Voice technologies have made major strides in just the past few years. In this episode of The Coverager Podcast, Nick spoke with Alexander Martin, CEO of Clearspeed and former Captain in the Marine Corp. Alex and I discussed how Clearspeed is using voice technology to flag risk. Using simple yes/no questionnaires, Clearspeed can quickly flag suspicious answers for further human adjudication. The same scalable technology the military has used for quite some time to quickly flag potential bad actors. Clearspeed is using their technology in hiring situations, security and in insurance, claims fraud and underwriting.

As insurance professionals we do a fairly good job of assessing the value of a building. Why? We can see it. The walls, the size and now we can use third party data and visualizations to scale all of that.

Where we fall flat is what is happening within those walls. Satellite imagery is not going to help. Third-party vendors can't help us with that.

In this episode, I spoke with Cole Winans, CEO of Flyreel. Flyreel is using AI to analyze imagery and video that any property owner can quickly take and categorizing and ultimately valuing the interior contents of a property owner. We also discussed how this technology can extend to providing property owners with information that can reduce or eliminate losses such as from shoddy electrical fuses or old faulty water heaters. AI has come a long way since hotdog/not a hotdog (adult language: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACmydtFDTGs)

Just Auto is perhaps the first truly telematic auto insurance company. Monthly subscriptions, no long-term contracts. Targeting drivers who would benefit from the technology to make them better drivers so that they can afford auto insurance. Targeting low-income drivers who struggle to acquire auto insurance and where one incident could financially devastate them for the rest of their lives. Robert Smithson's mission is truly inspirational in how Just Auto is intersecting technology, insurance and a mission.

Obviously, COVID-19 is affecting the entire insurance industry.

As we all debate the near term impacts, Lance Poole of Juniper Labs, David McFarland of Coterie, and Nick discuss the longer-term implications of the pandemic on the insurance vertical. What does this really mean long term for auto? How will workers comp rates be affected by massive shift in employment? How will insurers look to remain profitable in a potentially negative interest rate environment? Believe it or now, we discussed that AND more in this episode of The Coverager Podcast.

Internal water damage losses dwarf fire-related losses and yet, most underwriters still focus on fire primarily. In this episode, Nick speaks with Laurie Conner, CEO of The Detection Group about how they are using modern smart, IoT, tech to drive loss costs for internal water damage down. These devices have truly become smart...and economical. So much so we discuss how irresponsible it is to NOT implement these as a risk management process.

Jack Kudale, CEO of Cowbell Cyber and met in Des Moines a year ago. With minimal funding and no team...a year later, he has a Cyber product in 5 states (soon to be 15) and a very innovative proprietary model for determining a company's cyber risk, now and ongoing in real time. We discussed what makes quantifying cyber risk so difficult. Why it is extremely important that cyber risk be monitored in real-time, why the world has changed and your cyber exposure has changed and why you must work to prevent and mitigate the risk first, and with Cowbell Factors, Cowbell Cyber is giving businesses real-time analysis of their cyber exposure at their fingertips.

In this episode, David Mocklow and I discuss how we can link risk management and insurance together in order to tackle some of the costliest distasters we are (and will be) facing. Securitization has forever changed the nature of (re)insurance. David thinks that combinations or securitazation along with the use of captives and other risk management techniques can be a way for us to deal with financing and mitigating large exposures due to natural catastrophes and more complex exposures such as liability and pandemics. We have a lengthy discussion about the current COVID-19 pandemic for both potential solutions but also more near-term ramifications around claims fallout.

Commercial Auto Insurance has really struggled. A very large market, where insurers just can't raise rates fast enough to keep up with insurable losses that are rising even faster. Unlike personal auto, commercial auto is complex, with ever-changing exposures, mobile across state lines and until recently, the inability to find technology that could economically scale with the evolving exposures. That has changed and in this episode, I spoke with Renu Ann Joseph, CEO of Luminant Analytics on how insurers can use technology and the emerging external data generated from that data to keep them in control of their losses and exposures.

If you haven't noticed or heard about any technical advances in Long term Care or Workers Compensation insurance, you aren't alone. Much of the focus of technology and insurance has been on Property & Casualty and to a lesser extend life insurance. The Helper Bees are changing that. With a focus on data, analytics on the homecare aspect of long-term care, and workers' compensation, The Helper Bees technology is driving down loss costs for homecare. We discuss this and how their technology is being and has been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic in this episode of the Coverager podcast.

Continuing on our theme of using captives to provide pandemic coverage for businesses, I spoke with Clay Ogden and Van Carlson of Strategic Risk Alternatives, a firm dedicated to helping small-to-mid-sized businesses get access to insurance captives. A captive allows businesses to own their own insurance company. A risk management strategy when coverage is non-existent, uneconomical and/or when the business wants to step up their risk management effort.