The Insurtech Leadership Podcast

Using AI to make the Automotive Claims Process Better (w/Eliron Ekstein, CEO, Ravin AI & Author, Forbes Technology Council)

Meet Eliron Ekstein, CEO at Ravin AI and Contributing Author at Forbes Technology Council.

Ravin's inspections turn the insurance class process on its head by providing the customer tools to scan damages themselves. Ravin uses extensive data about each vehicle type, and provides the insurer with an initial estimate, leaving the adjuster and body shop to confirm and complete the repairs process.

Examples of transparency during the auto insurance claims process: When is my car going to be repaired? When will I get it back? What is actually being repaired? Are we overpaying for this repair?

Examples of transparency during used car sales and the insurance process: What's happened to this vehicle in the past 2-3 years?

Ravin embeds AI into many of the well-established claims processes and companies. So Ravin focusses on the use of objective images, immediate report-creation and removing pain from the process as-is today. 

Eliron sees significant opportunities for disruption of the existing value chain with embedded insurance and auto manufacturers like Tesla seeing distribution, after-sales service, claims and insurance as part of their end-to-end customer experience.

Previously at Shell, Eliron worked on inspecting cars for safety, using mobile phone inspection and solving for the friction of transparency in the auto insurance sector.  

Eliron has worked for 10 years in digitizing the automotive and transportation sectors. Before founding Ravin, Eliron was Head of New Business Development at Shell’s Digital Ventures unit in London, investing and incubating new businesses that could leverage Shell’s global footprint of retail locations for the benefit of fleets, motorists, and smart cities. Prior to that, Eliron served as the CEO of FarePilot.com, a startup using machine learning to help taxi and Uber drivers find their next passenger by predicting demand patterns in local areas. Eliron has an MBA from London 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.

Putting Equity and Diversity into the Heart of Insurtech (w/Elizabeth McCluskey, Director at CMFG Ventures, Cuna Mutual)

Elizabeth McCluskey is a Director at CMFG Ventures, the venture capital arm of CUNA Mutual Group. She is the head of the Discovery Fund, which focuses on early-stage fintech companies led by underrepresented founders.

Today she talks about financial inclusion, low-income populations, and sourcing entrepreneurs directly from these communities. 

She discusses impact investing vs. just making sound investments for financial return, and the fund's core theses around budgeting and financial management, credit access/building, affordable debt, wealth building, financial wellness and embedding financial literacy in all of these.

Elizabeth sheds light on member-serving credit unions as a new ecosystem for most insurtechs, and aligning their mission and values with the overall investment and startup strategy.

Elizabeth is passionate about supporting companies that improve consumer financial health and address financial inequality. She has spent her career in financial services, including over 15 years as an investor in private and public markets.

Prior to joining CMFG Ventures, Elizabeth was a Principal at Impact Engine, where she helped launch the women-led investment firm’s first venture capital fund.  At Impact Engine, she invested in early-stage companies in economic empowerment, environmental sustainability, and health equity.  She has an undergraduate degree from Harvard College and an MBA from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business.

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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.

Using Data to Insure Construction Sites: Sensors, AI, Risk, Safety & Productivity (w/Stephen Buonpane, Co-Founder and CIO at Shepherd)

Meet Stephen Buonpane, who is co-founder and Chief Insurance Officer of Shepherd Labs, Inc., a tech-enabled Managing General Underwriter for the commercial construction sector. 

Prior to starting Shepherd, Stephen was Chubb North America’s Construction Industry Practice Leader for Major Accounts and the Executive Vice President of underwriting for Chubb’s Primary and Excess Casualty Construction divisions. Based in New York City, he was responsible for overseeing the strategic direction of Chubb’s large account construction business and the execution of the divisions’ underwriting strategies countrywide. 

Prior to joining Chubb, Stephen spent 21 months with the British Government as UK Trade and Investment’s US Financial Services Sector lead. He earned a Master of Business Administration degree with distinction from New York University’s Stern School of Business and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in finance from the University of Delaware.

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 Legal Can Take a Leading Role in your Innovation Efforts (w/Michael Lanza, EVP General Counsel, Selective Insurance Group)

Michael H. Lanza is Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Selective Insurance Group, Inc. 

In today's episode, he traces his path from being a lawyer in Hartford at Cigna to being 17 years at Selective, a well-known super-regional commercial insurer. 

Michael shares lessons about how legal can support the key aspects of technology and innovation for insurers. He led in the Insurtech multi-disciplinary task force at Selective that prepared analyses of the market, finding competitive advantage and reviewing opportunities in agency and distribution empowerment and customer experience.

He also recalls bringing together a strategy from the initial ideas from the Board, reviewing trends in Silicon Valley, including Selective's award-winning innovation in the automotive industry and commercial lines. 

In 2019 Selective added an innovation lab, and has also made investments via its strategic investment committee. He describes how closely the lab ideas are tied to senior business people to ensure the success from new idea into business production, which involves cultural change as much as technological change.

Michael talks about how during the pandemic, innovation accelerated, in particular to managing customer safety management (loss control), adding virtual inspections using video. 

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. 

Mr. Lanza joined Selective in 2004. Before that, he was a corporate advisor and consultant and served as Executive Vice President and Corporate Secretary of QuadraMed Corporation, a publicly-traded healthcare IT company. Previously, Mr. Lanza was Assistant General Counsel at CIGNA Corporation, where his responsibilities included state government affairs, health care compliance, and international matters. He began his career in private legal practice in Connecticut. 

Major Shifts in Mobility, Connectivity and Embedded Insurance (w/Tomer Kashi, CEO Voom)

Tomer Kashi, CEO & Co-Founder at Voom Insurance, on-demand insurance for anything you can ride or fly. Voom is an MGA that focuses on use-based products around the future of mobility, using new sources of data to provide a better insurance experience for markets typically underserved by the incumbent providers. 

One advantage Tomer sees for insurtechs is that In personal lines, most of the pricing models are publicly available. What he calls "Insurtech 2.0" is the ability to focus not only on user experience but the underlying risk models themselves. 

Tomer sees three major shifts in the future of mobility space that provide tailwinds for  new models of insurance:

• New platforms such as drones

• Increased connectivity, new risk assessment and embedded insurance 

• Rise of subscription models, decreasing ownership 

Tomer addresses the ability of customers to "exploit" or somehow mis-use these new pricing models. In his experience with on-demand, use-based coverages the customers play fair overall and do fit the model.

Coming to the US from another country offers the opportunity for a deep, broad market. Tomer describes the "necessity" of targeting the US market in order to scale.

Voom's latest fundraise was $15M, he describes how product growth drove the capital raise, and how the VC feedback and process helped the company focus even more on its niche markets using proven growth metrics. VC connections and introductions become critical in the niche spaces such as mobility, drones.

In terms of the mid-term future of mobility Tomer assumes the future holds connectivity, and increasingly better safety; however the shift to fully-autonomous vehicles may change important pieces of the insurance model.

Prior to founding Voom, Tomer spearheaded interdisciplinary technology projects from within the Prime Minister’s Office in Israel. Tomer is a "Talpiot" graduate and has a  BSc in computer science and physics from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an MBA from Tel Aviv University. Tomer is based in Tel Aviv and is a proud father of two little daughters.

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.

Identifying Which Carriers are the Easiest to Collaborate with (w/David Gritz, InsurTech NY and Bryan Falchuk, Insurance Evolution Partners)

We're proud to introduce our friends David Gritz at InsurTechNY and Bryan Falchuck at Insurance Evolution Partners. The two are partnering with Conning Research & CB Insights to gather 200+ Insurtech leaders insights about their insurance carrier partners and publish the results in a ranking of the best carriers for collaboration- Complete the survey here: https://lnkd.in/geHjP2UJ

David is the co-founder of InsurTech NY, the largest InsurTech community in the NY metro area. David also serves as a strategic advisor to high-growth InsurTechs to help them go from concept to scale. Previously David has served as the Director of Innovation for the Silicon Valley Insurance Accelerator (SVIA) and has led product at Zero, a behavioral safety focused InsurTech acquired by EverestRe. 

Bryan is an expert in insurance and InsurTech and has written extensively on innovation within the insurance industry – most notably in his recent book series The Future of Insurance: From Disruption to Evolution. His work looks at how insurers can be flexible and responsive to the evolving needs of the industry and the digital tools needed for innovation in how insurance is delivered.

Be sure to connect with the crew behind this initiative: Tony Lew Cynthia Hardy David Bradford Alan Walters Irene Yang Scott Hawkins Mark Gardella Mike Fitzgerald CPCU, PMP Roi H. Krishnan Venkatachalam Insurance Evolution Partners Pivot Global Partners

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.

Meet The Godfather of Insurtech creator of Lemonade, D&O, Cyber, IP and Y2K Insurance (w/Ty Sagalow, Cofounder Assurely)

Ty Sagalow is recognized as one of his generation's most influential insurance professionals, developing an unprecedented number of new products for the world’s largest insurance companies. 

Before co-founding Assurely, Ty was a founding member of Lemonade and served as its founding Chief Insurance Officer. Ty spent 25 years at AIG and was the Chief Innovation Officer for Zurich following that experience. He is considered the creator of Entity Coverage Directors & Officers Insurance, Cyber Insurance, Reputation Insurance, Y2K Insurance, Collectible Authenticity Insurance, and Intellectual Property Collateral Insurance. 

He is the author of three books, including The Making of Lemonade. Having graduated summa cum laude from Long Island University, Ty also received his JD, cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center and an LLM from New York University School of Law.  

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 Relentless Customer Focus and Speed Trump Everything Else (w/Andrew Wynn, Co-Founder Ascend and Sheltr (acquired by Hippo))

Andrew Wynn, Co-Founder Ascend, the first modern insurance payments platform that provides automated all-in-one financing, collections, and payables. Ascend is funded by heavyweight investors FirstRound, FirstMark, Susa Ventures, South Park Commons and Box Group.

Andrew and co-founder Praveen Chekuri previously built Sheltr. The company became the first acquisition made by insurtech unicorn Hippo because of its intuitive and technological approach to building an insurance product that went beyond the customer interaction. Prior to Sheltr, both Andrew and Praveen were employees at Instacart, leading the company’s product and data integration team. Prior to that the two founders were at Instacart.

Andrew and Praveen see insurance payments as a specific-enough problem yet general enough that it applies to a wide group, so they went about to solve it for everyone in the industry. Their product brings premiums management, commissions, reconciliations, online payment and premium finance a streamlined, all-in-one experience.

Of high interest is how Ascend's teams are formed as being end-to-end across the whole customer journey for one vertical segment, whether insurtechs, producers, agents or carriers.

As an outsider to the industry, Andrew sees more insurtechs coming from people in insurance in the future. He seeks experts from this "highly networked industry" to provide input, advice and counsel to help balance out the traditional venture focus on speed.

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.

More About Ascend

Ascend is the modern insurance payments platform that provides automated all-in-one financing, collections, and payables. Ascend was built on the premise that, as the insurance industry moves from offline to online, insurance distributors will need to provide a modern seamless customer experience with a payment infrastructure in order to keep pace with the increasing demand for high-quality customer experiences. Founded by two-time insurtech entrepreneurs Andrew Wynn and Praveen Chekuri, Ascend helps distributors sell more by eliminating labor-intensive, expensive processes while providing customers with the great online checkout and financing experience they've come to expect. To learn more, please visit LinkedIn, Twitter or check out https://useascend.com/. 

 

Using Data Real-Time in Policy Systems (w/Sears Merritt, Head Technology & Data, MA Mutual Investments)

Meet Sears Merritt, Head Technology & Data, MA Mutual Investments.

Sears has been recognized as one of the life insurance industry’s top 25 innovators under 40 by LIMRA and an academic-industry partner by the American Statistical Association. He is a member of the board at Barings, an advisor to Antara Health and member of the Innovation Committee for the American Council of Life Insurers.

Sears is a senior leader with expertise in the areas of data science and analytics as well as enterprise and internet technology. Over the past 15 years, Sears has spent time leading and innovating in numerous industries, including healthcare, telecommunications, and financial services. Sears currently leads MassMutual’s technology and data functions, where his teams are focused on modernizing the firm’s architecture and bringing digital, cloud-native, data-driven capabilities to bear throughout the company.

Sears was also responsible for architecting one of the nation’s first regional telehealth networks in Colorado. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science, M.S. in Telecommunications, and B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder and an M.B.A. from the Sloan School at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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.

Data as a Growth Formula for Small Business Insurance Brokers (w/Matthew Ranauro, Founder & CEO Benefix)

Matt Ranauro is the Founder and CEO of Benefix. 

Matt's podcast insights focus on creating broker and agency trust in data. He says you have to trust the machine, and this behavioral change takes time.

Matt's career has spanned over 15 years as a designer, technologist, and entrepreneur. In 2016 Matt started Benefix as a side project when he found the process of finding benefits for his company a nightmare. Fast forward to the present and Benefix is improving the experience for carriers, brokers, small businesses and their employees. What began as a way to create efficiency for a small business owner and their health insurance options, has quickly redefined the way brokers and businesses work together across all benefits, creating better outcomes for all.

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.