Denim Rivet

By now, our listeners should know that we announced the launch of our insuretech startup, Denim™ at the InsureTech Connect Conference on October 5th in Las Vegas, Nevada. The conference was co-founded by a past guest of our show. That season one guest is back on today's episode for an exclusive recap. He is Caribou Honig,

Caribou is a founding partner of QED Investors and saw the potential of tech innovation in the financial sector. But in looking for conferences to attend he saw a gap in the ecosystem that needed to be filled. The conference was designed around his needs and a desire to connect entrepreneurs with investors looking for cutting edge ideas to help propel their business ahead of the curve in the digital age. The conference exploded beyond Caribou's expectations, drawing in 1500 attendees. He is currently reading through survey responses about the conference to see what needs were met and what can be included for the conference next year. Caribou's ultimate goal of helping support the insurance technology ecosystem was clearly met, and he has seen tremendous growth in the seed stage companies he was in touch with leading up to the event. The conference encouraged conversations about the sector among people in the industry that rarely, if ever meet, and discussing the varied perspectives led to fantastic, and fun conversation. Caribou is looking forward to the future of the conference and finding ways to keep the groundswell momentum it created while adding value to all who attended, and the industry at large.

Key Takeaways

Caribou finds that insurance tech is in a period reminiscent of where banking was a few years ago with lending. The internet completely transformed how they did business especially with the advent of bill pay and and how they originated customers. The internet alone wasn't enough to transform the insurance industry. However, the internet coupled with smart phones is a clear force that has awakened and is starting to impact the industry full force.

When asked what they were most blown away by, most attendees said that the Chinese insurance company Zhong An stole the spotlight. Aside from insights to the international market, Zhong An discussed doing billions of micro policies, all online, which was a real wakeup call for everyone in the room.

Caribou noticed that the customer experience engineer role is being elevated in the space. Several talks focused on incorporating behavioral economic principles into system design. This is especially pertinent in the mobile space, where system, design and functionality need to be slick, streamlined, and easy for the customer to use.

No startup innovation can take place without fantastic entrepreneurs at the foundation. Caribou was excited to see the opportunity for many great seed stage companies to connect with insurers and carriers at the conference and start their journey to becoming Series A and beyond.

Links InsureTech Connect

QED Investors

Zhong An

Lemonade

When it comes to the topic of insurance social media, no one knows more than Terry Golesworthy. In today's episode of Denim Rivet we sit down for our full interview with Terry Golesworthy, President of The Customer Respect Group. Terry has been with the CRG for 12 years and for the last six years, he has been researching how insurers interact with consumers online. With the steady evolution of social media over the years and the advent of insurtech companies, it's safe to say Terry has had a great deal to dive into.

Terry remembers in the mid 90's insurance companies were asking whether or not they even wanted to have a website. It was thought if all information could be found online then consumers would have no need to call an agent. Some insurers went as far to have incomprehensible information on the site just so consumers would get frustrated and call an agent. That era is now over. In today's age the customer has more control than ever, and if a company's website and user experience are lacking, they will go elsewhere. Many of the new insurtech companies that have blossomed offer more ways for carriers and customers to communicate. This ease of communication is starting to allow new products to be offered since marketing and distribution is more efficient than ever before. Stereotypically difficult policies like renter's insurance become less of burden to handle since customers can easily access and purchase through their smartphone. This highlights a shift that will continue in the industry; further improving user experience with friendly, powerful systems that make purchasing easy and keep customers engaging with insurers.

Key Takeaways

The days of manipulating ranks on Facebook, figuring out how to get the most retweets, and going to conferences to listen to social gurus are long past. Apart from initially purchasing, renewing, or making a claim on an insurance policy – there isn't much interaction between the customer and carrier.

American consumers have their own version of an operating system that they interact with on a daily basis. This OS allows them to collect and distribute information while allowing for easy research and purchasing to take place. This OS is composed of a person's smartphone and a social media newsfeed. Mobile devices help to break down barriers as these devices are a part of us and with us at all times.

Scalability was a major area of focus we wanted to tackle in creating Denim™. When a business has multiple agents taking time out of their day to manage their social presence it opens up the door to a host of problems. Aside from being a distraction from the agent's primary work of selling, inconsistencies in pricing and other errors are more likely to occur each time an ad campaign is launched by individual agents. Denim was built so agents and advisors don't have to be experts social media advertising and micro-targeted advertising can be scaled to more than a thousand different advisors and agents – all within two minutes.

For a long time, it was thought that complexity in enterprise software platforms directly equated to value. The truth is that complexity in software design often makes it too difficult to use, and businesses only utilize 10% of a platform's functionality. Denim focuses on breaking down this complexity, delivering an intuitive and easy-to-use product, while leaving all the value intact.

Pay-to-Play vs. Organic Reach – social platforms are not charities. Paying for advertising has given businesses the opportunity to be the first to reach a specific target consumer. When you present an advertisement to the right person, at the right time, with the right message, it's no longer an advertisement—it is simply information to the consumer. This allows for the consumer to easily share and pass along the information, which blends organic reach with paid social media advertising campaigns.

Show Links

Customer Respect Group

Twitter: @TerryCRG

Most listeners of the Denim Rivet podcast for the last year would not have known that a technology company called Denim was being built by show creator and host, Gregory Bailey. Now, after more than a year of building Denim in "stealth," Bailey is back with season two of the podcast to make a very public announcement regarding his own insurtech startup.

Today, we are proud to announce the launch of Denim at the InsureTech Connect conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Denim is reimagining marketing and distribution in the insurance and financial services industry by launching its insurance-smart social media advertising platform today. Denim empowers corporate marketers to build, launch and manage social media advertising campaigns for ten agents or ten-thousand advisors, all in the span of two minutes. We are honored to announce today that the Multiple Line Division of American National Insurance Company has been successfully using the Denim platform and is experiencing positive and dramatic results. And on this first episode of season two of Denim Rivet, we interview the EVP and CMO of American National's Multiple Line Division, Scott Campbell.

A Walk Down Memory Lane with Special Guest, Scott Campbell

I invited Scott to have dinner in San Francisco in the fall of last year. Scott was happy to meet. After discussing our vision for Denim, we both agreed to continue the conversation. We quickly learned that a scalable advertising solution for social media platforms would provide significant efficiencies and and deliver near immediate return on investment. Providing an intuitive and easy-to-use interface and campaign builder workflow were pillars of our discussion when it came to making Denim a platform that is as powerful as it is enjoyable to use. After an iterative process with back and forth discussions between our teams, we put Denim to the test – and the results have been astounding. I would like to say thank you to Scott and the team at American National – we would not have achieved the success we have so far without the support and trust of their team.

The Philosophy Behind Denim's Creation with Special Guest, Terry Golesworthy

Scalability was the first major focus area we wanted to deliver by creating Denim. When an insurance or financial services firm has dozens, hundreds or thousands of their agents and advisors taking time out of their day to manage their social presence, it opens up the door to a host of issues. Denim was created so agents and financial advisors don't have to be experts in social media ad campaigns. Instead, Denim empowers home office corporate marketing teams to easily scale their messages on-behalf-of all of their agents and advisors.

For many years, it has been thought that the level of complexity in a software platform directly equated to the value delivered. The truth is that this added complexity made software overly cumbersome to use and businesses were likely to only utilize a small percentage of the software's functionality. Denim delivers an intuitive and easy-to-use software platform, but also delivers tremendous value for its users.

Social Media Platforms are Not Charities

Pay-to-Play vs. Organic Reach – social platforms are not charities. Paying for social media advertising has given firms of all sizes the opportunity to be the first to reach specific micro-targeted consumer audiences. When an advertisement to the right person, at the right time, with the right message, it's no longer an advertisement, it's simply information to the consumer. This allows for the consumer to easily share and pass along the information, which then blends organic reach with paid ad campaigns. The key is that it is time to initiate or time to deliver first on social media through paid media, paid advertising.

Coming Up

Thank you for helping us celebrate the launch of Denim and for joining us for Season 2 of Denim Rivet. We're excited to have all-new guests and conversations on the show over these 16 episodes. We'll be back with Season 2, Episode 2 of Denim Rivet on Wednesday, October 19, 2016.

Links:

• Scott Campbell on Season 1, Episode 30
• Denim
• American National Insurance Company
• InsureTech Connect Conference

In this episode of Denim Rivet, Gregory Bailey provides an update on the report he authored several months ago called Six Insurance Industry Predictions for 2016. In addition, Gregory discusses his recent trip to speak at the Swiss Re Next Generation Insurance Customer conference in Zurich, Switzerland. Finally, Gregory is joined by a surprise guest. Tune in and find out who it is!

This is our last podcast episode for a few weeks while we're taking a summer break. We hope you'll use this time to listen to our past episodes.

Tweet at us using #denimrivet.

We'd like to ask a favor. If you're enjoying episodes of Denim Rivet, will you please head over to iTunes and leave us a review? Your feedback and reviews on iTunes mean a lot! We've even made it super-easy for you. Here's the link!

In this episode of Denim Rivet, co-hosts Gregory Bailey and Justin Brady are joined by serial entrepreneur Wayne Slavin, co-founder and CEO of Sure. Wayne has experience as an entrepreneur, as a product visionary for multiple internet startups and even helped launch the Nook division of Barnes & Noble.

As for his current startup, Sure is pioneering Episodic Insurance™ in the insurance market by providing consumers with simple options based on the context and information gathered through his or her mobile device with permission. Sure's robo broker technology, powered by artificial intelligence is changing insurance... listen and learn how!

Sure's website: www.sureapp.com

How are we doing? Let us know what you think! Tweet at us using #denimrivet.

Thank you to our episode sponsors, Melius and Fidelity & Guaranty Life.

We'd like to ask a favor. If you're enjoying episodes of Denim Rivet, will you please head over to iTunes and leave us a review? Your feedback and reviews on iTunes mean a lot! We've even made it super-easy for you. Here's the link!

In this episode of Denim Rivet, we discuss digital disruption, today's connected consumers, removing friction from the buyer's journey and the context in which consumers expect to engage insurance companies. Gregory Bailey and Justin Brady co-host for this first of its kind discussion with a preeminent Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) in the insurance industry today. Our guest for this episode is Scott Campbell.

Listen and learn Scott's perspective on a number of important questions about the state of today's insurance industry.

How are we doing? Let us know what you think! Tweet at us using #denimrivet.

Thank you to our episode sponsor, Melius.

We'd like to ask a favor. If you're enjoying episodes of Denim Rivet, will you please head over to iTunes and leave us a review? Your feedback and reviews on iTunes mean a lot! We've even made it super-easy for you. Here's the link!

This episode of Denim Rivet features an alum of the 2015 cohort of the Global Insurance Accelerator in Des Moines, Iowa. Chris Augeri is the founder of Omaha, Nebraska, based Drive Spotter. Chris walks us through how his startup pivoted more than once and changed from a hardware focused startup to a cloud-based software solution.

This episode also includes Gregory's thoughts on last month's 3rd annual Global Insurance Symposium in Des Moines and what listeners can look forward to for next year's event.

How are we doing? Let us know what you think! Tweet at us using #denimrivet.

Thank you to our episode sponsors Melius and Fidelity & Guaranty Life.

Will you do us a favor? Will you head over to iTunes and leave us a review and a rating? Your feedback and reviews on iTunes mean the world to us. We've even made it super-easy for you. Here's the link! Thank you.

This episode of Denim Rivet features an alum of the second cohort of the Global Insurance Accelerator in Des Moines, Iowa. Rohit Rajan and Gokul Sudarsana are co-founders of San Francisco based Isaac Re.

Isaac Re is an online marketplace connecting insurance companies with capital markets. For insurers, it means on-demand capital at a lower cost. For investors, it means attractive yields and diversification through a new asset class. Learn more at isaacre.com.

How are we doing? Let us know what you think! Tweet at us using #denimrivet.

Thank you to our episode sponsors Melius and Fidelity & Guaranty Life.

Will you do us a favor? Will you head over to iTunes and leave us a review and a rating? Your feedback and reviews on iTunes mean the world to us. We've even made it super-easy for you. Here's the link! Thank you.

This episode of Denim Rivet features Chad Nitschke, Co-Founder & CEO of Insure.VC. Gregory (also a partner in Insure.VC) and Chad have a wide-ranging conversation you won't want to miss.

Insure.VC is a seed/venture fund, comprised of a group of operator angels that is helping build the future of insurance. Insure.VC provides capital, domain expertise, and connections to smart and ambitious entrepreneurs who are passionate about driving change in the insurance industry.

Chad and Gregory first met when they worked together at an insurance company in Madison, Wisconsin, circa 2009. Join them as they discuss the future of insurance technology startups, venture capital and innovation in the insurance industry.

How are we doing? Let us know what you think! Tweet at us using #denimrivet.

Thank you to our episode sponsors Melius and Fidelity & Guaranty Life.

Will you do us a favor? Will you head over to iTunes and leave us a review and a rating? Your feedback and reviews on iTunes mean the world to us. We've even made it super-easy for you. Here's the link! Thank you.

This episode of Denim Rivet features our first overseas guest. From nearly 9000 miles away, we're pleased to be joined by Chris Bayley from Sydney, Australia.

Chris is the co-founder of Cover Genius which is the parent company of RentalCover.com. Chris has extensive experience as a startup founder and has been a thought leader and public presenter within the tech community since 1999. Prior to starting Cover Genius, Chris was an early Googler who was responsible for the Financial Services and Insurance vertical, one of the company's most profitable verticals globally.

Gregory, co-host Justin Brady and Chris discuss travel insurance, how an unfortunate encounter with a kangaroo impacted their decision to start Cover Genius and the most expensive AdWords in the world. Listen and enjoy.

How are we doing? Let us know what you think! Tweet at us using #denimrivet.

Thank you to our episode sponsors Melius and Fidelity & Guaranty Life.

Will you do us a favor? Will you head over to iTunes and leave us a review and a rating? Your feedback and reviews on iTunes mean the world to us. We've even made it super-easy for you. Here's the link! Thank you.