The Leadership in Insurance Podcast - Insurtech & Innovation

Welcome to the latest edition of the leadership in insurance podcast where we joined by Sasha Gainullin. Sasha is the CEO and Founder of battleface a tech-enabled travel insurance and services business offering truly international, customized travel cover.  In this episode we talk about:  Where the "battleface" comes from and why it's not more "travel friendly"  How travel has changed and hence the insurance cover must change with it  The unique demands on the travel claims process   Why he secretly buys travel insurance for his mum!  How the affinity insurance model of distribution can have a dangerous impact on cover  The opportunities and challenges of Covid19 impact on travel insurance  The fundamental challenge of how travel products are rated and marketed  We shouldn't be afraid of price-sensitive markets - consumers will pay for quality  Culture of mistrust between consumers and travel insurers - the impact of the "admin fee"  Why we must empower client-facing staff to make decisions  How can innovation come from C-Suite if they are the mots removed from customers?  Funding an Insurtech - and the impact of the Pandemic  Working with the right partners - "marriage should be easy" a lesson from Sashas Aunt!  How the virtual Xmas party went down - why he got asked to "shut up"  The importance of being Human!  Thank you to Sasha 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.

Welcome to the latest edition of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast.   In today's episode, I was joined by the CEO of Retechnica, Marco IannoneRetechnica is a business that extracts meaning from Data using artificial intelligence offering both a technology solution and consultancy services to a wide range of clients.We originally reached out to Marco because of his participation in Lloyd's lab. Marco had not previously applied the Ingenia service to the insurance market so I wanted to talk with him about his experience in applying AI to not just the Insurance market but other industries that may be more advanced than Insurance with respect to AI and learn about the best practice and its application to insurance.  In today's episode we talked about:   Being invited to Lloyd's lab and how it compares to other lab environments  How AI has progressed infancy to wide adoption  Product creation leading to service creation  What is Co-creation in respect of AI consultancy?   Marco has a great example of how AI can supplement team members  Augmentation vs automation  AI can lead to greater work-life balance and fulfillment  The complexity of insurance suggests a greater use case for augmentation   Many opportunities for AI in insurance: which has the most ROI?  Are insurance participants ready to engage with an external partner in AI?  Challenge of large companies to automate - not just technical Embracing technological change "a muscle" that can be trained  Importance of talent and the movement of talent to helping an industry embrace change  The embracing of change to automation is "grittier" than expected - resilience is required  It's key to define what success looks like!  Automation shouldn't just be on cost reduction it can lead to new products or a premium product  Getting the right people to champion automation/modernization is key to success   Top-down support is required to achieve automation   Beware SNAKEOIL in AI efforts - plenty being sold!   Thank you to Marco 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.

Welcome to the latest edition of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast. In this episode, I was lucky enough to be joined by Peter Clarke.Peter is CEO and Founder of Insurecore. Insurercore is a professional networking site exclusively for Insurance practitioners helping improve the market's inefficiencies and encourage networking in a more professional context.   In this episode, we talk about:   Micro-social media networking sites and why Linkedin isn't fit for purpose.  How a social networking site doesn't replace face to face meetings but enhances the relationship  How the pandemic and increased working from home has enhanced the need for social media  Why Insurercore couldn't have been built by someone from outside the market   The nuances of the market and the knowledge aren't being shared - a network is a way of doing that  Peter selling his house to launch a start-up when he had just been promoted!  The challenge of launching a platform - chicken and egg  Your assumptions aren't always correct - the audience dictates how they like to use it  The democratization of opportunity - the importance of enhanced networking within that  Better networks mean more business  Culture biggest prohibitor of change in Insurance  The cost base of Lloyd's shows how resistant to change the market is - it hasn't changed for 50 years  Technology should enhance the best parts of insurance Innovation is challenging everything you do - even your scanning!  By the time you "earn the right" to have your say you are often indoctrinated into the insurance market - this inhibits change  Fail fast isn't useful unless you are learning and find out why you fail!  Getting feedback from clients is key to success BUT... they are not always right!  The secret to successful change - keep trying new things  Training on systems - shouldn't they be intuitive enough?  Using platforms vs fully utilizing platforms  The importance of non-execs - filling the gaps in your knowledge  Thanks so much to Peter 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, we are joined by the brilliant Dickie Whitaker Dickie has a portfolio of businesses and ventures he is involved with but in this episode, we focussed on his work with Oasis Loss Modelling FrameworkIn this episode we talk about:  The reason to start a business - find a problem large enough to solve that people will pay for it  Why "we have always done it this way" is the very reason to change "that way"  How important diversity - in all forms, create brilliant teams  How startup teams are not created equal - and how that's good.   Why team structures should be fluid  European vs US start-up psychology (Huge sweeping generalization warning!)   What does innovation mean?   We hear why Dickie is uncomfortable about Innovation teams in companies  Why culture is everything and why we can be so bad at articulating it within Insurance  Why "work hard, play hard" needs to be replaced with "work smart, play......how you like!"  The pandemic has shone a light on the "last person in the office" culture of office work  The importance of collaboration in the industry to innovation Collaboration starts with trust  The role of insurance in society and its unique position to impact society  Collaboration can't just is volunteers it needs rigour and structure and the best talent!  The best people don't always or don't often volunteer! (Open goal for a recruitment professional!)  The benefit of blissful ignorance in building anything  The importance of looking forward as opposed to looking back   Thanks to Dickie for being a great guest - a really enjoyable discussion.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 this week's episode, I was joined by Frank Perkins who is CEO of INARI.IO INARI.IO is an Instech operating out of Barcelona. They offer a next-generation insurance platform, they digitize and virtualize the different things that happen in the life cycle of risk.   In this episode we discuss Startups are not for everyone - creativity is as important as hard work  How the people that join at inception may not be the people to necessarily take you to completion  "Is the juice worth the squeeze" Insurance is big enough to have many problems to solve but is it a big enough issue  Insurers cannot tackle small problems - Instechs can  Innovation can be any change that creates value  The insurance culture of the fast follower can inhibit innovation   Fresh eyes to insurance are important but regulation requires insider knowledge  We should always be asking how change or innovation impacts the customers  We need to tackle each point of innovation to make things better in the aggregate for the commercial customer  Restrictions of regulated businesses and the MVP tech model   Insurance isn't broken   Connected technology is key to the future success of insurance  How connectivity between technologies is key to progress and also how consumers will judge tech  Buy vs make - the shift of mindset over time - integrate vs make job roles in insurers  Cost vs Risk with buying or making tech   Teams are built on skill, luck, and serendipity  The best definition of Innovation so far - "slightly rounder wheels"   Thanks to Frank for being a great guest - I mention the Star Wars background - you can see this on the YouTube channel so go check it out.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 the latest episode of the leadership in Insurance Podcast, we were lucky to be joined by Antonin de BenoistAntonin is the COO and Co-Founder of Allphins a SaaS analytics and exposure management tool for the insurance industry  In this episode we talked about:   Antonin's entry into the insurance world from the world of finance  How do Co-founders decide who takes what role? COO or CEO?   Station F Paris incubator campus set up   How important start-up "campus" ecosystems are for new businesses for visibility  Bootstrapping vs external capital raising - why do it?  Benefits of running lean How working on Oil and Gas projects gave visibility of how insurers were underutilizing their data  The importance of Insurance companies knowing what they don't know Impact of theLloyd's lab - the importance of being able to ask the stupid question  Culture of insurance and how positive it is towards a new start-up  The importance of natural language processing to enabling AI in insurance  How AI isn't replacing underwriting its enabling better decisions  The Lloyd's lab experience and how it isn't your typical incubator - it's much more practical  What was surprising about Lloyd's as a market to someone who was from outside the market  The sales cycle challenge for start-ups: long, slow does not help with cash flow  What they learned in the energy sector and how it might apply to other insurance lines  Impact of awards on the visibility to investment capital  The drain on resources of a small when trying to raise investment  Impact of the pandemic on Allphins growth and development  The technological debt built by the pandemic and the opportunity for Instech businesses  Thank you so much to Antonin for being a great guest and spending time with me in a very busy year. Congratulations to Allphins on their success to date and we look forward to seeing what they achieve in 2021.  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.

In the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance podcast I was lucky to be joined by Paul Prendergast.  Paul is the CEO and founder of Blink Parametric.  Blink is a delivery platform that allows insurance industry partners to create parametric solutions.  In this wide-reaching conversation we talked about:   Why Blink runs towards the "fires" solving solutions  How parametric solutions reduce the unit cost of insurance  Embracing technology to give greater visibility of risk  How starting with the end customer can be the wrong approach - blink start with the underwriter  Insurance as a social good - we sometimes forget that  Why the MVP (minimum viable product) cant work in the insurance space  All businesses as technology companies  Despite frustration with the speed of change, there is a huge passion, intellectual capacity, and scale in the insurance industry  The secret sauce in startups - complimentary teams - Tech is key but it must have sales  Why sales is such a dirty word in the technology space  How attitudes of successful  Instech startups in 2021 are different to 5 years ago - less adversarial Impact of social media on insurance   Insurance is cool - Insuring Elon Musks' rocket!  New entrants to insurance don't grow the market unless they solve a new problem or offer a different solution Innovation is about culture, not projects and process  How the size of the team impacts innovation  What's to stop insurers from being the AWS of insurance platforms  Technology first - how incumbents are held back by required regulatory technology changes  Innovation in insurance comes from unexpected places and so much more.  Thanks to Paul for being a great guest - I probably had 4 people tell me I had to Paul on the podcast as he is a true innovator and forward-thinking tech and insurance entrepreneur and he didn't disappoint.   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.

Welcome to the latest edition of the leadership in Insurance podcast with Nik SuhrNik is the CEO and founder of Kasko Kasko is a business that provides Insurtech as a service. Kasko principally works with Insurance and digital businesses to help them create digital insurance products or services.  In this episode we talked about:   Insurtech as a service  What is an Insurance "product"  The technical debt in the insurance space created by COVID19  How innovation can be an excuse for action  How innovation must have a measurable ROI Insurance is a fast follower business   How Intrapreneurship is better than innovation as it implies responsibility  Why make or buy is a meaningless argument  How legacy needs to be taken off the backs of innovation efforts to make those efforts successful  Why most innovation labs have failed against expectation  Acknowledging that consulting is easier than doing  Working out which data points to listen to Innovation can be toxic if not validated  Value means someone wants to pay for it!  Insurance: is it a capacity play vs technology play  Insurtech cant get away from underwriting discipline   How it may look when Amazon enters the insurance market and much more - this was a really enjoyable podcast and Nik was great fun, not afraid to tackle some issues that often get missed.  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 the first podcast of the year, we get stuck into all things AI and all things claims by speaking to the team from Tautona AI in South Africa I have a bit of a soft spot for claims as it is where I joined the insurance industry many moons ago.  This was a fun conversation with the first guest pairing as I was joined by both: Philip Cooper and John Holdsworth  We covered lots of ground and also had the first guest screen share (well played John)   We talked about:   How natural language processing was the evolutionary step required to make AI in claims possible   How AI is a tool for claim professional, not a replacement  Artificial intelligence in claims is a route to fairness for both insured and the insurer  AI as not just a cost but an offering of better service in claims Claims as a differentiator  The different challenges faced in different geographic insurance markets to the claims process  The value of Lloyd's lab experience and the power of the "alumni" badge to open doors  Why focus on claims when applying AI techniques  Why claims professionals get frustrated and how AI may help them be happier in their work  The under-representation of claims professionals in the board room  How new entrants are making claims the corner-stone of their offering  The Psychology of insurance buyers How we set the rules - do one-click purchases mean we should offer one-click claims?  Faux-mation and the dangers of applying this to claims and obviously much more in-between including the first (unbelievably) postman interruption during the recording!  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.

Welcome to episode 10 of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast.  In this episode, we are joined by Bob Frady of Hazard Hub  Hazard Hub is a 3rd party data supplier that boasts the most comprehensive property data ever assembled for the insurance industry and works with the industry and helps them to better understand their risk   Bob is a really interesting and engaging guy it was a pleasure to spend some time talking to him, we met through his involvement in Lloyd's lab. In this conversation we talk about:   Data quality and data skill within the insurance industry  The difficulty of obtaining and accessing the right data Data efficiency and using data to distribute labour   How ideas are free but that's the easy part  The importance of end-user feedback early on and the benefits of MVP  How VC money can be easier to get with an idea than actual revenue  The importance of sharing ideas and not being too protective  The slow sales cycle of the insurance market - you need the money or the stomach for the long haul  Use of data analysis after the fact - the lunacy of that process!  What the data says about rate rises - it isn't enough!  The social dilemma around tailored pricing - people can be priced out  The importance of asking the right questions   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.