The Insurtech Leadership Podcast

Solving the Value Chain on Surety Bonds from Carrier to Broker to End Customer (w/Aaron Steffey and Chris Kolger, Propeller Bonds)

Aaron Steffey and Chris Kolger are co-founders of Propeller Bonds, an insurtech managing general underwriter (MGU) equipped with a proprietary instant issue surety bond platform housing nearly 7,000 instant issue surety bonds.

Propeller is a tech company built to simplify, automate, and distribute surety bonds more efficiently for agents and carriers. Aaron manages the company’s strategy, fundraising, and growth efforts, and Chris oversees the Propeller's daily underwriting operations and technological advancements of the platform.

The company sold its first bond in 2020 and now has 3,500 agents signed up to the platform, signing thousands of bonds per month and responsible for fulfillment. Aaron describes how the company built in from the "ends" and have listened to and created new product variations for creative agents where needed. 

Chris talks through why speciality surety bonds such as oil & gas or cannabis can be written at much better pricing with Propeller. The tech helps increase ROI for agents and brokers who often ignore surety but can include it as a piece of a viable business for themselves. Chris sees a future where the MGA model continues to reduce friction between broker and carrier.  

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.

Insuring Expats, One of the Country’s Fastest Growing Insurance Segments (w/Daniel McChesney, CEO TripDoctor)

Daniel McChesney, MD is the Founder and CEO of TripDoctor, pioneering digital health insurance and health care access for expats and nomads. As a world traveler and long-time expat, he saw an opportunity to improve the healthcare access issues of his fellow expats and nomads through better insurance products.

Expat insurance is a much larger market than travel insurance, a market of $25B where the rate of Americans moving abroad having tripled since the pandemic. TripDoctor is responding to that demand with an insurtech that makes expat healthcare simple, acting as a digital broker with access to the best plans and doctors for expats in their country-of-choice.

TripDoctor is a graduate of the Global Insurance Accelerator. The company's mission is to make expat healthcare simple, affordable, and accessible, and to improve the quality of life for expats.  In the longer-term, the company will help drive down the cost of care by keeping people out of the emergency department and utilizing more telehealth and outpatient visits. 

TripDoctor understands the local market policy standards and costs of care and expats situation, coupling them to products that make sense in that market, and connecting them with the best providers in that market.

Daniel describes a classic insurtech story of how the company pre-GIA would meet with carriers and ramp up meetings until they reached the predictable "no" person, either a threatened PnL owner or IT. And how the company realized through GIA they would write insurance themselves.

The company launched in Mexico, where expats are concentrated in five cities, building a network of physicians through neighborhoods where expats live. They work with local insurers to create products that are both attractive and accessible to expats. 

In terms of growth markets, TripDoctor is seeing high demand for other types of insurance beyond healthcare, for example in commercial business lines, as well as life products that work outside the US and work with reputable carriers.  

Daniel has +20 years of experience in early-stage MedTech, digital health and other healthcare ventures, Prior to TripDoctor, he co-founded DeciBio and helped to grow it into the industry standard for molecular testing and next-generation sequencing data analytics.  

This episode was recorded live at Insurtech Insights New York 2023 in conjunction with InsurTech Association. 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.

Creating a New Underwriting Advantage in Small Commercial Insurance (w/Bobby Touran, CEO Rainbow)

Bobby Touran is CEO of Rainbow (www.userainbow.com), insurance that rewards businesses for putting safety first and evolves with small business’ ups and downs.

Bobby talks about how this latest company is transforming insurance into a positive, risk-preventing force for small businesses, starting with restaurants. Previously, Bobby was CEO of Pathpoint, a digital surplus lines brokerage focused on small commercial E&S business.  

Rainbow is operating as an MGU formed at the end of 2022 focused more on small commercial insurance and delivering a customer-centric experience leveraging technology. 

Rainbow is distributing through agents and focuses on continuous underwriting, specializing in a class of business and creating an "underwriting advantage".  Last year's market headwinds helped the company focus on creating a differentiated value proposition and front-load building their insurance product, filing and experienced underwriting operators to immediately meet market capacity.

Bobby talks about how he's "fallen in love with the insurance industry," and reveals the journey of the company's rapid growth, from bringing on new coverage products and agency focused quoting features to expanding across the states.

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.

Implementing New Data Pipelines to Bring Life Insurance into the 21st Century (w/Nick Bowman, CEO Motif Insurance)

Nicholas Bowman is the Founder and CEO of Motif Insurance building the first data clearinghouse for the independent life insurance market. Motif seeks to create a comprehensive ecosystem that harnesses the power of data and AI/ML to revolutionize how carriers, IMOs, brokers, and consumers interact and manage life insurance policies.

In this episode Nick describes how being agent and understanding the pain points has helped to transition into working with carriers to help improve the life insurance process.  He forecasts the shift towards independent broker networks. More than 80% of customers want to talk with an agent, yet accessing online information will help modernize life insurance in particular the renewals process and the back-end of life insurance that has largely been neglected by insurtech to-date.  The old adage may be that, "Life insurance is sold, not bought" but agent servicing is labor-intensive and involves assessing changes in the customers' circumstances, and complex retirement planning issues.

Nick has worked as an agent, taught insurance for the CFP Board, and most recently worked for Lion Street, a large Independent Marketing Organization with 1,000 agents. 

This episode was recorded live at Insurtech Insights New York 2023 in conjunction with InsurTech Association and our friends Joanna England Sebastian Tollak Megan Kuczynski.

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.

Helping Carriers Move from Risk-Sharing to Data-Sharing in the Multi-Family Residential Market (w/Alice Melendez, CEO of BOON)

Alice Melendez is CEO of BOON, an insurance marketplace for multi-family residential buildings.

In this episode, Alice describes how she is simplifying the process of issuing and managing all insurance lines within a building, providing cross-risk visibility for carriers and real-time risk alerts.

BOON solves for managing risk for a single building, which can involve the support of multiple carriers such as for personal lines, commercial lines, or financial lines. The service manages the sector like a digital MGA, connecting all the systems and documentation for carriers, and benefiting all stakeholders from brokers to end consumers and mortgagees. 

This platform connects multiple carriers and their distribution channels, enabling the handling of personal, commercial, and financial lines of different carriers related to a building on a single platform.  

Alice is an architect who has grown up in the insurance industry and founded Boon to address the challenges encountered in multi-family properties. She combines her expertise in construction, risk management, and insurance to deliver a comprehensive solution for the industry.

This episode was recorded live at Insurtech Insights New York 2023 in conjunction with InsurTech Association and our friends Joanna England Sebastian Tollak Megan Kuczynski.

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 Do Insurers Address Financial Stress in the Millennials & Gen Z Workforce? (w/David Thorne, CEO Thumbscore)

David Thorne is CEO of Thumbscore, a financial wellness platform that reduces the stress of managing personal finance.

Thumbscore solves for the workforce of millennials and Gen Z, who have strong financial literacy and positive financial habits but have high financial stress. In the episode, David explains why simple budgeting or micro-managing approaches are ineffective for these groups. They tend to be curious and want to be free to explore, but also value timely advice at the right moment.

Thumbscore serves users at their 'financial moments of truth' providing insights, education, gamification, and the recommended next step to reduce financial stressors. Its customers are B2B2C insurance companies (for products), other financial products and services (emergency savings accounts, investments), and employers who wish to offer Financial Wellness as a Shared Service. 

David is a nationally awarded software and data engineer. He was a corporate program manager for Boeing before starting his entrepreneurial journey, has an Executive MBA from Wichita State University and serves on the Hispanic Chamber board and on the Gathered board, a foster care nonprofit. 

This episode was recorded live at Insurtech Insights New York 2023 in conjunction with InsurTech Association and our friends Joanna England Sebastian Tollak Megan Kuczynski.

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.

Adapting Parametric Insurance to the Customer Needs of Today (w/Andrew Jernigan, CEO & Co-Founder of Insured Nomads)

Andrew Jernigan is co-founder and CEO of Insured Nomads, an emerging leader globally in disrupting the way insurance is designed and delivered for the modern company.

Insured Nomads is positioned at the intersection of insurance and safety innovation, building a delivery model for health insurance enabling employers to provide health, medical, wellbeing and security for their team no matter where they are in the world.

In this episode, Andrew shares his passion for protecting people around the world and what it takes to build a completely new insurance model, adapting an antiquated travel insurance product to the needs of remote workers. His extensive experience in the healthcare, insurance and banking industries locally provided him with the unique experiences and perspective to break boundaries through the merging of technology with humanity. In particular, how the need for remote workers in a new global workforce has continued evolving into a more flexible format for the employer and their team.  

Andrew is a graduate of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. In addition to serving as CEO, Andrew is also a passionate fighter for justice through support of Not For Sale, and a Strategic Advisor for Shap, and Share Hope International, and co-host of the popular podcast, The New Nomad.

This episode was recorded live at Insurtech Insights New York 2023 in conjunction with InsurTech Association and our friends Joanna England Sebastian Tollak Megan Kuczynski.

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.

Helping Underwriters Turn R&W Transaction Liability Insurance Into a Safer Policy (w/Layla Atya, CEO & Founder Quantumerge)

Layla Atya is CEO & Founder of Quantumerge, the only digital representation & warranty (R&W) insurance liability platform to assess, underwrite, and mitigate transactional risk.

Quantumerge simplifies and streamlines the R&W insurance process for buyers, sellers, and brokers. Their core product places and underwrites M&A transactional liability policies, acting between brokers and payers to automate the workflow.

Layla says the number one problem in this space is a lack of efficiency, that representations and warranties are such a manual process. The underwriter has to 'cherrypick' conditions, using their own knowledge of financial metrics and the market sector to craft a policy.  Quantumerge's proprietary model integrates deeper M&A datapoints and historical patterns into the underwriting process, and also helping avoid claims in the future.

Layla is an expert in data science, risk management, and insurance and has worked in the government, public, and private sectors in the US, Iraq, Israel, and Ukraine.

This episode was recorded live at Insurtech Insights New York 2023 in conjunction with InsurTech Association and our friends Joanna England Sebastian Tollak Megan Kuczynski.

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 Financial Services Provided by Banks to Insurers and Agencies is Broken (w/Sven Gerlach, CTO Turris)

Sven Gerlach is CTO and co-founder at Turris, an API-first banking platform made for the insurance industry, whose co-founder and CEO Doug ver Mulm was the former CEO of Stable insurance. 

Turris is creating a user interface to help tech-enabled agencies automate all of their banking processes, addressing the painful process of account opening at a bank. Examples of basic banking processes that insurance agencies rely on can be explaining reversals or using popular payment solutions like Stripe.

For operating businesses, cash reconciliation and funds administration can cost 10-20% of a small agency's time of manual, error-prone process.  Small agencies therefore tend to have to rely on the carrier statements and reconciliation process to be correct.  

Sven previously worked in senior technology roles in investment banking and private equity for over a decade.

This episode was recorded at Insurtech Insights (https://www.insurtechinsights.com) New York 2023, the world's largest insurtech community with nearly 100,000 followers in LinkedIn. If you haven't already we recommend to follow https://www.linkedin.com/company/insurtech-insights/.

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’s Special About Insurtech? People Support and Share Data and Insights (w/Yuval Shafrir, Founder & CEO Urbanico)

Yuval Shafrir is the CEO & Co-founder of Urbanico (https://www.linkedin.com/company/urbanico/), the urban intelligence platform.

In this episode, we explore how Urbanico adds value to the insurance industry by refining risk selection, underwriting guidelines and pricing looking 150 times closer into the personal-related risk of each written policy.

By providing insurance carriers with hyper-localized urban data, urbanico adds contextual risk factors that allow carriers to personalize the underwriting and pricing practices, significantly enlarging their book of business while improving their loss-ratio.

Yuval is a physicist by education and came with a product development background from his military service in an elite intelligence unit in the IDF.

This episode was recorded at Insurtech Insights (https://www.insurtechinsights.com) New York 2023, the world's largest insurtech community with nearly 100,000 followers in LinkedIn. If you haven't already we recommend to follow https://www.linkedin.com/company/insurtech-insights/.

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.