The Insurtech Leadership Podcast

Early Insurtech Investors Thought they were Investing in SaaS, but Insurance is Very Different (w/Adrian Jones, HSCM Ventures)

Adrian Jones is a partner at HSCM Ventures, the venture capital investment arm of Hudson Structured Capital Management Ltd., an alternative asset manager in re/insurance and transport. 

Today's episode is an in-depth look at capital-raising, whether funding losses is a viable model, revising business plans, and what types of people become successful.  

✅Carriers remain 'followers' rather than fast followers, because culturally the industry has been operated more conservatively than other industries.

✅There are good examples of companies who are early adopters taking advantage of the new technologies and insurtech and exist in all shapes and sizes all over the world.

✅Talented insurance people who find opportunities to connect, which can mean attending ITC and sending around a report afterwards, is how new leadership is identified and formed.

Before joining HSCM in 2021, Adrian was Deputy CEO of P&C Partners at SCOR, where he set-up and led SCOR P&C Ventures.  From 2010 to 2016, he was head of strategy at RenaissanceRe.  He started his career in 2001 at Bain & Co and has lived/worked in New York, Paris, Bermuda, Brussels, and Stockholm.  

Follow the Insurtech Leadership Podcast airing weekly hosted by Joshua R. Hollander. We give you up-close access and personal insights from the leaders of the fastest-growing #insurtechs and most innovative #insurance carriers and brokers.

Why are We All Paying Insurance as if We’re Terrible Drivers? (w/Rashid Galadanci, CEO at Driver)

Rashid Galadanci is CEO of Driver Technologies, an AI-based mobility tech company that delivers a safer driving experience, co-founded in 2018. Rashid was inspired to start Driver Technologies to share the benefits of advanced vehicle technologies without barriers to access and improve safety for everyone. 

Rashid's dad survived a car accident in Africa because he was in a Volvo, but the passengers of the other car were not so lucky. This life-changing incident catalyzed Rashid to devote himself to auto safety and insurance using technology.

Driver uses cell phones to democratize auto safety. Driver uses cell phone data real-time on the edge to act as an early-warning system in car models that do not yet have their own operating system to do so.  

Driver focuses on proper coverage as people fluidly switch between ride-share, delivery and private automotive insurance needs. Users have extended the use cases out into boating, jet ski and private aircraft.

Rashid is also a Venture Partner at The Social Entrepreneurs’ Fund, and a Director at Pigeonly. Rashid holds a B.A. in Political Economy from Dartmouth College and is based in the New York City metropolitan area. 

Follow the Insurtech Leadership Podcast airing weekly hosted by Joshua R. Hollander. We give you up-close access and personal insights from the leaders of the fastest-growing #insurtechs and most innovative #insurance carriers and brokers.

Why is the Insurance Industry Trying to Reach us When We’re Watching Sports Games? (w/Daniel Demetri, CEO Trellis)

Daniel Demetri is the founder and CEO of Trellis, an insurtech company leading a fundamental shift in how businesses and consumers engage with insurance. Trellis provides insurance optimization, depending on consumer needs for higher coverage, lower deductibles, better service quality, or lower cost.

Daniel believes consumers deserve financial services and experiences that automatically work cohesively to support and simplify their lives.

Daniel built Trellis to enable consumers to compare their existing policy, purchase a new policy, and cancel their old one, using data from the insurance experience that helps banks and insurers cross-sell products & services.

He says insurtechs can create new value for customers by using data, and can monetize for that value with banks. 

He also describes raising capital in the current economic cycle, how Covid re-positioned insurance in a consumer's budget and lifestyle, and what the immediate future holds for the insurtech industry.

Daniel previously co-founded States Title, the title insurance technology company that recently rebranded as Doma. Daniel also led product management for Earnest, the leading online student loan originator, and worked at Google, Kayak, and a number of global financial services firms. Daniel received his B.A. from Harvard University in Computer Science and Economics and currently resides in the Boston area. 

Follow the Insurtech Leadership Podcast airing weekly hosted by Joshua R. Hollander. We give you up-close access and personal insights from the leaders of the fastest-growing #insurtechs and most innovative #insurance carriers and brokers.

Building Trust in e-Commerce with Specific Liability Insurance (w/Roma Bronstein, CTO at Spott)

Roma Bronstein is Co-Founder and CTO at Spott, an eCommerce insurance solution that stops unexpected losses from taking down online stores.

✅Spott tackles the risks of lawsuits and sales disruptions with a new breed of dynamic insurance products. By offering merchants one-click coverage at the fairest price, Spott makes eCommerce businesses resilient.

✅e-Commerce more frequently leads to miscommunicatons between sellers and carriers, which can lead to misaligned pricing or coverages.

✅Spott acts as an interpreter to interruption policies with a new innovation called "Suspension Coverage" that helps bridge and mitigate the gap in coverage caused by such misunderstandings.  

✅When you understand the breadth and scope of risk a carrier is taking when insuring an e-Commerce company, you can better understand how important the policy review process can be.

Follow the Insurtech Leadership Podcast airing weekly hosted by Joshua R. Hollander. We give you up-close access and personal insights from the leaders of the fastest-growing #insurtechs and most innovative #insurance carriers and brokers.

5 Lessons for First-time Entrepreneurs: Starting an Insurtech (w/Bob Frady, VP HazardHub acquired by Guidewire)

Bob Frady, CEO of HazardHub decided to start a company when a family member’s home unexpectedly flooded. HazardHub's goal was make those tools available to every single homeowner in the United States. "While we can’t prevent disasters from happening, we can give you a leg up in preparation."

Today Bob provides direct, no-nonsense insights into what it takes to bootstrap your vision, not take early capital, having enough confidence in your vision to walk away from partners who are not ready, and operating as a team.

✅About raising capital: "People offered is cheap money but I knew what the pipeline was, and wasn't going to sell out my pipeline." "We were older, and people look down soon giving money to older people." "We are not easy people to work with, we've been fired 9 times between us (two co-founders) so we wanted less people at the table rather than more.

✅Insights about confidence in starting your own business: Starting alone meant when someone said no, they just said goodbye. The desire to be right, and say no to companies whoa re not ready for you is hard. 

✅About the co-founding team: One person owned the product and vision/hype, and the other person owned all sales for consistency of process. It changed over time as the business grew, Bob was able to hand off a lot of the roles and could focus more on marketing and product vision.

✅About working with the insurance industry: Bob says that understanding the risks of a property, its root condition, can be improved through technology. Insurance does not love revolution, it can barely get its hands around evolution. Founders need to keep their expectations of what others can take low.

✅About capital structure: Bob's plan was always to sell the business, so from day one they founded as a C-Corp, being serious about selling B2B and focusing on profitability are easier. And keeping the cap table light so there is more to give away later. The founding team set an early exit target, but as they hit that initial number they reset a much higher number for acquisition, and when they started to hear that number, that's when they hired a banker.

✅About becoming a founder: Bob encourages anyone to start a business, to take the chance, it's not as hard as people make it out to be.

Follow the Insurtech Leadership Podcast airing weekly hosted by Joshua R. Hollander. We give you up-close access and personal insights from the leaders of the fastest-growing #insurtechs and most innovative #insurance carriers and brokers.

No-Code is Accelerating the Simplification and Standardization of Insurance Products (w/Vinod Kachroo, CEO Innoveo)

Vinod Kachroo, CEO Innoveo is focused on guiding product strategy and partnerships, scaling delivery, raising brand awareness, and accelerating market momentum and growth.

Backed by Everstone Capital and Paulson & Co, Innoveo’s cloud based, AI enabled no-code platform is currently in production globally at over 30 industry leaders across insurance, financial services, healthcare and real estate. 

Innoveo helps the c-suite and CTO/CIO launch new digital brands, create new experiences and new businesses, and automate and digitize their back-end processing. 

Vinod says no-code essentially allows firms to focus on business rather than over-developing administrative technologies, essentially teaching firms how to build applications in a new manner.

Mr. Kachroo has established himself as an innovation leader in insurance, financial services and healthcare working for companies like Tata Consultancy Services, MetLife, Prudential and AIG.

Follow the Insurtech Leadership Podcast airing weekly hosted by Joshua R. Hollander. We give you up-close access and personal insights from the leaders of the fastest-growing #insurtechs and most innovative #insurance carriers and brokers.

How to Engage Private Equity for Growth Capital (w/Kegan Greene, Jefferies)

Kegan Greene is a Managing Director and Head of Insurance Technology investment banking at Jefferies, a multinational investment bank that provides M&A transaction support including capital markets and financial advisory services, institutional brokerage, securities research, and asset management.

Kegan works with later-stage insurtechs, Series B, C or beyond who are leaving the initial VC-raise stage and can start yo consider other options such as private equity. This content is great competitive intelligence for earlier-stage insurtechs who may themselves become acquisition targets and need to understand the market dynamics at play. Kegan is observing companies who are raising bridge alternatives to equity by using convertible debt or other instruments to provide growth capital without over-focusing on the valuation-dilution aspects of the raise.  

Kegan sees momentum towards increased consolidation of policy administration software providers, and is excited to see what he calls, "Companies that are solving problems for the first time in insurance." Founders are bringing deep industry experience and are trying to solve a problem that has plagued them for years, truly understand the problem they're solving and have the vision to create on a greenfield. 

Prior to joining Jefferies, Kegan's notable M&A transactions included the sales of HazardHub to Guidewire, Advisen to Zywave, QuoteWizard to LendingTree, ATTOM Data to Lovell Minnick, Real Capital Markets to Lightbox, Worley to Aquiline, and Wealth Enhancement Group to Lightyear.

Follow the Insurtech Leadership Podcast airing weekly hosted by Joshua R. Hollander. We give you up-close access and personal insights from the leaders of the fastest-growing #insurtechs and most innovative #insurance carriers and brokers.

When is the Right Time and What are the Right Reasons to Reach out to a Series A VC (w/Andy Lerner, IA Capital Group)

Andrew Lerner is Managing Partner of IA Capital Group, having launched IA Capital's venture capital business which is now the firm’s core activity. Andy is a Director of Credit Sesame, SmartAsset, Matic, and Marble.

Andy notes the VC industry has matured from being the Wild West to become a founder-friendly industry. IA's sweet spot is Series A or five years before the potential sale of a company versus the seed stage where you have to wait ten years or more. The right time to reach out is when your company has $1M revenue or more, are headed towards $2M revenue and are ready to raise a Series A. Once the company's valuation is $100M or more IA feels the fastest growth has already happened. 

Andy relates that full-stack insurers valuations are not what they once were, so partnering with innovative insurtechs help them get farther than their own ideas/tech labs. The majority of insurtechs today either serve or distribute products for insurers and generate the bulk of the innovation being seen across the industry.

Areas of Insurtech investment focus right now include cyber, cannabis and crypto insurance, new market segments where startups have an edge over established companies to gain a foothold in new markets. Andy notes that Fintech is five times as large as Insurtech, so they focus on specific strength areas like payments where they invest din Marqueta, and wealth management like NextCapital and SmartAsset.

Andy also talks about culture: what makes a good fit with the co-founders and overall management team, reviewing how equity is divided and motivation for the founding team. He also talks about a VC can successfully act as a Board member, whether hiring new team members, getting new customers but avoiding the operational side of the business.

Andy holds a B.S.E. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Princeton University and an M.B.A. in Finance from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He serves as a director of Transportation Alternatives and Chess In The Schools.

Follow the Insurtech Leadership Podcast airing weekly hosted by Joshua R. Hollander. We give you up-close access and personal insights from the leaders of the fastest-growing #insurtechs and most innovative #insurance carriers and brokers.

Brokers Don’t Need a PhD in Cyber to Launch it as a Profitable Business Line (w/Brian Fritton, CEO, Havoc Shield)

Brian Fritton is CEO at Havoc Shield, having built his previous startup into a crowdfunding machine that originated over a billion dollars in real estate loans which led to a successful exit.  Brian has also been responsible for defending a small business from cyberattacks as CTO at Patch of Land and the VP of Engineering for a an enterprise data science software maker. He is a 2020 TechStars Alumni and Founding Member of Forbes Technology Council.

Today Brian talks about the founder’s perspective to cybersecurity in an increasingly complicated and risk-filled, constantly evolving cyber risk environment. He says Havoc Shield has done what TurboTax did for personal finance, turning Cyber into a step-by-step plan so companies get it right. 

Brian sees a connection to insurance having built a product for brokers looking to enter the cyber space that performs a fitness assessment helping to understand the technical jargon and mapping carriers requirements, building a full evidence package for underwriting that speeds their approvals process. 

Brian gives a tip that multi-factor authentication is one of the first steps that insured parties should implement, despite the minor inconvenience, the ROI on multi-factor is well worth it. 

Follow the Insurtech Leadership Podcast airing weekly hosted by Joshua R. Hollander. We give you up-close access and personal insights from the leaders of the fastest-growing #insurtechs and most innovative #insurance carriers and brokers.

What People Don’t Know About Life Insurance Platforms (w/Qiyun Cai, Co-Founder at Amplify)

Qiyun is Co-Founder the co-founder of Amplify Life Insurance, a digital life insurance platform. 

Amplify is building a comprehensive life insurance platform to provide financial security for millions of individuals and families and bringing consumer choice, efficiency, and customer centric experiences to the industry. At its core, Amplify is a digital platform that creates customer-centric, permanent life insurance, offering quoting, recommendation and end-to-end policy management to the end consumer. 

Amplify operates direct-to-consumer, where the majority of customers find them directly online. Qiyun says people don't know you can use your life insurance to invest in new interesting asset classes and build wealth. In fact, the first thing Amplify built was a digital quoting system from-scratch as there was no good API from incumbents to do so.

Previously, Qiyun was the first product manager at Spoke, building a simple, smart system to manage workplace requests. She is a graduate of Northwestern University and Harvard Business School.

Follow the Insurtech Leadership Podcast airing weekly hosted by Joshua R. Hollander. We give you up-close access and personal insights from the leaders of the fastest-growing #insurtechs and most innovative #insurance carriers and brokers.