The Denim Rivet is back with another special edition episode! This time we’ve recorded in front of a live studio audience full of insurance industry executives at the 2017 TransUnion Insurance Summit in downtown Chicago. In this episode, we're joined by Jeff Reynolds, VP of Insurance Product Development, and Robin Wagner, Senior VP of International Insurance. Both Jeff and Robin share how big data can spur innovation by carefully inspecting its intelligence density and finding unique ways to infer solutions from customer behavior and habits.

The Future: Insurance On Demand

Imagine this - you wake up early one morning, grab your mountain bike, and strap it to your vehicle (perhaps an autonomous one) to set out for a weekend adventure. But before you leave your driveway you pull out your smartphone, pull up your insurance provider, and take out a two day policy to insure your bike. It happens seamlessly, with no hassle, letting you head out to the mountains without worrying about dinging your bike’s frame or destroying a tire rim.

Looking deeper into data will make scenarios like these a reality. There are actionable solutions in customer data, both currently collected and not, that will allow insurance to be more tailored and nuanced for every individual. Think about in terms of life and health insurance. Imagine your policy being connected to your smart fridge, your smart TV, and even your bedrooms light sensors to gauge how much you are sleeping. While privacy may seem to be an issue here, as long as providers are transparent with the consumer and there is a clear benefit they will be more likely to offer up their own data.

TransUnion’s Role in the Insurtech Ecosystem

TransUnion is a data collector and linker. They’re looking for new ways to intricately wrap extra layers of data around customer interactions to act as behavioral surrogates. This allows them to better predict what a customer is likely to do. This is nothing new for Transunion - they were into big data before big data was cool. They’ve invested 100s of millions into their technology platforms and developed data lakes so decisions can be made quicker and faster. Pushing further down this path will reveal more insights as they learn how to better knit and operationalize the intelligence blossoming in the ever expanding volumes of data flooding in.

Some of the challenges in moving forward include regulators - it’s difficult to adapt and allow wholesale changes to take place in any given ecosystem. Autonomous vehicles is showing this to be true at the moment. However, consumers are going to demand these changes to the industry. It’s an exciting time for insurance, as there are new solutions and hurdles cropping up every day. Opportunities are budding with each new challenge and ever more creative answers are going to propel the industry into a future that reshapes how we view insurance in relation to our lives.

Links

TransUnion Insurance Summit

Jeff Reynolds

Robin Wagner

Denim Rivet is back this week with Jim Gardner, co-founder and CEO of ViewSpection from Tucson, Arizona. Jim and ViewSpection participated in the 2017 edition of the Global Insurance Accelerator (GIA) in Des Moines. And get this – Jim first reached out to Denim Rivet host, Gregory Bailey and the GIA after listening to the Denim Rivet podcast! ViewSpection transforms the way commercial, residential, and even agricultural inspections are done. The app allows policyholders to take pictures from their smartphone of the exterior and interior walkthrough of their property. These are then uploaded to the carrier to essentially double the amount of inspections done on any given property.

User Experience

As a policyholder, your agent would typically invite you to download the app. Next, you’ll be asked to spend a bit of time taking photos - around 15 minutes to get through the exterior and interior of your property. From there the pictures are uploaded to your agent so they can find you the best coverage and also get to know you a little better.

There are 3 versions of the app for the policyholder, the agent, and the inspector. If you’re an agent interested in trying out ViewSpection you can download the app right now. You are given 5 free uses to play with all the apps features.

On Insuretech

We started the Denim Rivet podcast to foster conversation about the evolution and transformation of insuretech in the insurance industry. With an app like ViewSpection, Jim is well on his way to helping the ecosystem evolve. However, he has noticed that there is still tension with carriers when it comes to holding onto the old way of doing things. He’s worked with the GIA to really dig into what makes ViewSpection attractive to the policyholder (such as having less strangers visit their property) as well as the agent (since the app allows them to focus on sales work instead of driving out to properties). ViewSpection allows the carrier to allow policyholders to self service while getting double the amount of inspections for the same dollars being spent.

Growth and the Global Insurance Accelerator

Once locked in with the GIA, Jim went into a rapid fire round of over 150 meetings in three weeks with different mentors and industry specialists. The information he gained through this is invaluable, and while intense, he wants to replicate the experience every year going forward. In just a few months he’s seen ViewSpections customer base grow immensely and is already discussing contract agreements on their third meeting with a major carrier.

Coming from a 2nd generation business background, there are things on the sales side the GIA was able to get Jim up to speed with. He’s seen first-hand that someone may fall in love with your product, like ViewSpection, but there is a long way to go before getting anything down in ink to move forward. Some of this comes from resistance to change old habits carriers have, but the GIA has helped Jim shore up ViewSpection’s pain points so he has actionable answers and plans for any questions or issues an agent or carrier might have.

What’s Next?

ViewSpection recently attended the Global Insurance Symposium, which acts as the capstone for all the GIA’s cohorts. Jim is planning on relocating ViewSpection’s offices to Des Moines so they can be located in a centralized network of like-minded companies looking to transform the industry. You can read more about what is going on with Jim and ViewSpection over at his LinkedIn profile.

Links

ViewSpection

Jim’s LinkedIn

Venture Deals

S2E7: 2017 Cohort of the Global Insurance Accelerator

On today’s episode of Denim Rivet, we’re talking social media and social selling with the founder and CEO of Assist You Today, Robert Knop. Believe it or not, Robert started his long road to the financial services industry with a fine arts degree. After a bold move to California, buying half of an advertising agency he worked for, then ending up in startup land, he was hired at Pacific Life by none other than show host, Gregory Bailey. Now Robert guides companies in finding out what they want to be known for and helps them devise an actionable plan to achieve their goals.

Strategy and Implementation

Assist You Today knows that it’s easy for a marketing department to get stuck focusing on what’s just two inches in front of them. So, AYT’s mission is to help these companies nail down who they are, what their true value proposition is, and then draw up a roadmap on how to get there. This is done by modernizing sales techniques with current technology - something many companies haven’t gotten a hold of yet.

Transforming Marketing and Distribution

Assist You Today specializes in applying real world tactics in the digital arena. No one throws a sales pitch right in someone’s face after just shaking hands in real life, yet Robert sees this happening on social media. The art of mastering sales activity online is something AYT shares with their clients so they can chart the finer nuances of modernizing proven techniques. Creating a playbook with high level and actionable steps is the key to maintaining this online activity.

Friction Matters

Robert has talked to companies that seem reluctant to modernize their strategies. Many are still using antiquated systems devised decades ago. But we are entering the age where consumers are mandating that companies evolve and change. The fluidity and ease of using a site like Amazon is now what consumers expect from every online interaction. Having to fill out five pages of paperwork and mail it to your insurer is not an effective way to interact with consumers in this era.

Social Selling

Utilizing social media networks effectively now centers around adding value to help consumers. One aspect of this involves establishing a personal brand with a social media page or account that's targeted toward your intended audience. Then comes engaging with others. It’s called “social” media and not “a-social” media for a reason.

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Links

Assist You Today

LinkedIn

Robert’s Book Recommendations

The Art of the Start

Word of Mouth Marketing

Digital Leader: 5 Simple Keys to Success and Influence

The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It

In this special edition episode of Denim Rivet, we welcome the co-chairs of the 2017 Global Insurance Symposium. Laura Beebe and Kay Godfredsen join us for an exciting discussion and provide all the details you'll need for this year's fourth annual symposium. Join us April 25 – 27, 2017, in downtown Des Moines!

When you register, use the promo code DENIMRIVET to receive 10% off your registration.

On today's episode of Denim Rivet, we continue our conversation with Mike Schreurs, Chairman and Chief Strategist of Strategic America. Our conversation with Mike was so, riveting, we decided to break the interview into two parts. If you've not yet listened to the first part of our interview, please be sure to check it out. In part two of our interview, Mike looks ahead at what field marketing may hold for the insurance and financial services industry in 2017 and beyond.

Radical Change

Mike notes that many of the political campaigns that wrapped up at the end of 2016 began to push the insurance and financial services industry into some uncertain areas. The change that is coming could very well be disruptive. The onus to make consumers feel secure is becoming ever more crucial in the industry. How do you make customers feel like they’ve protected what is most important to them? Security is fast becoming a key component of what brand promises need to be focused on.

With regulatory change comes insight. And careful insight is pulled from data and used to drive investment at both the corporate level, and the local level in order to drive results. Passion to win in every market needs to be at the forefront of every company, as well as the commitment to seek solutions that may work in one part of the country, but not others.

Social Media & Mobile In A New Era

It was only four or five years ago that Facebook hadn’t even launched its mobile app yet. Smartphones are now an all-encompassing connection point for consumers daily lives. The phone is a connecting point to both peers and markets, and consumers actively seek out information from peers before making purchasing decisions. Social, in this way, is empowering and validating for any consumer looking to make informed decisions. For the insurance industry, the prime "real estate" that needs to be focused on is the vertical scroll-field of the social media newsfeed on smartphones.

Small Testing, Big Analytics

With the impact the digital era is having on marketing it makes more sense to let big budget tests fall to the wayside a bit. Consistent, smaller investments using paid social media and mobile allow for a variety of tests to be conducted. This gives a broader range of data points to be looked at and see what works best, and how certain campaigns can be optimized for full scale campaigns with regard to demographics and regions.

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Episode Links

Strategic America

After a mid-season break, we’re back on Denim Rivet with Mike Schreurs, Chairman and Chief Strategist of Strategic America. Our conversation with Mike was so, riveting, we’ve decided to break the interview into two parts. Mike’s journey into marketing and advertising started out in television behind a camera. He ended up as a director, then selling T.V. time, and eventually wound up as the founder and CEO of Strategic America ("SA"). Mike notes that some clients take the company’s acronym to mean “simply awesome.” But today he is diving into what the “S” means to him – strategy.

Strategy is what ends up creating the most long term impact. At Strategic America, all 100+ employees are challenged to find a better way to do things. Understanding SA’s strategy and vision is the only way for them to do that. Mike himself has seen that there is a “get by” level of doing things that is held by some companies. However, his goals for SA are far from just getting by, instead seizing opportunities to make something better and change the world is a more noteworthy approach to tackling the dynamic environment of insurance advertising.

Tipping The Marketing Funnel

Companies can now do what they once thought was impossible. Dealing with 2,000 to 20,000 individual agents in now a reality. This distribution network of agents can be used to really define and support brand awareness. In the last 20 years there’s been a shift in brand awareness; the iconography of looming buildings, pillars, and institutions no longer garners trust in a consumer. Consumers need something more approachable. Look no farther than GEICO, Progressive, and Allstate to see how they have benefited from modern media.

How Can Smaller Players Keep Up?

“Rather than outspend, being strategic means outthinking the competition.” This quote is pulled straight from Strategic America’s homepage. The key to successful campaigns and reach isn’t necessarily the size of your marketing budget. Mike believes being as distinctive as possible and delivering, and not just imitating a category leader, is a surefire way to stand out. Finding a meaningful way to deliver information to the consumer has never been more important. Anyone at any size can now find a way to be relevant to their targeted consumer.

Why SA Focuses On Field Marketing

When you properly take care of a client you learn not only from their perspective, but you also find out what makes something successful. Mike sees insights rolling in from field marketing specialists, those focused on data and those talking directly to consumers. It’s clear the distribution field network is where results are produced. By tipping the marketing funnel sideways, companies have a lever to drive these results. The power of a brand is in the customer journey. It’s about where the customer is, getting them the right information, and leading them on the journey to validate that information so they can make a buying decision.

Stay Tuned For Part 2

Be on the lookout for the second part of our interview with Mike Schreurs, Chairman and Chief Strategist at Strategic America.

Episode Links

Strategic America

On today’s episode, we welcome back Brian Hemesath, Managing Director of the Global Insurance Accelerator. Brian is here with a rundown of the GIA’s 2017 cohort--namely six startups that, under mentorship from multiple volunteer mentors, are aiming to put a large dent in the insuretech ecosystem. The six startups just arrived in Des Moines this week. The GIA has stepped up its game this year, making new partnerships that include Staybridge Suites where the cohorts will stay for the next 100 days.

Here's a quick glimpse of the six startups participating in the 2017 cohort (in alphabetical order).

Startup: Find Bob

Coming from Toronto, Find Bob is focused on Book of Business transition for carriers and agents. According to Find Bob’s website, 80% of advisors do not have a succession plan.The nuances of these transfers can certainly lead to loss, and Find Bob is aiming to make sure this process happens correctly.

Website: FindBob.io

Startup: Insurance Menu

Insurance Menu hails from Boston and already has a fleshed out product and some paying customers. This puts them right in the sweet spot stage for companies the GIA likes to bring onboard. Helping brokers and agents distribute products is the main goal of the startup. Their product was created to fill a need born out of a innovative legislative mandate passed in Massachusetts in 2010.

Website: InsuranceMenu.com

Startup: MotionsCloud

Ever wish you had a mobile app with intelligent AI that could help automate much of the claims process? Well MotionsCloud from Munich Germany is setting their sights on incumbents with their tech. Brian is well aware that AI is a hot space within the insurance ecosystem, and will be steering MotionsCloud in the right direction with their tech.

Website: MotionsCloud.com

Startup: Re-Sure

Re-Sure comes from Detroit Michigan. Their startup covers a slew of buzzwords such as block chain enabled, app driven, smart insurance-smart contract for on demand/micro insurance. This is most certainly a conceptual technology play. Brian will be helping them focus in what insurance space has the landing spot where Re-Sure can make the biggest impact.

Startup: Sentrys

From Serbia, Sentrys is developing a cloud platform where date from all your devices can be housed, focusing primarily on auto. Many customers don’t quite understand the value of this data as of yet. This data could be used by the customer to defend themselves when you take a claim to an insurance carrier. They will be doing this with their connected vehicle or drone incident-accident certification system.

Website: Sentrys.co

Startup: Viewspection

Viewspection started up in Tucson Arizona and is a pre loss app. Jim Gardner, Viewspection’s CEO, has years of experience in home inspection. This app lets the work of these inspections be done by the consumer--a total do-it-yourself app. This allows you, instead of a stranger, take pictures and videos of your home for any underwriter.

Website: Viewspection.com

Links

Season 1, Episode 4: Accelerating Insurance Startups

Season 1, Episode 15: Special Announcement from the GIA

Global Insurance Accelerator

Global Insurance Symposium

On this episode of Denim Rivet, Gregory talks insurance innovation and insurtech with special guest, Paul Tyler, Chief Marketing Officer of Phoenix Life Insurance Company in Hartford, CT.

Paul has been monitoring the pulse of the insurtech ecosystem and its intersection with innovation and marketing strategy. He’s here today to share his thoughts on the crossroads insurance marketing is in and some of the technologies that will help guide it into the future. But before he entered the insurance industry, Paul started off organizing campaigns in the political sphere. He transitioned to MetLife, where he worked across every part of the retail business sector. When he saw the impact iPhones were going to have on business he decided to found a startup on the side. This creative delve into the tech space undoubtedly has helped Paul develop a sense of how innovation can propel the insurance industry – specifically, in a direction that is able to pinpoint focus on consumers in new and unique ways.

Key Takeaways

User interface (UI) plays a critical role in how consumers interact with content and ultimately purchase. Paul finds that tablets have a unique functionality in this regard. Having a thin touchscreen device that can pair with a keyboard breaks down barriers in a face-to-face environment. The statistics he sees show that the touch functionality of tablets seems to be more accepted by those over the age of 55 than any other device.

In the evolution of user interfaces, we’ve moved from the mouse and keyboard, to touch interfaces, and now voice control or voice experiences. It’s likely within the next five years that the amount of internet connected devices in your home without a keyboard will increase by a factor of six. Voice can be an easier way to engage with a device, but it’s clear people aren’t quite comfortable with that yet. Paul says all you have to do is look at the transcripts of someone interacting with a voice controlled device to see that people aren’t properly educated in how to interact with these technologies.

Paul sees that the state of insurance innovation and marketing in the insurance industry is at a crossroads. Strategies have to have great content and ideas that target small, passionate groups, while having tech savvy plans for distributing the content digitally. The trend has shifted from marketing and sales to marketing and tech. Explaining marketing architecture to a tech team can be difficult, putting more pressure on the tech side to deliver specific solutions.

The second wave of social media is upon us according to Paul. Facebook allows you to target people at critical life stages, whether it's getting married, having a baby or getting a new job. The intricacies of reaching the right consumer at the right time seems to be exponentially increasing. However, Paul sees this as a perfect place for tech to streamline complex campaigns. He uses Denim™ as an example of how this can be done. Consider Denim – the social media based marketing platform that can be consistently launched with the push of a button in just two minutes; this allows social media ads to be delivered for a tremendous number of agents and advisors, leveraging a home office marketing strategy that can help agents compete with online only companies. With access to important agent level analytics, it's more important than ever to know how to review social media metrics.

And what about Paul’s thoughts on the state of the insurtech ecosystem? They can be summed up in three words: “We’re just starting.” The amount of opportunity is enormous. With the amount of passion, creativity, and energy pouring into the ecosystem he believes we’ll see the scene continue to turn out innovative solutions to the industry’s ever evolving needs.

Links

Paul Tyler on Twitter

Paul Tyler on LinkedIn

On today's episode of Denim Rivet, we're joined by a repeat guest and friend of Gregory's, that's Iowa Insurance Commissioner, Nick Gerhart. Shortly after recording this episode, Nick announced his resignation and that he would not seek another term as Commissioner. We at Denim™ wish Nick and his family all the best as they continue creating their story and we thank Nick for his leadership over the years. You can call it a gut feeling, but we believe Nick will be sticking close to insurance technology and innovation in the years ahead.

Nick has had his hands full discussing the potential changes promised by a new administration regarding the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Keeping an eye on advancements in insurance technology and innovation, Nick was the only sitting Insurance Commissioner at the inaugural InsureTech Connect conference in Las Vegas. He's also given testimony before the United States Congress as they seek to learn more about the ACA. Nick has been warning that things are going to be changing, and has pointed to the need for a modern day Manhattan Project related to healthcare. What he means by this is getting a lot of smart people together to work toward a solution on a difficult problem. As of now the ACA doesn’t address cost in the system. Discussions need to be had across multiple industries, with hospital groups, insurers, consumers, and drug manufacturers. It won’t surprise many that information isn’t always easily conveyed to consumers - in fact, many people spend more time researching a new refrigerator purchase than they investigate their own health care options. Nick is looking forward to a future where innovation and streamlined communication help bridge the current gaps in the system to propel the industry forward.

Key Takeaways

If you haven’t already, please read Nick’s recent post on Ten Points to Help Improve the ACA. While he admits it's not perfect, it is a great starting point to address some of the major issues. One of these points directs attention to innovation in product design while encouraging limited underwriting so that healthy people can be rewarded for their behaviors.

Nick believes insurtech startups can help stabilize some current issues in the ecosystem. Many opportunities are going to rise on the education side, informing consumers in a meaningful, digestible way. The same goes for using risk assessments and rewarding individuals for their healthy behaviors. While there is ample data in the current ecosystem, knowing what to do with it in order to get people to be more healthy and make smart purchasing decisions is a small slice that seems like it is up for grabs.

If President-elect Donald Trump phoned Nick and asked him what they should call the changes to the ACA, whether it was a reform, a repeal, or restructuring; this is what Nick would have to say: it doesn’t matter what you want to call the changes, they are all going to take an incredible amount of work to implement. Keep in mind, carriers have to price their 2018 products and file them by May 3, 2017. Nothing makes carriers pull their products out of the market like uncertainty, and as of now that is the predominant message being sent.

Looking forward to 2017, Nick believes that the insuretech herd will be thinned out quite a bit. Businesses that aren’t working will go under and those that have merit will stay. Some of this is due to using “hope” as a strategy, and developing technology for a business strategy. Nick says that having a business strategy and developing technology to fit it is a more efficient, safer way to make a mark in the industry.

Links

Nick Gerhart’s Previous Episode on Season 1 of Denim Rivet

Nick Gerhart’s ACA LinkedIn Post

In this episode of Denim Rivet, our guest is on a mission to reinvent small business insurance. I’m referring to none other than Kevin Kerridge – Executive Vice President of small business insurance at Hiscox USA.

Now in his 20th year at Hiscox, Kevin Kerridge started an online direct to consumer business in the UK during the Dot Com bubble. In 2005 that grew to encompass small businesses, and in 2010 he came to the US to scout out the small business insurance landscape. Astounded by the lack of maturity in the US small business insurance space, Kevin moved to New York to help Hiscox spread its small business services across the pond. He finds that the US is till 5-7 years behind the UK in terms of digitizing insurance for small businesses. When Hiscox started making waves in 2010 Kevin suspected that competitors would jump on the opportunity the small business space was presenting. However, he sees that the transition is still in its embryonic stages and offers some insights into the present state of affairs, and what the future has to offer.

Key Takeaways

Kevin sees that the insure tech ecosystem today reflects the atmosphere created back in the Dot Com bubble. There is a lot of outside talent starting to crop up and bring big ideas to the industry. Despite all this energy, not many companies have started to create a pivotal impact yet. No one knows yet how this story will shake out. Some companies currently going online have clunky user experiences that they are still managing to funnel hundreds of thousands of customers through. This is nothing to be scoffed at, and is expected as businesses build foundations that they can move and grow upon.

With all the energy and hype in the insurance space now it’s easy to get swept away in the idea of disrupting the market. Companies that try to do this are taking an enormous risk though, and while it may appear flashy and bold, there is much to be said for incremental innovation. Bringing the customers online experience up to par with other companies is a great way to work towards innovation and new services. Remember, it’s okay to not be disruptive.

Many in the insurance space have been wondering if the direct to consumer model might spell an extinction event for agents. Kevin doesn’t seem to think that will happen, and believes that agents will intergral to distribution. The key is that agents are going to start looking and acting differently than today. This will come from being digitally enabled.

Social has played an integral role in Hiscox’s development as well. Kevin approached their marketing team back when they first branched out to the small business space, and they came up with a web tv series called Leap Year. The series followed a group of corporate employees that were laid off and started their own small business. Highlighting the struggles and triumphs of the small business adventure with a comedic twist landed the show over 6 million views, and get this: they didn’t even mention insurance once.

Links

Insurance Is Not Being Disrupted

Bunker

Hiscox