Reinventing Finance

In this episode of the Reinventing Finance Podcast, Tom van der Lubbe and Nikolaus Sühr, had the pleasure of talking with Frederik Wulff, the CEO of Markel Insurance SE (European carrier within the Markel Group) in charge of the European business. In the podcast episode, he shares with Nick and Tom insights about: 

📍His professional background, founding his first company and how he joined Markel

📍Why company culture ("the Markel way of doing things”) and continuous learning are important for success 

📍Product Lines and why Markel is active in 

📍What differentiates Markel from competition 

📍Product lines and what developments and changes he sees in the future 

📍Why market education and timing are important when offering specific insurance products 

📍How market-oriented product-line development works at Markel 

📍What carbon insurance and the insurance of virtual assets have in common 

📍Why the InsurTech space is still very interesting for Frederik to observe at the moment

In this episode of the Reinventing Finance Podcast by Tom van der Lubbe and Nikolaus Sühr, we had the pleasure of talking with Dr David Stachon Former COO and Advisor to the CEO of Wefox.

In the Podcast David shares and discusses the following insights with Nick and Tom:

📌 His professional background and his journey within the insurance industry

📌 Significant milestones in his career and from the company's that are still relevant today

📌 His time at both, established insurers and digital attackers/startups, and key learnings that you advise insurance board members to take note of

📌 What is currently just hype in insurance and what is essential

📌 The role of technology, tech building and tech investments in insurance

📌 Key barriers for internationally operating insurers

📌 Where the value is created within insurance

Check out the podcast episode with David to find out more!

#podcast #insurance #insuranceindustry #insurtech #technology #consulting #business

In this episode of the Reinventing Finance Podcast by Tom van der Lubbe and Nikolaus Sühr, we had the pleasure of talking with the investor, Max Chee Head of Aquiline Technology Growth, and the investee, Chris Slater Founder & CEO at Oka, The Carbon Insurance Company. In the Podcast Chris and Max share insights about: 📌Their professional background 📌Challenges around the Quality and Legitimacy of the existing carbon market 📌What Problems OKA is solving and the secret sauce behind 📌What “retiring” refers to in terms of carbon emissions and carbon credits 📌What potential Max sees in the carbon insurance market\ 📌Biggest challenges concerning new tendencies, ESG regulations, etc. 📌Who are the market participants? 📌How big is the potential of insurance? 📌How OKA works and what it exactly insures 📌Risks that apply when insuring carbon (reversal risk and methodology) 📌The role of reinsurers 📌The role of culture in reluctancy to get involved in the carbon market 📌Go-to-market and product 📌Advice they would give to an insurance CEO (large carriers) to aboard the topic Check out the episode to find out more! #VC #insurance #insuranceindustry #tech #insurtech #sustainability #sustainable

Tim Quayle is the CEO of One Advent based in London UK, a specialist MGA services platform that helps MGA businesses launch and grow by providing an infrastructure and regulatory environment to enable that. In this episode of the Reinventing Finance Podcast by Tom van der Lubbe and Nikolaus Sühr, he shares insights about: 📌His role and what his work at an MGA services platform looks like 📌Who his clients are and reasons why they collaborate with One Advent 📌Services he provides for MGAs and how their business relationship shifts over time 📌What alternatives are out there and how the One Advent service offering compares against those 📌His biggest learnings as a CEO in the MGA service business 📌 Where he sees the biggest opportunities for the MGA market in general and OneAdvent in particular Check out the podcast episode to find out more! #MGA #insurance #insuranceindustry #regulations #UK

Tom Van der Lubbe and Nick were delighted to welcome the founders of InsurTech Riskwolf as guests to our Reinventing Finance Podcast. Thomas Krapf, CEO and co-founder of Riskwolf and René Alexander Papesch, CTO and co-founder of Riskwolf, met at a digital transformation project in Zurich for a well-known reinsurer, where they also had one of their first touchpoints with parametric insurance. With Thomas having over 20 years of experience in the insurance industry including involvement in several digital initiatives, and René having a background in consulting and tech including involvement in the development of many data-intensive applications, these two came together to found Riskwolf and combined their insights about how to utilise technology, data and digital means within the insurance industry and fill a market gap they were perceiving. As a parametric service provider, Riskwolf uses multiple data sources to create new insurance offerings based on their data technologies, delving into opportunities demanded by the market and even covering protection gaps. In this podcast episode, René and Thomas share a lot of insights, e.g.: 📌 Pros and cons of parametric insurance and what parametric insurance actually is. 📌 The process of designing and then distributing parametric insurance. 📌 The key requirements for parametric products. 📌 Who should be interested in parametric insurance and why. 📌 The most exciting and successful use cases in terms of demand. 📌 Future predictions about parametric insurance and market developments. 📌 Current hurdles Riskwolf faces. #parametric #bigdata #insurtech #tech #insurance #versicherung #business #data

Shameer Sachdev is the Founder & Managing Director of Growth Gorilla a "Fintech Digital Marketing Agency”, that helps global fintechs with their go-to-market, growth and mastering their market entry. In this podcast episode of the Reinventing Finance Podcast Shameer shares with Nick and Tom insights about 📌 His background and his business “Growth Gorilla” 📌 What differentiates growth gorilla from other marketing agencies 📌 Why he focuses on fintech and what makes it “special” 📌 Counter-intuitive ever-green advice for companies looking to grow via paid channels 📌A fictive business case example and how growth gorilla can help with it 📌 Some learnings that could be also interesting to hear for InsurTech Marketeers and Startup Marketers #fintech #insurtech #marketing #marketingtips #growth

Adam Chadroff is an Investor at Equal Ventures, a seed-stage venture fund based in New York. As his daily business, Adam is looking for early-stage investments across the value chain in insurance and insurtech. Coming from a Financial Services Background and interest in FinTech, the massive and slowly moving insurance industry with (at that time) undervalued InsurTechs and a lack of excitement for opportunities in that space made Adam want to pivot and find out what thrives innovation inside the insurance industry. On the newest episode of the Reinventing Finance Podcast, he shares with Nick and Tom insights about: 📌Points of friction in the digital customer journey and product development 📌The going investment hypotheses in 2015 and what has changed since then and why it changed since then 📌His article “The Digitization and Enablement of Insurance Agents” 📌Why is insurance fundamentally woven around relationships 📌The most exciting insurtechs in the agency digitalisation stack and why 📌Which parts of the value chain he thinks will return the best to digitalise 📌Climate tech investments by Equal Ventures 📌Main opportunities for insurtech and climate tech 📌Embedded Insurance and its Role from an Investor’s Point of View #VC #investing #investor #versicherung #insurance #insuranceindustry #insurtech #fintech

Stefano de Liguoro is the Chief Digital Officer at Zurich Spain and Head of Zurich Klinc his task is to try creating new digital business models to simplify the way the customer interacts with insurance and also introduce young customers to the world of insurance.

As a guest on the Reinventing Finance Podcast, he shares with Nick and Tom insights about:

📌 His role as a Chief Digital Officer (CDO) and what responsibilities it entails and what it does not

📌 His role as Head of Zurich Klinc and how these two roles interact with each other

📌 Type of channels served and customer segments of the digital brand of Zurich Klinc

📌 Goals and objectives of Stefano as a CDO and his Team

📌 Some unsolicited advice on which do’s and don’ts define the job of a CDO esp. in comparison to other overlapping roles with titles such as Technology, Transformation, Change or New Business & Ventures

📌 Why don’t there seem to be insurers who work across channels (agents, brokers, direct, affinity etc.) who share a common IT infrastructure both across business lines within one country and even more so across countries?

📌 Where Stefano sees the most attractive growth opportunities for Zurich Klinc but also Zurich overall in Spain

📌 The role of flexibility in relation to customer-centricity when developing new products

📌 The topic of ESG and the potential business opportunities in creating “green” insurance products

Alex Taylor is the Global Head of Emerging Technology at QBE Ventures, a part of QBE Insurance, an international insurance company. In his role and with his team, his daily work is all about “investing in the future of insurance”, listening to the challenges within insurance companies and finding ways how to solve them through the right external capabilities. In this episode of the Reinventing Finance Podcast Alex shares with Nick and Tom 📌 The reason for combining venture investing with the regular insurance business 📌 How the venture business and inbound technology lead play together 📌 The expertise an innovation team needs to be successful 📌 The key learnings from years of venture scouting and investing 📌 The business goals and successes and failures from QBE Ventures so far 📌 Why sharing data is sometimes very important to further strategic alliances and can push innovation 📌 Non-negotiables for an archetype of a successful venture/innovation function in a company📌What other benefits than money can investors provide 📌 How to attract the right talent for innovation in insurance 📌 Net Zero & ESG offerings from his perspective as a member of the Net Zero insurance alliance 📌 The Role of Trust in insurance distribution and Collaborations #insurance #insuranceindustry #investing #investment #podcast

Dr. Ali Hasan is the Chief Medical &Healthcare Officer at Vitality in the UK (a Subsidiary of “Discovery” from South Africa) they are offering Health, Life & Car Insurance insuring 1,5m lives in the UK. The group is present in 40 countries sharing value insurance and value finance products that everyone benefits from. What makes the products stand out, is the “vitality programme” that is embedded in every sold product - and which is the most critical part of Vitality’s success.

On the Reinventing Finance Podcast, he discloses in the conversation with Nick and Tom:

📌 Information about Vitality, their business model and the markets they operate in

📌 The Vitality value proposition to the customer

📌 The insurer rationale behind the Vitality business model

📌 Crucial components to the success of the vitality programme

📌 Challenges Vitality and other insurers face nowadays

📌 The positive impact of the programme on insurance takers’ health and if it is attributed to:

a) positive signalling (whereby healthy customers opt for your service),

b) how much for more accurate underwriting and

c) how much to actually change behaviour?

📌 Why Vitality also offers car insurance in the UK even though it is very competitive

📌 Customer acquisition strategy and the role of embedded insurance and Ecosystems

📌 The most actionable health advice for living a healthy and long life

📌 The most promising health gadgets to recommend to friends and family

📌 Which question Ali sees being asked too little and he would like to discuss it on the podcast episode

#insurance #insuranceindustry #uk #health #versicherung #versicherungen #podcast

This episode’s guest is Natalia Dorfman, CEO & Co-Founder of Kita, a very tech-driven Startup that provides Carbon Insurance for corporates. With their offering, KITA wants to drive more financial funds towards the scale of high-quality carbon projects and create a positive impact on the climate change issues by covering companies’ risks of loss of the initial investments in the carbon projects. Kita is a cover holder under Lloyds and launched their first insurance product in January 2023. In the conversation with Nick and Tom, Natalia shares insights about: 📍What is Carbon Insurance and how does it work 📍Which Carbon markets exist, how big are they and why do they need insurance 📍What perils are insurable? 📍How and why did they start an insurance company with a carbon removal focus 📍Why there is a lack of insurance in the climate tech & carbon market 📍How a lack of insurance hampers growth in the climate tech and carbon industry 📍Ways to capture carbon, e.g. “nature-based solutions” and what perceived risks they have 📍What are the insurance-specific aspects of the (voluntary) carbon markets 📍How much of the current carbon market is insurable 📍Different types of projects 📍Who are the typical buyers of Carbon Insurance 📍Bottom buy-in for the insurance policy and Go-to-Market 📍Why she is not “afraid” of competition but has a positive perspective on it 📍Why tech is key to Kita’s insurance product and the strength of the startup 📍Why carbon Insurance is offering an upside for (re)insurers 📍Some thoughts about how individuals can minimise their carbon footprint or make up for it #sustainability #carbon #insurance #insuranceindustry #esg

Cenk Tabakoglu is the CEO of Lumnion, a pricing platform that offers AI and ML-based pricing for the Insurance industry and has already won over some well-known insurers with their tech. In the conversation with Nick and Tom, he shares: 📌 His professional background in the finance and insurance industry 📌 The normal process an insurer goes through in determining the prices for products 📌 How that process looks like when using Lumnion’s services 📌 The business case for the insurer 📌 Pricing of Lumnion’s services 📌 How the loss improvement and premium improvement work with Lumnion’s services 📌 Use cases and numbers from current Lumnion clients 📌 The lowest hanging fruits to generate value for an insurance company with Lumnion’s services 📌 The biggest concerns or counterarguments from the market so far and answers to them #ai #machinelearning #technology #actuary #pricing #insurance #insuranceindustry #innovation #versicherung #saas

Simon Torrance (independent advisor on new business models in the financial services sector, founder of “Embedded Finance” and “Super App Strategies”) and Dan White (Founder of “Ninety”, an innovation & insurance agency) are individually well-known in the insurance industry, now they have joined forces with their new endeavour ARK Venture Studios.

There is a gap between what the world needs from insurance and what the current industry is able to deliver. This gap requires more than Embedded Insurance solutions to solve it → And this is what ARK is about.

In the Podcast Dan and Simon share insights about:

📍How Dan and Simon met and what made them found ARK Venture Studio

📍The ARK Venture Studio business model and its goals

📍The market opportunities created while trying to solve systemic (environmental & societal) problems

📍Examples of ventures that were already founded at ARK Venture Studio, their impact and the market opportunity and protection gap they close

📍How to ensure systemic risk and why a "full" loss can’t be insured

📍How to look for green business opportunities by combining a strong commercial and financial focus with a powerful societal impact?

📍The question of money vs. morality and the aim of investors

📍How to get involved in ARK Venture Studio and its ventures

Check out the URL of ARK Venture Studios to find out more: https://ark.ninety.com!

#venturecapital #podcast #esg #environment #insurance #insuranceindustry #innovation #Versicherung #Versicherungsbranche #Nachhaltigkeit

Uwe Schumacher is the CEO of DOMCURA AG the largest P&C MGA in Germany with 420m Gross Written Premium p.a. and has a profound background in the insurance industry. Before he took over the role as CEO of Domcura, which he has held for the last decade now, Uwe started out in Management Consulting and held several leading positions at a direct insurer (Verti/Direct Line) for almost 20 years, where he also led and set up the German market entry.

In this episode of the Reinventing Finance Podcast, Uwe shares with Nick and Tom:

📍His Background and experiences in different companies within the insurance industry

📍Domcura being an MGA and what that means

📍Counterintuitive learnings from his experience in leading roles in the insurance industry

📍Some learnings as a CEO at Verti/Direct Line for about 5 Years and Board Member for 12 years

📍Change & acceleration in the Insurtech & Insurance Scene over the last 25 years

📍Challenges InsurTechs and others face nowadays

📍What to beware of when buying InsurTech Startups

📍Market entry approach when he was working for Verti/Direct Line

📍Ideas and learnings about “People”, “Culture” and “Innovation”

#versicherung #insurance #insuranceindustry #versicherungen #germany #podcast #innovation

Carla Venter is acting Head of Investment at aperture.co and is currently based in Zurich Switzerland, where she is shaping the future of FinTech through investing, marketing & growth strategy. On the Reinventing Finance Podcast Carla shares with Nick and Tom:

- Her background in the financial services industry

- The business model of Aperture.co, how it developed over time and her role in this

- Matako as an example of how the growth marketing solution works and how close collaboration can be between Aperture.co and their clients

- Key trends in the insurance and finance market

- Embedded Insurance, Ecosystems & Beyond Finance/ Beyond Insurance

- Why it is important to move fast about the “Embedded Insurance Opportunity”

- Potential reasons why incumbents rather move slow

- How disruptive innovation and business models look like in Insurance/Finance and the difference between “innovation” and “good marketing”

- The role of technological enablers and distribution partners in innovation

- How exclusivity between distribution partners and insurance partners can hamper product development and innovation

- The insurance gap and specific needs of consumers in emerging markets

- Where are high growth potentials and how to access them not from an office but by really understanding the markets and their potential

Bradley Brandon Cross is an experienced insurance entrepreneur with a track record of experience in the insurance industry in the US, the UK (where he lives now), Asia and Europe. Since 2007 he is involved in the Islamic Insurance Business following the Islamic “Takaful” principles in the UK, a market that is quite big and growing.

In this episode of the Reinventing Finance Podcast Bradley shared and discussed the following insights with Tom van der Lubbe and Nikolaus Sühr:

📍What is Takaful insurance and how is it different from “traditional” insurance

📍What is “money seeking” and how to avoid it

📍What can be invested in, when “money seeking” is prohibited

📍The “camel story” and why Islamic insurance is allowed

📍His experience in actually having launched a Takaful insurance company in the UK

📍The Role of Language in Marketing and Legal Matters

📍How to go on about the launch of a Takaful insurance intermediary and what to consider

📍How relevant is technology in launching retail and or commercial insurance?

📍Why the UK is a competitive market for insurers

#islam #insurance #insuranceindustry #takaful #versicherung #podcast

Walter de Oude is an actuary by training and is originally from South Africa. He has been living in Asia & Singapore for the last 22 years and has been previously working as a CEO at HSBC and founded Singapore Life after funding in 2017 and grew it in the last years. In this episode of the Reinventing Finance Podcast, Walter shares with Nikolaus Sühr and Tom van der Lubbe details about: 📍 The attack vendor of Singlife and the merger with Aviva Singapore 📍 Why all successful startups eventually become incumbents 📍 His passion for founding companies and growing them 📍 His new entrepreneurial endeavours with his new company called 📍 “Chocolate Finance” and what the company does 📍 Why Fundraising is easier as a second-time entrepreneur 📍 The key metrics for raising capital 📍 How he chooses who to hire 📍 His two cents on the insurance industry and if it is broken or not 📍 How Finance and Insurance can become more attractive to engage with from a customer’s point of view Check out the episode to find out more! 🎙️ For those interested please find the stage talk “The Art of raising capital” by Walter here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmFSGZbf8X0

Inas Nureldin is one of three founders & the Managing Director of Tomorrow, a social business that was started in 2018 with the vision to disrupt the banking industry and use money as a lever for positive change in the world and to be the future of banking.   As a Guest on the Reinventing Finance Podcast, he shares with Nick and Tom insights about:  
📍Inas’ professional background and the shift of focus that led him to found Tomorrow
📍Why Tomorrow decided to raise money also with crowdfunding and who is the biggest single contributor in terms of money
📍What role the “crowd” plays for Tomorrow
📍The governance structure of Tomorrow
📍What is a b-corp and how does it work?
📍Tomorrow's sustainability criteria and impact goals and how Tomorrow is different to ESG funds/banks
📍What are the limits to scale sustainable banking?
📍Recommendations to entrepreneurs for being more sustainability-oriented
📍Recommendations to consumers/citizens for being more sustainability-oriented  

#banking #fintech #sustainability #sustainablefinance #podcast #finance

Philippe Moulin is an expert in automotive research and development with a technical background and is the CEO of telematics provider Drive Quant. His company focuses on connected insurance based on telematics - collecting driving data using the smartphones of insurance customers.

In this podcast episode, he shares and discusses with Nick and Tom insights about:

📌 the market landscape in Europe and which countries and industries are advanced regarding telematics and data-based services.

📌 the perks of telematics for the insurance industry

   > better risk assessment

   > better pricing

   > better claims management

   > and better service

📌 the perks of telematics for the consumers

📌 the perks of telematics for the environment

📌 the perks of telematics for mobility

📌 what it needs to make connected insurance a successful and viable model

Check out the podcast episode!

Ian Gutterman is the Founder and CEO of the Informed Group, Inc.   Before entering the insurance industry he spent quite some time investing in insurance companies and got to learn about the industry very well through this special position he was in, then fell in love with insurance and decided that this is what he would like to do for the rest of his life 🙂

In his conversation with Nick and Tom he shares:

📎 His professional background and how he came to do what he does today 

📎 What issues he sees in typical insurance business models and insurtechbusinessmodels 

📎 What advice he would give a CEO of insurance incumbents/tied agents and where is room for improvement in the status quo of the insurance industry 

📎 Where he sees the solution for the issues in the insurance industry and an example of how it could look like in the short-term outlook 

📎 How to manage and match customer acquisition costs and growth costs and underwriting capacities without putting a “burden” on the policyholders 

📎 How and with which arguments to “switch” insurance clients from their long-term commitment to a policy 

📎 Why cutting the “middleman” / the trusted advisor out, might or might not be a good solution in the sales process 

📎 His perspective as an investor on insurtechs about going public vs. self-funding and some advice for entrepreneurs in the insurance space 

📎 Why o investors favour certain business models and not others

#insurance #insuranceindustry #insurtech #versicherung

Nick and Tom had the great pleasure of talking to gadget and B2B2C insurtech veteran Toby Stubbington, Managing Director of Pier Insurance and Ticketplan.

In the conversation, Toby shares insights about:
 
📍His professional background and way into the insurance industry
📍The business model of Pier Insurance
📍How to stand out in a market with strong-founded and fast-growing competitors and big players
📍B2C and B2BC
📍Market developments, trends and product innovations

Suleiman Sukkar from Socotra is the Director of Business Development and Deployments at Socotra, a modern policy admin system provider. As his daily business, Suleiman leads the presales and delivery teams.  

In this podcast he shares with Nick and Tom:  
📌 His professional background and his way to the insurance industry
📌 More about his role and tasks
📌 What differentiates Socotra from other policy admin systems
📌 What it takes to launch new products (Go-to-market, manual processes, market feedback, iterations)
📌 Third-party integrations and co-development with clients  Check out the new episode!

Gilad Shai is a serial entrepreneur with a unique view from insurance capturing various viewpoints and experiences including incumbent carriers, starting his own embedded insurtech, networkers, podcaster, entrepreneur, advisor and investor.

In the conversation, Gilad shares with Nick and Tom :

👉 His Background and the type of projects he is currently working on
👉 What Gilad learned from his many involvements as a founder, advisor and investor in the insurtech scene over the last 5+ years
👉 Which hypotheses he had before the start of this journey and if they have been validated or falsified
👉 His opinion on various ways for insurance companies to grow
👉 Sustainable insurance initiatives ESG  

Check out the episode!

Rick Huckstep is the Founder of the Wiser Newsletter. After having worked within the insurance and finance industry for decades,  advising and investing in more than 100 startups as an angel investor, and being a mentor for startup boot camp and Mundi lab, Rick retired in Spain and the corona pandemic motivated him to live one of his passions and decided to get into storytelling and sharing relevant content regularly via his Wiser Newsletter.  

In this Podcast, Rick shares with Nick and Tom:

📍His personal and corporate background  
📍Past Touchpoints with finance, insurance and fintech and key lessons he derived from that
📍His roles at Digital Insurer, Advisory Board Member Right Indem, Startupbootcamp Mentor, Fitsense, Mudilab and becoming an Angel Investor
📍Why he would consider Insurance a “hard” industry to change and the challenges the insurance industry faces
📍What made him start the Wiser Newsletter and why could this be relevant for decision-makers within the finance and fintech industry
📍Which key trends he sees in the tech industry that seem to be overlooked in finance
📍What generic advice he would give to a friend who is the CEO of an insurance company

George Kesselman is the Chief Commercial Officer of Zhong An Tech (ZA Tech). Based in Asia, George is leading B2B Sales, Marketing, and Partnerships, with full P&L responsibility for Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam. For those who don’t know ZA and the Asian market much, he explains what ZA does and how it is different to the other known digital players and insurers in Asia.   Further topics he talks about:

📍 How Zhong An combines technology with market knowledge in insurance
📍 How to create stickiness within Ecosystems
📍 Differences in the insurance market and customer profiles between Europe and Asia
📍 Markets Zhong An is active in and markets that are interesting to them
📍 Which Insurtech plays have succeeded and where Zhong An would invest
📍 What other wider benefits do insurtechs have on the insurance ecosystem  

Sidenote: As this recording is dating back to January 2022 Zhong An has set up their business in Europe recently as discussed in this podcast episode it appears to have significant potential for the company

Most people might know Andrew Rear as the founder of Munich Re's Digital Partners - one of the pioneers of the involvement of the corporate insurance sector in InsurTechs. Andrew left Digital Partners in 2020 and has since then been an Insurtech board director, investor and adviser to several companies.  In the conversation with Tom and Nick, Andrew shares:

📍Where the InsurTech industry stands today and the role that business models play
📍 Where we are on the adoption of technology into real-world insurance
📍 If “InsurTech” is at the peak of its valuation
📍 Where insurtechs need to up their game
📍 Which key learnings did Andrew draw from his time at Munich Re Digital Partners  
📍 Which themes and companies excite him in the InsurTech space
📍Thoughts on if and when to change brand names for insurtechs  
📍How to make sense of insurtech GWP valuation multiples and differences between private and public markets

Spiros Margaris is a VC, Advisor, Board Member of several companies, the “Number One Fintech Influencer” and the business owner at Margaris Ventures. Spiros shares his perspective on why “investment is like a marriage”, the role of luck in business success and his investment philosophy, as well as talks about:

👉 What does it mean to be an influencer and how to measure the impact
👉 Generic advice for someone who is on the downturn
👉 personal story time and real talk about business morals and tough times
👉 Spiros’ sweet spot for business cases on the insurtech market as a VC
👉 How to identify promising business cases and how does he engage them
👉 Why he expects the insurance brands to become “fashion brands” and what it means
👉 Great InsurTech & FinTech business models
👉 Twitter vs. LinkedIn as social media channels to be present on as a Fintech Influencer

Winnie Wong is CEO & Executive Director at two insurance companies - Asia Insurance and Avo Insurance. Also, Winnie is Chairman of the Hong Kong Federation of Insurers (HKFI).

In the podcast, Winnie shares with Nick and Tom:
📍Specifics about Asia Insurance and Avo Insurance and how they play together
📍What is a "virtual insurer"
📍Her ambitions with Asia Insurance and Avo Insurance as well as strategic initiatives she started
📍The role of the HKFI in the insurance / InsurTech ecosystem in Hong Kong
📍Which areas can European and Asian insurers/InsurTechs learn the most from each other
📍What is her personal stance on the responsibility of insurance executives to contribute towards ensuring a sustainable world
📍What Winnie as a keynote speaker is looking for at the upcoming  DIA Event in Munich on the 28th-29th of September 2022  

#digitalinsurance #insurance #insurers #versicherung #insuranceindustry

Amélie Breitburd is CEO of Lloyd's Europe. Lloyd's has global licenses to underwrite risks and is known for its product innovation. In this Podcast Amélie shares insights about:
👉 The background of Lloyd's Europe and how it compares and contracts to Lloyds of London
👉 The ambitions and plans for Lloyd's Europe
👉 How she measures her success
👉 Success stories of the Lloyd's Lab and plans for the future
👉 What it needs to combat the insurance gap
👉 What Amélie is looking for at the DIA Munich

#insurance #innovation #versicherung #insuranceindustry

This episode's guest is Roger Peverelli, Co-Founder of the Digital Insurance Agenda, speaker and author. Roger had been a guest on our podcast before and we are happy to revive the conversation with a focus on the upcoming DIA event in Munich on 28-29th September 2022 and key trends insurers  and insurtechs are involved in and what is key in making #partnerships  work  #insurance #insurer #versicherung #insurtech

Dr Roman Rittweger is the Founder and CEO of the private health insurance provider Ottonova. What is special about Ottonova? It is Germany’s first private health insurance with lean and digital processes.

Roman shares insights about:

➡️ What was the reason why he initially start Ottonova and what did he learn along the way
➡️ The acquisition costs of new clients and the importance of branding
➡️ The role of customer experience in health insurance
➡️ The customer lifetime value in health insurance
➡️ Partnerships, alliances, products and services
➡️ Ottonova’s growth plans for the future
➡️ Topics that are hot in the health insurance industry

Leave a like or comment if you liked the episode!

Dr. Carolin Gabor is the CEO of Movinx, a B2B2C platform for embedded mobility insurance started by @Daimler and SwissRe.
In this podcast Episode, Carolin presents the #businessmodel of Movinx, and use-cases, but she also shares:
➡️ Her background in Consulting @BCG and lessons she learned there
➡️ CEO positions she held at other companies before and her learnings about #leadership
➡️ The importance of having a great team to create great products
➡️ Leadership- / team psychology and theories and concepts
➡️ If it is still a good idea to start a price comparison site nowadays and what can make the business model successful
➡️ Challenges when trying to engage new customers sustainably
➡️ Outlook on the future in #finance and #insurance
➡️ Usecases of #embedded finance and in embedded insurance  

💡 Three books to read about leadership & teams :   
1.) Simon Sinek  - leaders eat last
2.) Daniel H. Pink - Drive
3.) Amy C. Edmondson - Psychological Safety

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Andrew Jernigan is the CEO and Co-Founder of Insured Nomads, the first insurtech in global benefits, offering a full portfolio of insurance solutions for the globally mobile including international health and travel insurance.

Some topics he discussed with us and shared his insights on for this episode are:

➡️ How did you get into international digital nomad insurance and which problems do you address?

➡️ Could you define an archetypical (or multiple) digital nomads and how their needs differ?

➡️ What are some unintended hurdles a digital nomad would have to go through when moving abroad?

➡️ How big is the market size of the digital nomad group and why is it so hard to put a number on it?

➡️ What are the touchpoints and your distribution network?

➡️ Who are your competitors and how do you differentiate yourself?

➡️ What type of partners are you looking for and who should engage with you?

Eric Schuh is the Deputy CEO and Chief Operating Officer of the cloud-based insurtech and white-label provider for insurance solutions, ELEMENT Insurance AG. Eric has been around in the insurance industry for 20 years now and joined ELEMENT earlier this year from Swiss Re, where he held various international management positions.

He sat down with us for this episode to share his insights on the following topics:

➡️ What are some examples of ELEMENT’s embedded insurance use-cases and why did you win against other insurers?

➡️ The background behind the partnership with Volkswagen Financial Services

➡️ How does ELEMENT differ from other digital insurance solution providers, such as Swiss Re's iptiQ?

➡️ How do you see the competitive landscape in the embedded insurance space?

➡️ What are the benefits and drawbacks of the MGA model compared to the full-stack model?

➡️ What would your ideal next partnership be in your opinion?

Chris Cheatham – the Luke Skywalker of Insurance Policies - is the Vice President of Product at Bold Penguin, where he helps lead the Insurance Intelligence division. He has been working in insurance since 2006 and founded the Insurtech RiskGenius, which was acquired by Bold Penguin in 2020, and which was bought by American Family earlier this year.

Chris discussed the following topics with us in this episode:

➡️ How did the name “Luke Skywalker of Insurance Policies” come to be?

➡️ Which problem does Bold Penguin solve and what is the business model?

➡️ How has Covid impacted your business model?

➡️ American Family acquiring Bold Penguin: Did you find any pushback from commercial carriers?

➡️ What thesis do you have on the SME insurance market?

➡️ If you were to get a job for a commercial carrier in charge of SME for growth, what would you do and what would be the next steps you would take?

➡️ What is your view on the capabilities of carriers at this moment?

➡️ In your conversations with insurance executives, do you see that there is a switch in their mentality and a FOMO in terms of going digital and not waiting on the sidelines?

Susanne Chishti is the CEO of FINTECH Circle, Europe’s first Angel Network focused on fintech opportunities and Founder of the FINTECH Circle Institute, the leading fintech learning platform offering innovation workshops to C-level executives and online courses. She has an extensive background in the financial services sector, starting her career working for a fintech company (before the term "fintech" was being invented) in Silicon Valley 20 years ago and then worked for more than 15 years across Deutsche Bank, Lloyds Banking Group, Morgan Stanley and Accenture in London and Hong Kong.

It was a pleasure discussing the following topics with Susanne in this episode: 

➡️ Looking back at your career, what are your key takeaways from working in the financial services sector?

➡️ What was your vision behind starting FINTECH Circle?

➡️ Where do you see the future of Fintech? How will the sector evolve in the next years, and what are the trends?

➡️ The huge opportunity of embedded finance and insurance

➡️ Do you have some best practices that you see for fintech and insurtech startups partnering with incumbents?

➡️ The FINTECH Circle Angel Network - how does it work, and how are companies selected for investment? 

➡️ What is your advice to Fintech founders and entrepreneurs for choosing Investors?

➡️ Fintech has been ahead of Insurtech - What do Insurtech and Fintech have in common, and what can Insurtech take away from Fintech?

Steven Mendel is the CEO and Co-Founder of Bought by Many, which is disrupting the world of pet insurance through its innovative use of tech. He has over 25 years of experience as an actuary in financial services which has included leading Close Brothers Wealth Management during the launch of their non-advised offering; creating the world’s first art-focused wealth advice offering for Christie’s; working as part of the team that formed Barclays Wealth and heading the McKinsey UK Savings and Investment Group.

In this episode, Steven sat down with us to discuss the following questions and topics:

➡️ Why did Bought by Many decide to focus on Pet insurance exclusively?

➡️ Having started Bought by Many in 2012, you “only” decided to take venture funding end of 2016, can you walk us through the why and the how?

➡️  What does it take to build a successful insurtech MGA and what advice could you give in terms of product, distribution and what to focus on when looking to introduce the MGA model?

➡️ How do you decide on where to expand to next (why Sweden?) and can you share a bit on your US market entry strategy?

➡️ Do you focus on insurance brokers as well or do you only focus on the direct market place?

➡️ How could insurers collaborate with you?

➡️ What are the highlights in store for 2021 and the future, what are you most excited about?

➡️ What are your lessons learned and experiences with Munich Re?

➡️ In hindsight, are there any things or mistakes you made that you regret?

To watch the video of the recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtmeFpZFdqE

Nigel Walsh is an Insurance and InsurTech expert and only recently joined Google as the new Managing Director of Insurance for North America. Prior to that, he spent five years as a Partner at Deloitte, leading the global Future of Insurance and the Google Cloud alliance for Insurance, as well as co-leading the Global InsurTech team. He has helped build businesses from scratch in the Insurtech space, launching and designing new propositions, and is on a personal mission to make insurance loveable. :-)

In this episode, Nigel joined us to discuss the following topics and more:

➡️ What were your personal reasons for taking on the new role at Google?

➡️ Background on two Google Cloud projects: Partnering with Brit to create Ki and collaborating with Munich Re and Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty to launch an innovative cyber insurance solution.

➡️ What is your personal thesis on the insurance industry?

➡️ Embedded insurance & finance: where do you see the market moving (will it be super apps aggregating several insurers?) and what will be the key drivers?

➡️ Will companies like Google “eat” insurance as an industry?

➡️ The difference between evolutionary and revolutionary steps.

➡️ Will the big incumbents be able to overcome their legacy?

➡️ Do you think there is going to be more incumbents getting to innovate than the disruptors or new market entrants capturing significant market share?

➡️ The Platform economy and the cycle of engagement for insurance.

➡️ With all of the change happening, what do you think will stay the same in insurance?

Jean-Charles Velge is the Co-Founder of the Belgian Insurtech startup Qover. which just raised $25 million in its Series B funding round. Before founding Qover together with Quentin Colmant in 2016, Jean-Charles acted as a Vice President at private equity firm Redhorse and worked as an Associate Consultant at Bain & Company.

For our fourth episode he discussed the following topics with us:

➡️ What are the two business models of Qover? 

➡️ What problems does Qover address and how does Qover create pan-European insurance solutions?

➡️ What role does VC funding play in accelerating the embedded insurance market?

➡️ The market participants of embedded insurance: where do you see the lines blur between competition and cooperation?

➡️ What are the advantages of the MGA versus the full-stack model?

➡️ What would you do if you were the CEO of AXA or Allianz or what would your advice be to someone who is?

➡️ If you were to start Qover today, knowing what you know now and the market being what it is today, would you do it again and how would that look like?

➡️ What can we expect from Qover in the next few months?

➡️ Where do you see the market in the long run?

Sabine VanderLinden is the CEO, Co-Founder and Managing Director of the venture validation and commercialisation lab Alchemy Crew. She is a pioneer in building innovation ecosystems and has co-designed, built and scaled Startupbootcamp InsurTech-London and Hartford-CT's InsurTech Hub. In addition to having accelerated more than 70 early-stage ventures and evolving the traditional accelerator model to a co-creation-led engagement model to deliver tangible outcomes, Sabine is the Co-editor of the bestselling INSURTECH Book and has become one of the key influencers in the Insurtech space.

In this episode, Sabine joined us to discuss the following questions and topics:

➡️ The Insurtech Queen: How to get more women into insurtech? (STEM, education, bias-driven, cultural, language)

➡️ Are acceleration and innovation dead?

➡️ What is the difference between innovation and digital transformation?

➡️ How to tap into the trend of Digital Nomads and Transient workers in the wake of Covid-19 and Brexit?

➡️ Some parts of the Alchemy model: Discovery, Defining Evaluation Criteria, Commercialisation (partnership, investment, acquisition).

➡️ Which insurtech models work and why?

➡️ What can insurers learn from subscription, circular and ecosystem models?

➡️ What advice would you give to incumbents?

You can check out the video of the recording here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es5QrYaKO_k

Simon Torrance is one of the world’s leading experts on business model transformation, specialising in platform strategy, breakthrough innovation and digital ventures, and is an independent advisor to boards and leadership teams, fundamentally improving their economics as digitisation affects them. He currently focuses on the hot topic of embedded finance and insurance, which he projects offers a market opportunity worth over $7 trillion in ten years’ time. 

For this second episode, Simon discussed and shared his expertise on the following topics:

✅ Embedded Finance/Insurance: How do you define that topic and why is it so important?

✅ What are the societal and commercial benefits of this market opportunity and of closing the protection gap?

✅ What are examples of positive societal aspects in this area and should regulation speed up?

✅ What is the big buzzword “financial wellness” exactly about and how are companies helping people manage their financial wellness?

✅ Why is private and public collaboration important to close the protection gap?

✅ Do you think that partnering up with a large digital distributor will actually drive down the cost of distribution from an insurer perspective or will it be more difficult, having to deal with more powerful distributors?

✅  Putting yourself in the position of a board member/CEO of an incumbent insurer, what is your advice and what would you say are the key steps to capture this market opportunity?

For more information on the market opportunity of embedded finance, check out Simon's articles here: 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/embedded-finance-game-changing-opportunity-incumbents-simon-torrance/

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/embedded-insurance-3-trillion-market-opportunity-could-simon-torrance/?trackingId=9%2FetEvcXvoB7vjNTdXNowg%3D%3D