The Leadership in Insurance Podcast (The LIIP)

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Noam Shapira, Co-founder and President at Pattern insurance.

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide range of topics such as:

• Embedded insurance being buzz term on 2022 
• How do you differentiate yourself in a market that has so much investment?
• Many embedded solutions appear to be built technology first – do you think this is where some of the market gaps appear? Or is it something else?
• What is driving the rise in embedded insurance?
• How much of a threat does embedded insurance pose to the traditional insurance market?
• How are customers are actually making decisions about purchasing insurance?
• How should customer journeys be done to really "embed insurance”?

Thank you Noam 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

 Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Joseph D'Souza, CEO and Founder of Pronavigator.

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide range of topics such as:

• Being the 'Google of Insurance'
• And what does that mean in practical terms?
• How does your product Sage work?
• The key trends we are seeing in 2022
• How do these trends relate to hiring challenges, technology & AI?
• What’s going on with AI in insurance? 
• What is Pronavigator doing with AI?
• How is Knowledge Management critical for insurance and what role does it play?
• How can technology help boost employee productivity and improve customer satisfaction?
• How does a remote working environment accelerate this?
• Addressing the technology gap
• Are we seeing much innovation in AI and are there any applications that you’re yet to see using AI?

Thank you Joseph 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

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Douglas Ver Mulm, CEO and Co-Founder of Stable Insurance a distribution and analytics platform for mobility that helps rideshare, carshare, and delivery vehicle owners more efficiently and profitably run their business. 

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide range of topics such as:

• How did your founding team come together and what was that journey like?
• Innovation starts in leadership, how do you approach this at stable?
• ‘Insurance as a social good?’ how important is hiring the right personality types when providing a social good?
• Doug’s background in law
• What made you make the move into insurance?
• What have you brought from that experience to your team at stable?
• What opportunities have partnerships provided for you?
• Has there needed to be a cultural shift for customers to be more comfortable with collecting behavioural based data?
• What’s next for stable?

Thank you Doug 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

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Manish Bhatt, CEO & Co-Founder, Plum Life.

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide range of topics such as:

• Agents have had to adapt the ways in which they sell, from a face-to-face interaction to a remote setting
• How has this cultural shift impacted the market?
• How has your direct to consumer experience helped you?
• Has technology actually made people want insurance? What role does the play?
• How does analytics help improve sales for the broker
• I think we are in the 3rd wave of Insurtech – working with the market rather than disrupting/evolving – would you agree? 
• Do you think this says something about the founders of today's Insurtechs
• Previous guests have said the broker is the only true customer of insurance – do you think that’s fair? 
• Have we been customer-centric enough?

Thank you Manish 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

 Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Mark Scafaro, CEO and Co-Founder of Afficiency.

Mark Scafaro is the CEO and co-founder of Afficiency, an insurtech transforming the end-to-end life insurance buying process and accelerating the time it takes to get applicants approved and covered. He is an entrepreneur who is passionate about overhauling the outdated life insurance process by enabling distributors and valued partners to white-label and distribute its digital life insurance products. Prior to Afficiency, Scafaro previously worked at Morgan Stanley, American Express and MetLife.

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide range of topics such as:

• The lag in distribution of embedded solutions in the life insurance space
• Why has this sector been so slow to digitise?
• What are the most common challenges you find when working with distribution partners?
• How can they be better set up to work with you?
• How are you able to offer such speed in launching new products?
• How much of the product design come from the carrier?
• How does the new product design process work when working with a carrier?
• Overcoming obstacles
• How do you personally tackle adversity?
• What do you look for in carrier partners?
• Did you or would you consider becoming a full stack insurer with an embedded distribution?

Thank you Mark 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

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Megan Bingham-Walker, CEO and Co-Founder of Anansi the automated insurance platform for global businesses providing seamless integration, automated claims, zero admin solutions.

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide range of topics such as:

• How claims is key to having an excellent experience in insurance
• Partnerships and the opportunities they offer
• Building a remote team
• The importance of having strong company values
• How do you look at diversity and inclusion at Anansi?
• Anansi’s embedded insurance model

Thank you Megan 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

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Alex Maffeo CEO of Boost. 

Boost powers digital insurance programs for innovators across all industries. Their customers are leading technology companies and game changing startups that want to offer white-labeled insurance products tailored to their users’ needs. Their infrastructure-as-a-service (“IaaS”) makes it simple to monetize the insurance vertical by packaging all the back-end components needed to build, launch, and manage a program – including ‘A’-rated paper, dedicated risk capacity, and claims administration – all powered programmatically by thier API-driven policy admin system. Technically, they're a licensed managing general agency. They're just redefining what that means.

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide range of topics such as:

• Embedded Insurance being the insurtech theme of 2022
• Where have you had most success in your business?
• ‘Create your own’ product -  what are the limitations from your capacity on what you can create? Any unusual products that you have been asked to create/develop?
• What is Boost’s team like?
• How much in-house Insurance support do you have?
• How do you create the right culture balance because fast moving tech and established insurance teams have a very different feel?
• Why do you feel now is the time when embedded solutions have exploded?
• Partnerships
• What is it about your solution that has attracted such marquee names?
• Alex’s investment background
• What’s your take on the valuations we have seen in the Insurtech space?
• The fall of the largest InsTech stock
• Are the more traditional Insurance carriers and businesses undervalued?
• As an insurtech veteran, what is interesting you in the space?

Thank you Alex 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

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Stephen Leguillon, CEO of Seyna, the all-in-one platform for insurance brokers who provide tailored insurance products and software tools to grow brokerage businesses. 

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide range of topics such as: 

• How can we make sure that insurance is an enabler of progress? 
• Seynas founding team How did you come together & what was that journey like? 
• What problems and concerns have you noticed people have in the industry? 
• Coming from a leadership role, where do you put your attention?
• We have seen a cultural shift to the value add being put on customer experience over product, have you seen this? 
• This is a hard transition for the industry, what are the implications of that? 
• How have you found being in this industry with a non-tech background? 
• Traditional insurance relies on in-house software whereas many other industries are comfortable with using 3rd party software, where do you think this resistance comes from? 

Thank you Stephen 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

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Matan Slagter, CEO of Armadillo, the tech-enabled, subscription-based home warranty provider for homeowners and landlords, who are pioneers in the new age of home warranty.

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide range of topics such as:

• Matan's insurance career & why warranty?
• Is t surprising that the warranty market has only 4% penetration when we spend an increasing amount on technology in our homes? 
• What do you think this says about our relationship with insurance?
• Do we need to help people fall in love with insurance? 
• Do they not see its value because we haven’t shown them what that truly is?
• Is insurance lacking clarity of message and communication?
• Being 'tech forward'
• Are you an Insurtech or something else?
• Armadillo's distribution model 
• Will you narrow distribution over time?
• Why was now the right time to launch? 
• How did Covid impact Armadillo's plans? 
• How did it impact the funding round?
• You took on outside funding – at what stage had you taken the business before you did so?

Thank you Matan 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

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Benjamin Piening, Honeycomb Insurance's Chief Underwriting Officer. 

Honeycomb provide reinvented real estate insurance with better coverage in a fraction of the time at a fraction of the cost, their unique product leverages advanced Artificial Intelligence and computer-vision to completely reinvent real-estate insurance.

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide range of topics such as:

• What does being ‘People first, tech driven’ practically mean for you as Chief Underwriting Officer?
• Are technology and people complementing or conflicting forces?
• Technology helps achieve a means to an end – People breathe life into technology
• People are the originators of thought, ideas, innovation
• Are technology and people mutually exclusive?
• The Inspector app
• From an insurance perspective what’s unique about the product - or is it the delivery/tech that makes it unique?
• Being underwriting driven
• Do investors look at underwriting?
• Long term partnerships
• Why are we still operating with year to year contracts?

Thank you Benjamin 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

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Vinodkumar Iyer, CEO of iNube, the leading provider of digital insurance solutions for the global insurance industry.

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide range of topics such as:   

• Offering a whole insurance product suite
• Which area has the most demand?
• How this has changed over the last 2 years?
• Has the pandemic had an impact on businesses as Insurers push for more digital solutions?
• How important is technology to be consumer first?
• How far can the technology go?
• Could we have a fully automated insurer? Should we?
• How does regulation impact your ability to innovate?

Thank you Vinodkumar 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

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Alex Bargmann, Pathpoint's CEO and Co-Founder & Ralph Blust, Pathpoint's President and CRO. 

Pathpoint is the insurtech on a mission to make it faster and easier for retail agents to get great E&S coverage options. Pathpoint allows you to quote and bind coverage for your small business clients online with one streamlined submission and receive multiple bindable quotes for your clients in minutes, not days.

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide range of topics such as:

• Being an advocate for insurtech in the 90s before it even was insurtech
• How can we address the client's needs using technology?
• Striving for efficiency both in the user experience and the operational experience
• Revolutionizing the way we integrate with carriers
• Embracing technology 
• Marrying together the backgrounds in technological knowledge and insurance experience
• How has technology changed how agents place accounts today compared to 5 years ago?
• Looking at the wholesale distribution channel from the carrier perspective
• The difficulty in encouraging trading partners to utilise technology
• The self-service revolution
• Why has this revolution in E&S lagged behind that of other areas?
• The lack of connectivity in the wholesale marketplace

Thank you Alex and Ralph 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

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by LeX Tan, CEO and Co-Founder of MotionsCloud.

MotionsCloud helps property & vehicle inspection teams to streamline and automate inspection processes by using their tools to empower inspection teams to be efficient and effective.

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide range of topics such as:

• The recent developments in claims technology
• Is it surprising that claims has lagged behind in digitisation?
• Claims as the main customer engagement point
• How did the founding team come together?
• The instantaneous action and ease that parametric products provide
• The potential opportunity for partnerships
• Computer vision technology
• White labeling the solution
• Who is adopting this solution?

Thank you LeX 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

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by David Bryant, CEO and Co-Founder of MonarkHQ.

MonarkHQ is a real-time quoting platform for employee benefits who are committed to streamlining benefits procurement by providing instant quotes, proposal management, and analytic dashboards to track vendor trends.

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide range of topics such as:

• Solving real-world issues
• Dave’s 15 years of experience in the insurance industry
• Monark’s mission to solve the underserved inefficiencies in the insurtech space
• MonarkHQ’s InsurTech 100 nomination!
• The importance of networks in the insurance industry
• What is it like as a non-technical founder running a tech-led business?
• Why was the timing right for you to start Monark?
• The need for transparency in marketplace solutions 
• Is there a resistance to transparency? 
• what goes into creating an effective marketplace?
• Boot-strapping vs Raising seed
• Choosing the self-funded route - what was that journey like?
• The innovation in the benefits space
• What's next for Monark?

Thank you David 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

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Jacqueline Legrand, CEO and Co-Founder of Maptycs. 

Maptycs is a New York-based insurtech start-up that use geospatial risk visualization and advanced analytics technology to help insurance professional better understand property risk exposure in real-time. Their software integrates its own proprietary Geographic Information System (GIS) along with a broad set of algorithms to deliver a high level of performance while managing large volumes of data.

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide range of topics such as:

• Projecting losses in realtime
• What important is a network in getting an insurtech off the ground?
• The growing importance of relationships in the post-covid world
• What is Maptycs’ USP?
• The acceleration of natural disasters driving demand
• The recent explosion of location-based data
• Is this information currently inaccessible to insurance companies?
• The long path from data to information to insight
• Is there a resistance to true data transparency?

Thank you Jacqueline 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

 Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Alan Ringvald, CEO, Relativity6. 

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide range of topics such as: 

• Solving the industry classification problem 
• How can you predict the value of a company when you don’t know what industry they are in? 
• Taking a new approach to building tech  
• Finding alternatives to buying 3rd party databases 
• How has this unique stance impacted the success of Relativity6? 
• How have you found working in this space with a non-insurance background? 
• The impact of covid on Relativity6's journey 
• How do you distinguish pivot from panic? 
• Trusting what feels right 
• How do you think pivot stories impact the ability to raise capital? & Is it seen as a fail? 

Thank you Alan 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

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Neta Rozy, CTO, Parametrix.

Parametrix is the insurtech start-up that offers financial protection against Cloud downtime, their hassle-free fast-paying policies protect you from financial losses when those services go down, enabling you to quickly get back to business.

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide range of topics such as:

• Creating downtime insurance
• Cloud space is the 2nd or 3rd largest expense for a business - why isn’t this covered?
• The team dynamic being both friends and co-founders
• How do you go about creating a new product?
• The challenges of making those first hires at the early stages
• How do you generate interest and capacity?
• What are you looking at that’s new data wise?
• Was there ever a consideration of producing a pure technology product?
• The value in understanding the customer needs
• What’s been the consumer feedback?
• Shortening the claims process to improve the customer experience

Thank you Neta 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

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 Cowen, Chief Commercial Officer at Humn.AI. 

Humn.AI are a commercial motor insurance solution based on data science, they use their unique data platform to understand the risk of a vehicle at any moment in time by looking at drivers, vehicles and the environment around vehicles in real time.

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide range of topics such as:

• Why offer an insurance product as opposed to a pure SaaS play?
• Expansion in the UK and entering into the European market
• Remote working culture and how that works for Humn's team
• Using real time data to improve safety for commercial motor fleets
• The differences between the UK & the US VC market and differing cultures around funding
• Humn’s organic and inorganic growth plans
• Do you think there is an advantage to being tech-first as opposed to insurance first?
• How did you gain the insurance knowledge coming from a tech background?
• Data transparency gives a major USP for the consumer, why was it not like this before?

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

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Kata Ludvig, CEO and Co-Founder of Baoba Insurance, the insurtech start up who are combining location intelligence with technology to create a data driven market place for geo-trigged and data driven products to provide on-demand, realtime automated coverage.

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide range of topics such as:

• Kata’s serial entrepreneur background
• Centralisation of information and the utilisation of data
• Why does the digitisation of insurance lag behind that of neo-banking?
• Increasing the level of engagement for the consumer
• What stands out to you in insurance adverts?
• Marketing for insurance doesn’t reach the customer on a person level - why?
• What are the practical steps for creating a people first culture?
• Drawing on the diverse background’s of Baoba’s team to really tackle the pain points in the industry
• Acknowledging that one size doesn’t fit all when it comes to creating niche products
• The insurance industry has so much knowledge, but why isn’t it being shared?

Thank you Kata 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

 Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Rob Galbraith, an 'Insurance Futurist', a keynote speaker and thought leader on the evolution of insurance and the author of 'The End of Insurance As We Know It' which he released in 2019.

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide range of topics such as:

• Rob’s 20 year long Insurance background and working at USAA
• The drive for innovation at USAA
• Launching ‘The End of Insurance As We Know It’ in 2019
• What does insurance look like in 2030?
• Technology has actually been around in insurance for a long time
• We are actually still in the early days of insurtech
• S.C.A.L.E.D Technologies
• The ability to offer insurance to people who have never had insurance before
• Competing on both algorithms and experiences
• To what extent has insurance evolved to cater our more nuanced needs?
• The seven fatal flaws of insurance
• Insurance as a social good
• Are the current neo-insurers really fundamentally different to their incumbent counterpart?
• Can you get enough touch points with the customer to maintain loyalty?
• Are we seeing true innovation in insurtech or just a natural evolution?

Thank you Rob 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

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Daniel Fogarty, CEO of Evari. 

Evari is an Australia-based SaaS platform who empower insurers to launch and manage insurance products that are easy to buy, easy to manage and flexible to changing needs.

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide range of topics such as:

• Approaching insurtech from the small business angle
• Utilising cloud accounting to make insurance more flexible
• Rethinking the entire policy administration system
• What does it take to build a successful entrepreneurial team?
• Serendipitous meetings and being open minded to opportunities
• Remote working across continents
• Encouraging the industry to embrace the customer
• Pivoting towards being a SaaS business
• The challenge of adopting broad skills as a founder in an insurtech
• Encouraging more touch points and clarity for the customer
• What do you look for in a typical partnership?
• Does insurance only serve the broker?
• Daniel’s role on the board of Insurtech Australia
• The growing tech environment in Australia 

Thank you Daniel 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

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by David Fontain, CEO and Founder of Foresight, the insurtech start up on a mission to improve safety and lower rates by providing smarter workers compensation insurance. 

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide range of topics such as:

• Creating a better incentive for businesses to improve their workplace safety
• What specific USP does Foresight’s technology give to the workers comp market?
• Why is the middle market underserved?
• Why opt for the traditional broker distribution channel?
• The greater the complexity of risk the more value the brokers can add
• Why did the first-wave insurtechs move away from that avenue?
• Delivering value to policy holders
• Enabling long term business sustainability
• Without insurance there is no business
• How having a background in brokerage allows insight into the main pain points that the consumer faces
• Launching just before the pandemic and how this impacted the fully remote working model
• Hybrid working model and satellite offices
• What’s your take on the investment market right now?
• Diversification of what insurtech looks like
• How do you make a remote culture work for you?
• Bringing people onboard from incumbent carriers and encouraging the tech ethos
• What is the next leap forward for insurtech?

Thank you David 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

 Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by a special guest and our first returning podcast guest Paul Prendergast, CEO of Kayna. 

Paul first joined us on the podcast in January 2021 where we discussed his previous business Blink Parametrics, one year on and it's great to have him back to introduce his latest venture Kayna, the embedded platform that leverages unique data to provide more accurate and dynamic insurance for small businesses.

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide range of topics such as:

• Tackling the issues around small businesses insurance
• Thinking how can we do better?
• Taking an innovative approach to embedded insurance
• Innovation through distribution, product and claims
• Great customer experience starts with underwriting
• Small businesses aren’t simple and their insurance needs to reflect that
• 40% of small businesses in the US don’t have insurance
• Why has it taken so long for these issues to be addressed?
• Is there a systemic risk attached to vertical stacks?
• Removing costs from the delivery of insurance
• Working with Founders Factory
• Whats interesting in insurtech right now?

Thank you Paul 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

 Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Geoff Keast, CEO of Montoux. 

Montoux is the Actuarial Automation and Decision Science platform for life and health insurers who enable carriers to improve profitability, grow sales and better understand and serve customers. They do this is by combining actuarial and data science expertise with automation and machine learning techniques - all in one game-changing platform.

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide range of topics such as:

• The lack of technology adoption in the life and health domain
• The lag in digitisation of actuarial science
• Where does data science sit within an insurance carrier?
• Decision science - data science and actuarial teams working together
• Problem first thinking
• Can you be too successful to innovate?
• The lack of opportunity to create better decisions
• How do you penetrate a market that has a long term mindset?
• Pricing optimisation

Thank you Geoff 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

 Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Matthias Naumann, CEO of Companjon, the Dublin-based tech venture specialising in bespoke embedded insurance solutions. 

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide range of topics such as: 

• What is unique about Companjon’s approach to embedded insurance? 
• Going full stack? Is being a full stack insurance provider essential for trust? 
• Redesigning the whole insurance process, end-to-end. 
• Offering flexible coverage to suit customer’s changing lifestyles 
• How do you deal with customer perceptions of insurance? 
• Why is this embedded and hyper personalised insurance model so successful in Asia? 
• How do you go about penetrating the European market? 
• The challenges of operating within a mature market 
• Partnerships and innovation Is imagination (or lack of) the limitation of innovation? 
• How embedded insurance improves customer experience 
• The timeline for producing an embedded product 
• The impact of the pandemic for Companjon 
• Was the pandemic needed for large scale adopting of digital solutions? 
• What has 2022 got in store for Companjon? 

Thank you Matthias 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

Hello and welcome the latest episode of the Leadership In Insurance Podcast, we are sharing a special episode this week, the live recording of our first FLITe series panel event.

The FLITe series is FinPro's new events series that brings together aspiring future female leaders in InsurTech through round tables, panel events, and discussions. Our aim is to help close the InsurTech gender gap and inspire the future leaders of the InsurTech world. We believe that a balanced and representative workforce drives innovation. We want to encourage organisations to retain women and strive to promote gender equality.

We hosted our first webinar last week, a discussion on 'The Career Opportunities in InsurTech' and were joined by an amazing panel of inspiring speakers:

• Caroline Langridge, Head of ACT Underwriting Management, AON
• Ines Cheaib, COO, Gaia 
• Caroline Garrow, CIO, Flock
• Along with Alex Bond, MD, FinPro and The Leadership In Insurance Podcast host

Our debut event was a great success, thank you to everyone who joined us online for the live event and for those who were unable to make it, we hope you enjoyed listening back. We covered a wide variety of topics such as:

• Why should people be interested in insurtech as sector
• What are the biggest misconceptions about working in insurtech?
• How do you demonstrate broad skill sets?
• What is it like working in insurance with a non-insurance background? 
• Where have you historically found it hardest to recruit people?
• How do you identify who and what you're looking for when hiring for a start up?
•  How important are networks and relationships to success in these environments?
• Is insurtech a useful term?
• We often discuss the need to be adaptable but is that narrative inaccessible? Does that impact women more ?

Please join us at our next FLITe series discussion 'People, Innovation and Culture' on March 17th 2022 at The Folly, London where we will be hearing from more inspiring female leaders about their journeys through overcoming imposter syndrome, discussing cognitive diversity and looking at the ways we utilise our networks. 

We are already looking forward to the next event - reserve your place here to join us (face-to-face this time!) 

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

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Chris Finan, COO of cyber security start up ActZero.AI.  

The California based start up ActZero uses Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to increase the likelihood of identifying and preventing attacks while reducing the duration and impact of incidents should they occur, as well as helping to remediate vulnerabilities and mitigate risks so their customers can focus on their core competencies and driving business growth. 

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide range of topics such as:

• Are smaller companies aware of the risks that they are exposed to?
• Targeting the smaller to midsize companies - is this the key differentiator?
• How contextualising risk is key
• The challenge of education at scale
• Where do cyber security and insurance meet?
• Defining the outcomes of risk mitigation
• What roles do partnerships play for ActZero?
• How important is transparency?
• The challenge of protecting against an ever-evolving threat
• How do you engage with your end consumer in a meaningful manner?
• How covid and remote working shifts a small business’ cyber protection needs
• What is and isn’t a cyber threat nowadays?
• Will the insurance industry be able to keep up to speed to continue to protect against cyber threats?
• How has the pandemic impacts ActZero?
• Empowering teams
• Encouraging a creative approach to problem solving
• What’s next for ActZero in 2022?

Thank you Chris 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

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Sam White, CEO of Stella Insurance, the car insurance provider for women by women. 

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide range of topics such as:

• Setting up her own company 24
• Male dominance in insurance
• What would an insurance product look like from a female perspective?
• The importance of meaningful action
• The Australian regulatory landscape
• Using gender as a pricing metric
• Is insurance fundamentally discriminatory?
• Which aspects change when marketing your product specifically towards women?
• The Stella Expert Series
• The key to success lies in engagement
• The challenges when raising money and in particular as a young female founder
• Prevention questions vs promotion questions and how women are treated differently to their male counterparts when raising capital
• Feeling overly challenged and overly questioned due to unconscious bias
• Creating psychologically healthy work environment are crucial to produce the best outcome
• Utilising social media and having an online presence to make as many connections and opportunities as possible

Thank you Sam 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

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by , Lotta Rauséus, COO & Co-Founder of Insurely, who are using their open insurance ecosystem to help insurance companies and banks give proper peace-of-mind to their customers.

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide range of topics such as:

• Injecting transparency into the insurance industry
• Open banking - what does that actually mean?
• The empowerment of open data and transparency
• Why has insurance lagged behind banking in digitisation?
• Was there an incentive to make insurance transparent?
• The reaction on the regulatory side
• The lack of touch points insurance companies have with the consumer
• How do we build loyalty with a lack of touch points?
• The difficultly of engaging with your insurer as a consumer
• Are brokers the true customer of the insurance market?
• Taking back the control of the customer experience, its about more than just price
• How our experiences as a consumer drive our decisions in business
• How important is transparency to the insurance industry?
• How transparency is key to making informed decisions
• The positive correlation of transparency and innovation
• How restrictions drive creativity

Thank you Lotta 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

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Adrien Lebegue, Managing Director, Europe, ZA Tech.

ZA Tech is the technology venture founded by ZhongAn Online, a global leader in online insurance, and backed by Softbank’s Vision Fund. ZA Tech is redefining the insurance landscape by enabling digital ecosystems to easily embed relevant protection within their customer journeys.

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide variety of topics such as:

• Start ups to Scale ups
• Incubated by ZhongAn and SoftBank
• How does this background impact ZA Tech’s day to day?
• The value of being consumer first
• ZA Tech’s differentiated value
• How being digitally-native has no limits
• How being a pioneer in the market brings new regulation challenges
• Optimisation comes down to nailing technology, vision, people and regulation
• How do you find people who are suited to this high speed environment?
• Trust the people and the vision
• Asking people what frustrates them about the industry
• Taking the leap from traditional insurance to hyper growth insurtech
• The impact covid had on embedded solutions
• How the pandemic accelerated consumer adoption
• The influx of investment thanks to covid
• The cultural shift towards a remote structure
• What makes a good partner?

Thank you Adrien 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

 Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Ana Zamora CEO of Vitaance, the Madrid-based life insurance start up who are applying artificial intelligence and data science to help their members live a better life.

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide variety of topics such as:

• Encouraging wellness habits and helping people improve their life style
• Translating lifestyle changes into rewards
• Turning death insurance into life insurance
• Was a cultural shift necessary for customers to be comfortable sharing data with their insurers?
• How AI can improve life style
• Making an intangible product more tangible by generating engagement
• Providing more than just peace of mind
• Customers are historically indirect in life insurance and how Vitaance are changing
• Does insurance just serve the broker?
• What does fairness and transparency mean from a practical perspective?
• Removing the complexity for the members benefit
• What does building customer-first products look like from a technology perspective?
• Data science as an evolution of actuarial science
• What is the true nature and purpose of insurance?
• Has insurance culturally lost sight of the customer?
• Does regulation cause or hinder innovation?
• Vitaance’s promise of having a diverse and inclusive team
• Cultural add as opposed to cultural fit
• The different metrics for measuring companies for funding in Spain as opposed to elsewhere
• What does 2022 have in store for Vitaance?

Thank you Ana 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

 Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Anthony Beilin and Benjamin Hay, CEO & COO of Collective Benefits, the Insurtech start up who are on a mission to make independent work work for everyone. 

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide variety of topics such as:

• Building a solution that allows platforms to deliver dynamic, usage based, realtime protections and benefits for their workers 
• Being driven by the need for flexibility in independent work
• Is this a business born out of a regulatory environment and have restrictions created this opportunity?
• The protection gap for independent workers
• Evolving the route to the customer
• Is the gig economy good for society?
• The flexibility of gig working
• Do people find their work meaningful in the gig economy?
• The importance of accuracy of information when discussing the gig economy
• Collective Benefit’s Head of Social Impact
• Social impact being at the heart of Collective Benefit’s mission
• The lack of a metric to track worker’s wellbeing
• What impacts worker well being?
• The importance of partnerships
• The B Corp movement
• Creating a benchmark for what we think social impact means within this framework
• B Corps - it’s not just about the certificate its about fundamental change
• Giving people tools and removing challenges of access to basic finical and well being products
• How new demographics require new models
• Launching in lockdown!
• How the pandemic helped people understand who Collective Benefits are and what they are trying to achieve
• Improving member experience and keeping members at the heart of our thinking
• Collective Benefits pop ups!
• What does the New Year have in store for Collective Benefits?

Thank you Anthony and Benjamin 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

 Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by John Fohr, CEO of TrustLayer.

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide variety of topics such as:

• The surprising lack of digitisation
• Automating mundane processes to focus on the complex issues
• Augmented AI vs Assisted AI
• Providing value for each stakeholder
• Who are the clients?
• Focusing on the end user
• White labelling the product?
• The balance between insurance and tech knowledge
• Building insurance knowledge in-house
• The challenge of finding people who are broad-thinkers
• The motivation to open up systems
• The challenges of integrations
• Finding better and faster ways to provide real-time proof of coverage
• What does this better visibility allow us to do?
• How consumer experience influences commercial experience
• What does 2022 look like for TrustLayer?

Thank you John 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 

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Jenny Cohen Derfler, CEO & Founder of AirDoctor.  

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide variety of topics such as:   

• What was the impact of Covid-19 on AirDoctor?
• How the pandemic highlighted the need for AirDoctor and telemedicine
• How covid-19 has impacted the demand for insurance
• AirDoctor’s founding team and their team dynamics
• Insurance partnerships
• The competitor landscape and what makes AirDoctor different?
• The challenge of language barriers in telemedicine
• The importance of AirDoctor’s network
• What surprised you about working with insurers?
• The need for innovation
• How often technology just provides maintenance instead of innovation
• The willingness to take risks

Thank you Jenny 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

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Richard King, CEO & Founder of Ticker.

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide variety of topics such as:

• Building Ticker’s ‘ecosystem’
• The thin line between being an InsurTech and a tech-enabled insurer
• The success of an insurtech comes down to data
• The importance of a forensic focus on loss-ratio
• How Ticker provides for a wide range of clients
• Improving underwriting information
• How the competition in the motor market impacts the customer
• Two new products soon to be released as well as other propositions in the pipeline
• Bringing connected data to a wider market by providing niche offerings
• The importance of collecting high quality data
• Increasing engagement with connected motor
• How lockdown impacted motor insurance
• A full-stack ambition?
• The different attitudes toward motor in the us vs the uk
• How do we achieve long term, sustainable profitability?
• The importance of varied backgrounds in a successful team
• Embracing new talent into the industry
• What makes a good partnership?
• The importance of work life balance
• How COVID forced us to focus on people 
• How lockdown routines have become lasting habits
• Reaching the finals of the Great British Wellbeing Awards!

Thank you Richard 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

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Carey Anne Nadeau, Co-CEO & Co-Founder of LOOP, the Texas-based motor insurance start-up on the mission to make motor insurance more fair and transparent for more people.

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide variety of topics such as:

• How LOOP looks at data that other insurance carriers ignore
• Changing how we think about insurance and serving people in an honest and fair way
• Raising capital
• Asking the right questions
• What makes LOOP different?
• InsurTech’s waves of evolution
• Taking a community driven approach to growth
• The cost of play in a saturated market
• How LOOP pays attention to modern forms of communication
• Do you think insurance today is fair and transparent?
• Is trust in financial services broken?
• The outcome we care about is trust and how LOOP focuses on that
• How mis-trust impacts client relationships
• Adding value and building relationships - it’s not all about price
• The need for technological advance in customer service and road side assistance
• The need to be forward thinking for the benefit of the customers
• What does transparency mean for you?
• The importance of cultural values
• The challenges of building a diverse community
• The process of ‘forming, storming, norming, and then performing’
• Using AI to provide transparency
• How bias is baked in to AI
• Giving people access to insurance when they might not be able to get it otherwise
• Ultimately, lets take care of eachother...and crash less!

Thank you Carey Anne 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

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Henri Winand, CEO and Co-Founder, AkinovA. 

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide variety of topics such as:

• Enabling risk transfer on a large scale
• How does the marketplace actually work?
• The social fabric of the environment
• Building relationships in real time
• Does innovation mean replacing people and professions?
• Creating more fulfilling role
• Obsoletation and moving jobs forward
• A good market place gives you information at the time you need it
• Do market places risk making the broker obsolete?
• How can they take advantage of the opportunities?
• What effect fo you think market places will have on price in the long term?
• The importance of having the right access to the right capital
• The best market places significantly increase the size of the market
• Good market places should allow us to underwrite intangibles
• What value can we add?
• How do we justify long term innovation when we are rewarded on short term performance
• The unique challenges AkinovA faces

Thank you Herni 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

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Adam Blumencranz, Partner of Distributed Ventures (formerly known as NFP Ventures). 

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide variety of topics such as:

• What are the advantages of working in the corporate ventures as opposed to the stand alone?
• Has the shift from one to the other played to an advantage?
• How being associated with an incumbent has advantages but this also comes with its pitfalls
• When you’re associated with a large national incumbent, how flexible are you? How rigid is your mandate?
• The importance of their network of subject matter experts
• The time input into these relationships
• The importance of having differentiation as an investor
• The ability to tap into this network being NFP’s differentiator
• People want to work with people they want to spend time with
• What’s your view on the market today?
• The time to make a decision is going down and valuations are going up
• Critically important to know your strategy as an investor
• The importance of being thesis driven
• What’s your view on the market today?
• The time to make a decision is going down and valuations are going up
• Critically important to know your strategy as an investor
• The importance of being thesis driven
• What do you specifically look for in a good pitch?
• The importance of finding a founder with passion
• Subject matter expertise, clarity and focus

Thank you Adam 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

In this week's episode we hear from Alex Bond, FinPro founder and the Leadership in Insurance Podcast host himself. 

We wanted to do something slightly different with this podcast and it reflects some of the wider initiatives we are developing with FinPro. FinPro is a recruitment business specialising in the Insurtech sector and have been fortunate to work with some of the most exciting and innovative people operating within the sector. We have had fantastic guests who have shared their journeys and their experiences all with the objective of moving the Insurtech industry forward. Something we have done less is get to know the people behind the stories. Businesses are an net result of the talent and efforts of the people employed within them. This is a statement of the obvious but when we operate within the tech sector it can be easy to forget that despite how tech focussed you might be it is the people that drive the business and its innovation. We wanted to get to know more about the challenges that are not directly the work – particularly we wanted to know the challenges founders face when trying to drive fledgling businesses to success.

We didn’t feel we could ask our guests to share their fears, hopes and aspirations if we do not share some of our own biggest challenges so we have taken a different path with the podcast today and we have our host Alex discuss his challenges with mental health, his experiences with managing his mental health and what he thinks we can do to accommodate and help people manage their mental health in the world of start-ups.

We hope by doing this we will be able to have more honest and transparent conversations that touch on the founders challenges on a personal level – hopefully if we make the first move we can encourage more conversations about mental health.

We hope you enjoy it.

This Podcast was brought to you by FinPro, an executive recruitment business that works in the Insurance and Insurtech space.

Our host is FinPro Director, Alex Bond 

Please like and subscribe if you enjoyed this podcast

 Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Stuart Winchester, CEO and Founder, Marble.

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide variety of topics such as:

• Do we do the simple things in insurance badly or do we not do the simple things?
• Do people want to engage with insurance?
• Change from outside the industry
• Why do we have friction?
• Juggling the different perspectives of brokers and consumers
• Did you look else where for inspiration when starting out with Marble?
• Rewards components in the UK and Australia
• How white men soliciting other white men can render life insurance exclusive
• Marble’s investment journey
• 120 conversations..!
• The challenges of having these conversations virtually
• ‘Do not be a solo founder?’
• The importance of a team, and the support they provide while pitching
• Doing too much - an advantage or a disadvantage?
• Stretching vs. over hiring
• The advantages of a flexible team
• Rewards vs. Wins
• Hiring part time experts
• Interview processes, does this need to be done by the CEO?
• First time vs second time founders
• Marble’s full time and part time flexible dynamic
• LinkedIn’s as a social media, and it’s more personal side
• Should we post personal posts on LinkedIn?
• Marble allows its customers to learn, organise and feel engaged with the asset class that protects the things they love
• Building trust, community and rewards that are meaningful
• Will Marble look at picking up risk themselves and consider setting up MGA carrier relationships?
• Starting conversations about insurance with clients
• What's next for Marble? Enterprise partners, mobile app launch, fund raising and more! 

Thank you Stuart 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

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Jeff Radke, CEO and Co-Founder, Accelerant.

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide variety of topics such as:

• The attraction of the MGA model as an entrepreneur
• Is the MGA market a scapegoat?
• Accelerant's longer-term capacity commitment
• How Accelerant has members instead of customers, and how this perspective fosters positive relationships and reminds the team, 'we are only successful if they are successful'
• Capacity provision as an investment form
• The benefits of a diversified portfolio
• Short-term-ism in insurance
• Do we suffer from a short-term view?
• The importance of clarity and ownership in a long term member relationship
• The difficultly for a publicly-traded company to think on a long enough term to drive true innovation
• 5-year thinking, and asking how can we be most successful in 2026?
• Over investing time in development, as opposed to money
• Accelerant's software Insightful 
• Why build software rather than buy?
• Creating a member user board
• The real value in data being making connections
• The relationship dynamics with members
• What makes a good member MGA for Accelerant?
• The importance of being underwriting driven
• Customer centricity
• Is going full-stack worth it?
• What's next for Accelerant? Expansion into Canada and beyond!

Thank you Jeff 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

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Anthony Mayer, VP Engineering & Konrad Heimpel, VP Product and Data, at Getsafe. 

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide variety of topics such as:

• Is Getsafe a tech company operating in insurance or is Getsafe an insurance company?
• Whats the difference these days
• Insurance and technology go hand in hand
• The advantages of bringing perspectives from both parties together
• The importance of understanding the complexity of insurtech
• How does the product interact with tech?
• GetSafe being a user-centric company that solve user problems
• Needs may differ between insurance products but the underlying problems remain the same
• Creating a scalable product
• Where does product end and tech take over?
• The challenge of restructuring when moving to a remote working dynamic
• Where does Getsafe differ from an incumbent insurer?
• The challenge of tackling the complexity of insurance and distilling it down to simple technical solutions
• How important is insurance experience?
• How approaching things with naivety encourages innovation instead of being tied to our past experiences
• Being open to adapting to new ideas is a requirement for working at Getsafe
• How has getting a license to be a full-stack insurer changed things for Getsafe?
• How no longer being dependant on 3rd party systems facilitates the creation of new products
• Decreasing product turnaround time
• The advantages of having full control of the value chain
• How this improves the customer experience
• The move towards hybrid working 
• The impact on the talent pool
• Why should we come and join the Getsafe team? (They're hiring!)

Thank you Anthony and Konrad 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

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Hermann Fried, Managing Director, at bsurance.   

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide variety of topics such as:  

• Insurance being 20 years behind banks in terms of digitisation   
• Embedded insurance providing ease for the customer   
• How the pandemic has encouraged demand for accessible insurance   
• The general shopping experience is now extremely accessible, why isn’t insurance this way?  
• Why did it take so long to challenge the insurance model?  
• How the normalisation of online retail has impacted our tolerance for time  
• What is driving the rise in embedded insurance?   
• Offering the real time delivery of insurance policies   
• Asking who the client?  
• The real client being the insurance broker   
• Insurance’s broker driven model being the slowest aspect to change   
• How do we tackle trust in embedded insurance?  
• bsurance’s partner relationships   
• Discussing regulation, how does that impact embedded insurance?   
• Borderless trades  
• How much of a threat does embedded insurance pose to the traditional insurance market?  
• Most of the incumbents dont see the threat   
• Loosing aspects of the value chain   
• Addressing the gaps in the value chain   
• Insurance of the intangible world   
• How is the face of insurance changing?  
• Is insurance broken or is it lacking in customer centricity?   
• ‘Insurance is sold not bought’   
• We need to be incentivised to change   
• What’s next for bsurance?   

Thank you Hermann 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

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by George Beattie, Head of Incubation Underwriting at Beazley.   

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide variety of topics such as:  

• Beazley’s value statement of; future profitability, situational awareness, brand and culture  
• Deconstructing innovation into different channels of activity  
• Incentivising innovators  
• Recognising failure as part of success  
• The clash between conservative values around constant underwriting and the need to adapt to a changing world  
• Insuring intangible assets  
• The industry wide struggle for continued relevance  
• The false concept that age represents capability  
• Maintaining relevance by working with a more diverse team of people  
• Is insurance broken or has it just not adapted?  
• How our lateral view of the market impacts innovation  
• Innovation through partnerships  
• How products need to reflect our changing needs and demands  
• Do we do a good enough job attracting new talent? 
• How do we avoid an echo chamber?  
• Encouraging opportunity by working with smaller, more focused groups  
• Avoiding treating people as commodities  
• Meritocracy as the defining characteristic for progress  
• Not being scared of hiring people better than ourselves  
• Asking if insurance experience is necessary when hiring  
• Being problem oriented  
• The importance of curiosity  
• How do you incubate ideas? 

Thank you George 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

 Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast where this week we are lucky enough to be joined by Siddhartha Jha, Founder and CEO of Arbol. 

Arbol provides a platform for parametric coverage which allows clients to access reduced risk and hassle free protection using their automated processes and facilitates a straightforward experience for the customer. 

We had a great conversation this week where we discussed a wide variety of topics such as:

• How does Arbol's parametric platform work? 
• Parametric insurance lending itself to be easily scalable and transferable 
• Making the platform as convenient for the agents as possible
• Providing cover for situations which the traditional insurance industry is unable or unwilling to write risk for
• Claiming the unwanted gap in the market
• Parametrics as a facilitator for financial security
• Increased accuracy has allowed the risk to shrink
• Climate risk is currently largely uninsured
• Parametric insurance enables the broad-scale adoption of insurance
• Smart contracts, condensing information and accessibiity
• The demand for a changing insurance experience
• The increasing demand for parametric insurance in energy
• How the pandemic has encouraged trust in digital solutions
• The value of transparency
• The move away from pricing risk in an isolated way
• Large-scale adoption of parametric insurance only being feasible if we are able to lower the costs of business
• Parametric insurance as a social good -  increasing distribution and accessibility
• The surprising elements of the insurance market
• Insurance as an industry being highly protected by regulation
• Arbol's mission "1 . The customer will love Parametrics, 2. The capital market will love Parametrics"  

Thank you Sid 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

 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

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