“It’s not a texting tool. It’s not a chatbot. It’s much bigger than that. It’s a hub.” – Bryan Falchuk

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It boils down to customer satisfaction.

At the end of the day, if your policyholders aren’t happy—they will just seek out other carriers for coverage. We see this happen in the companies that get lost in the other metrics: annual revenue, marketing budgets, R&D.

The bottom is that in 2019, there is too much competition, and customers are too smart to be given average service. Companies have to constantly meet and surpass customer expectations.

On today’s episode of FNO: InsureTech, we are sitting down with Head of Customer at Hi Marley—Bryan Falchuk. Hi Marley is a conversation platform that simply and easily connects people with their insurance companies by combining intelligent messaging and human touch to make the experience as easy and efficient as possible.

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“We’re not doing the internet of things. We’re doing the internet of dumb things, retrofitting the smart into place.” – Roel Peeters

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Everyone is talking about the internet of things.

Turning the physical objects of our home into cloud-enabled, smart devices that communicate with each other seems like the way our society should be shifting.

But have we taken it too far with new innovations like smart dishwashers and smart refrigerators?

Roel Peeters, the Founder & CEO of Roost says so.

And on today’s episode of FNO: InsureTech, we are discussing Roost, the technology behind it, and how his IoT company differs from the rest. Roost is transforming homeowners and commercial insurance with smart, in-home solutions—by partnering with some of the most innovative insurance companies in the world to deliver telematics for the home.

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“Know what problem you’re trying to solve. And who you’re trying to solve it for.” – Ted Stuckey

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Innovation comes from the startup.

But a startup has only so much power to bring those new ideas to life. When first starting out, the labor required to lift the operation above sea level is so immense that innovation gets lost in the noise of to-do’s.

This is when it may be time to partner with a corporation.

On today’s episode of FNO: InsureTech, we are joined by Ted Stuckey, the Managing Director at QBE Ventures. In this role, Ted looks to invest in technology solutions that have the potential to transform QBE and the international markets in which they operate.

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“If you can track a pizza on Domino’s—surely you can track where you are on your claim.” – James Swayze

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It’s hard to quantify just how valuable data is.

We hear the news stories about corporations mining our behavior and reselling it as datasets. But really, how valuable can these facts be?

It turns out that in the insurance industry, access to all parts of a customer journey with his/her own property—that dataset can significantly improve the claims process.

That’s why on today’s episode of FNO: InsureTech—we are joined by James Swayze. James is an Executive at CoreLogic, in charge of claims and the Symbility platform inside the CoreLogic family. James originally planned to get into the film production industry but the insurance sector appeared in his life as an opportunity to quickly pay off his travel bills. Today James is an acknowledged expert on the application of technology in the insurance sector, a regular contributor to key industry publications and a sought-after speaker.

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“So many discussions across industries are the same discussions, with just a different wrapper.” – Joe Kirgues

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Conferences have a routine.

You wake up at the hotel, meet for coffee downstairs, network amongst each other on the conference floor, attend a few keynotes,, go out to dinner, and then repeat the motions the next day.

But what happens when you put a conference inside a sports stadium? And only make it one day?

The answer is in today’s episode of FNO: InsureTech—where we are joined by Joe Kirgues, co-founder of the Milwaukee-based gener8tor program—a startup accelerator with other prongs to its business, one of which is the OnRamp Conference series. The OnRamp Insurance Conference brings together the insurance industry’s leading corporations, investors and startups. The conference highlights innovations disrupting the insurance industry, the leaders making such innovations possible and how new technologies and business models will reinvent the industry.

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“It’s a 50/50 chance—or a coin flip—that in any given year, a major hurricane will hit the U.S based on historical data.” – Dr. Philip Klotzbach

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Weather is becoming easier to predict.

With the advancing technologies and increasing quantities of data, forecasting storms and hurricanes is becoming less and less of a challenge.

And for those of us in the insurance industry, this accuracy and preparedness is incredibly valuable.

That’s why for today’s episode of FNO: InsureTech, we are joined again by Dr. Phil Klotzbach. Dr. Phil Klotzbach is a Research Scientist in the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University, and among many achievements—he developed the two-week forecasts currently being issued during the peak months of the hurricane season between August-October. He has published over two dozen articles in peer-reviewed journals such as Journal of Climate and Weather and Forecasting.

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“If we treat an insured exceptionally well—we know that person will talk to others.” – Darin McCarthy

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Claims is thought to serve one function in the insurance ecosystem.

A loss occurs and we process the claim as a response to the damage done. The accuracy of the claim, the efficiency of the claim—these are the things we look at to make sure that the claim is doing what it needs to do.

But what happens when we start to approach claims from a sales point-of-view?

On today’s episode of FNO: InsureTech—we are joined by Darin McCarthy, Head of Claims at Hippo Insurance. Hippo is one of the leading insurance technology companies in today’s ecosystem, providing coverage without the paperwork and back-and-forth you get in the agent model.

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“You have to have a culture that’s on board with change. People have to be excited about it, not scared of it.” – Alyssa Hunt

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There will always be loss.

Natural disasters, human error, or even just the everyday motions of life—one thing we know for certain is that our homes, our property, our cars—they are all at-risk of being damaged.

Enter the insuretech solutions—which range from automating the claims processes during these moments of loss all the way to gathering enough data to prevent the event from happening in the first place.

On today’s episode of FNO: InsureTech, we are joined by Alyssa Hunt, the Vice President of QBE North America to discuss the future of claims. QBE Insurance Group is one of the world’s top 20 insurance and reinsurance companies, located in 37 countries.

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“What’s really driving the change at our company is virtualization.” – John Hall

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Technology, technology, technology.

It seems that everywhere you turn—someone in the insurance industry is talking about the power of technology. But at the end of the day—a claim is a loss, and losses are emotional things.

And no matter how you look at it—people are better at handling at emotions than robot.

That’s why on today’s episode of FNO: InsureTech, we are gathering for a roundtable discussion at the PLRB conference.

The featured speakers are:

• Dan Moore, QBE North America
• Scott Sprague, Westfield Insurance
• Pat Sinnard, Great American Insurance
• Jill Thomas, National General Insurance
• John Hall, Worley/ASI
• Mick Zondory, Kemper Preferred
• Bo Helms, Shelter insurance
• Matt D. Fatheree, Fourseventy Claims

Tune in to this episode to hear the group’s insights as they span from managing employee expectations to the future of insurance technology.

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“It’s important we leverage technology to enable human-to-human contact.” – Jennifer Hevelone

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Technological innovation is occurring at an unprecedented rate.

Across every industry, you see the systems of yesterday being replaced with the new and shiny toys of the future. More often than not, these technologies do more good for the company’s bottom line than bad. But, over time, if a company becomes too attached to the latest and greatest—they lose sight of the human touch that’s necessary for a stellar customer experience.

That’s why on today’s episode of the FNO: podcast, we are joined by Jennifer Whiteaker-Hevelone to discuss the carrier’s responsibility to care for the policyholder. Jennifer is the Chief Operating Officer at Eberl Claims Service Inc.—and in today’s conversation, she shares her 20+ years of experience in the insurance industry with us.

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