond just Spain The importance of the start up community in Barcelona The team dynamic of three co-founders - and when two of the three are twin brothers! Cleverea’s plans to expand throughout the year and their new products which are coming soonThank you Alvaro for your time, it was great to speak to you!This podcast was brought to you by FinPro an executive recruitment business that works in the Insurance and Instech spaceOur host is FinPro Director, Alex BondPlease like and subscribe if you enjoyed this podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello and welcome to the latest edition of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky to be joined by Kevin Mackey who is COO and Co-Founder of Coterie an award-winning Insurtech that aims to make buying small business insurance easy by integrating it into the apps and platforms you already use.  This was a great conversation, Kevin was super engaging and we get into it straight away. Discussing a wide variety of topics such as: The importance of culture specifically in startups  The disconnect between what people think is their culture and what it is  How to create an environment - opportunity to thrive   Simplicity in culture and values is key  The culture of healthy questioning  Building culture through the interview process  Culture is a living thing - it will grow and evolve but can also die  Language challenges within tech and insurance   Tech and Insurance product timelines   Going from Chips and Salsa to Insurance!  What reverse acquisitions mean to Insurtech space - Hippo and Spinnaker  Embedded insurance - reducing friction and improving education around insurance buying  By sharing more information with your customers means you can sell more in Insurance - why don't we share more?  What brand value means in embedded insurance - would I buy my health insurance from Nike? Where do the synergies lie?  insurance is a social good? It can be for many reasons - but a social convenience is enough of a start!  Thank you to Kevin for being a great guest   This podcast was brought to you by FinPro an executive recruitment business that works in the Insurance and Instech space   Our host is FinPro Director, Alex BondPlease like and subscribe if you enjoyed this podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I was super excited to have Niranjan "Niji" Sabharwal as a guest on the Leadership in Insurance Podcast.  Niji is one-half of a husband and wife co-founding team behind AgentSync the broker compliance management system.Agentsync has been super successful from the outset and when your founding team has resumes like this one: LinkedIn, Stripe, Dropbox, and Zenefits you can see why.  It's out of the most problematic time of Nijis career at Zenefits that AgentSync was born.   In this episode we discuss:  The bottleneck of compliance   Building on the Salesforce platform  How compliance is a barrier to entry and therefore creativity in insurance  Not realizing how large the demand would be - timing is everything  Tech debt in the incumbent market and how tools such as AgentSync can help  The importance of failure in success  Funding rounds and timing - the difference in USA and Europe attitudes and failure rates  Why AgentSync bootstrapped  Raising too much money can lead to disillusionment  Is there too much money in the market  What is it like being a founding team and husband and wife?   What raising capital has enabled them to do   Senior hires and the importance of capital raises  What else investors bring to the table beyond capital  Do we expect too much from staff who join start-ups?  Why is Insurance having its tech moment?  How to build the right culture and the importance of hiring well Acknowledging Hiring representatively is time-consuming   Why talent pipelining is important  The advantage of having high profile female leaders especially in engineering  Head of Talent and their role in driving diversity  The challenge of remote hiring   Thanks, Niji for being a great guest  This podcast was brought to you by FinPro an executive recruitment business that works in the Insurance and Instech space   Our host is FinPro Director, Alex Bond  Please like and subscribe if you enjoyed this podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In today's episode of the leadership in Insurance podcast, we were lucky to be joined by Arvid De Coster, CEO of Belgium Insurtech WeGroup.WeGroup helps brokers, MGA's, and other distributors of insurance to more efficiently distribute their insurance products by utilizing the WeGroup technology.  In this conversation we talk about:   The ROI of Insurtech pitch competitions   Why all entrepreneurs need to learn to sell  How some of the best conversations come with target customers who "Won't" buy  Insurance isn't broken - its a lazy marketing line but it can do better  Pivoting - starting with the "lemonade for Europe"  B2C teaches you so much that works in B2B  Belgium Fintech scene - Investors and businesses a cautious scene - you need MRR  Talent shortages in talent - not unique to Belgium but not helped!  Clubhouse strategies - the office as a meeting hub  The benefits of remote working on salaries - are we really seeing reductions?  The importance of investing in staff mental health Salaries being dictated by demand - not location   Missed opportunities to sell insurance by distributors who don't understand insurance   Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us Arvid.  This podcast was brought to you by FinPro an executive recruitment business that works in the Insurance and Instech space   Our host is FinPro Director, Alex Bond   Please like and subscribe if you enjoyed this podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When running an Insurance leadership Podcast it's sometimes nice to connect with someone on something that isn't just Insurance. Huw Edwards is a CEO and Co-Founder on a mission firstly to deliver a world-class insurance solution to eCommerce businesses with Cyber Fortress but also to rescue "over-educated, high achievers from corporate suffering". It's a mission that we both share - you can work hard, be successful outside of the big corporate world so why don't more people do it?  This was a fun conversation, in it we talk about:  How the Welsh accent is received in the USA (as Australian)  How parametric applies to the eCommerce industry and why it's a better model for SMEs  Capturing the human element in the cyber risk model  Building the right partnerships for cyber cover   SME cyber - is the consumer educated enough to the risk?  Embedded insurance finding the right partners and the right touchpoints on the consumer journey  Corporate life - why is Huw on a mission to "alleviate suffering" for corporate   We talk entrepreneurship and ultra-marathons - you can't control all the variables bad things will happen  I foolishly announce I'm doing an Ultra-marathon.....  Can you learn entrepreneurship?  Huws journey from Oxford - Goldmans - Bridgewater capital to entrepreneur the search for purpose   Entrepreneurship theme - we don't like to be told what to do!  Is creativity the thing corporate culture crushes?  Can we allow people more freedoms in corporate culture? What's the balance?  How do we connect as teams in a fully remote environment?  Does the office make way for the creative hubs/meeting space/clubhouse?  Don't demonize the corporate culture - all corporates were a start-up once!  Intrapreneur? BS? Innovation labs -  without budget and authority what's the point?  Thanks, Huw for your time - I really enjoyed that conversation!  This podcast was brought to you by FinPro an executive recruitment business that works in the Insurance and Instech space   Our host is FinPro Director, Alex Bond  Please like and subscribe if you enjoyed this podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.