Life Accelerated

Matt Berman, a dynamic leader in the life insurance industry, brings over 16 years of experience to the table. Having held senior roles in product distribution and customer experience, Matt now serves as the President for both the US and Canadian markets at Foresters, a financial services company focusing on life insurance and investments. With a passion for delivering unique, value-driven experiences for policyholders, Matt is a key figure in driving Foresters' digital transformation journey, creating impactful and engaging solutions for members.

In this episode, Matt covers the transformation of the life insurance industry through digital innovation, how modern technology can boost customer engagement, the importance of adapting your product offerings to address ever-changing customer expectations, the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on the life insurance landscape, and more.

Key Takeaways

• Digital transformation speaks to the experience you deliver for your end consumer, your agents and advisors, and–most importantly–your employees.

• Digital transformation is a way to enable advisors to make their impact on the consumer more effective, as life insurance is complex and everyone has a different circumstance.

• Engagement informs better business quality and a better, more mutually profitable relationship with the customer and state-of-the-art systems allow for more value and the ability to stay in touch with customers' needs as they evolve.

Timestamps

[00:00] - Introduction to Matt [03:10] - Matt Berman's Background and Skills [08:41] - Digital Transformation and Life Product Evolution [11:28] - Distribution and Technology [14:34] - Foresters Strategic Plans [19:27] - Foresters Digital Transformation Journey [22:49] - Sales-Related Systems [24:30] - Foresters' Conception of Customer Engagement [27:45] - COVID's Impact on Foresters [30:46] - Making Life Insurance Compelling

Resources

Connect with Matt on LinkedIn

Learn more about Foresters Financial

Voya Financial, Inc. is a leading health, wealth, and investment company that helps Americans become well planned, well invested and well protected. But how do they do this from a digital perspective?

Santhosh Keshavan, EVP and CIO at Voya, explains how they excel in the life insurance industry with their digital transformation efforts. He reveals the key components for digital transformation, their ambitious plans for the near future, the power of turning data into 'intelligent data,' and more.

Hear how Voya Financial, Inc. is using data to their advantage to grow their impact in the market.

[00:00 - 02:21] Introduction to Santhosh and Voya Financial Inc.

[02:21 - 04:31] Santhosh's role at Voya Financial Inc.

[04:31 - 06:07] Voya's foundational work towards simplifying legacy systems

[06:07 - 07:39] How Voya defines digital transformation and interaction

[07:39 - 09:24] Challenges facing data migration and quality

[09:24 - 12:54] Voya's transition to the cloud and the tradeoffs that come with it

[12:54 - 16:54] The My Voyage mobile app and interacting with customers

[16:54 - 18:50] Consolidation efforts to making the My Voyage mobile app possible

[18:50 - 20:18] Partnerships and digital transformation at Voya

[20:18 - 21:43] How the skill sets of the IT organization Voya is changing

[23:43 - 25:18] How Voya works to attract and retain talent and customers

[25:18 - 25:25] Closing

• Transformation will always be happening because technology is changing so fast. To keep up, you have to take initiative in consolidating core systems, investing in other foundational areas, focusing on data, creating a smooth customer experience, and enabling faster adoption.
• The first and most important component in the insurance market is data - having a good understanding of it and creating intelligence from it.
• Migrate data! Ever since Voya migrated their data to the cloud, they experienced more flexibility and were able to take advantage of innovation and transformation.

MetLife's secret to success? Looking outside of the industry.

MetLife is an insurance company dedicated to providing working-class Americans with financial protection and has helped generations of customers protect their property, finances, family and future. They are an insurance company that not only focuses on selling insurance, but they push people to live better and healthier lives.

Bill Pappas, Head of Global Technology and Operations at MetLife, shares his role in the company, the strategies they implement that has led them to success, the digital capabilities they are adapting, and their objectives to win over the marketplace.

Listen in to hear how MetLife is transforming and creating an impact in the insurance market.

Legal & General, U.K.'s number one life insurance provider, has been able to protect families for over 180 years—and is now bringing its digital transformation expertise to the US.

Raju Seetharaman, SVP, IT and Transformation of the life insurance division of Legal & General America, reveals how they are navigating through regulations, customer expectations, and diversity to provide quick, easy, and affordable life insurance to Americans.

Listen in to hear how Legal & General America is working to grow their impact and market share.

Would you classify your company as one that experienced growth but now is in a dry spot and has plateaued?

If so, Kelly Coomer, CIO of Sammons Financial Group, has an answer for you.

Developing and evolving the business into a product mindset.

Kelly is on the hunt to obtain technology to improve customer experience, keep employees satisfied, and hire and retain workers. She shares her journey and the changes that she has made in order to keep the company growing - all centered around the company-wide shift to a product mindset.

In this replay episode, listen in to learn... How does a 150-year-old organization go from being "data rich, information poor, and analytically ignorant", to leading the technology transformation in the life insurance industry?

This is Ameritas' story–and Richard Wiedenbeck is currently leading the innovation charge for this century-and-a-half-old institution. Richard Wiedenbeck, CTTO of Ameritas, joins Anthony to talk about how he's helping to lead their charge in digital transformation.

How did the global pandemic accelerate digital transformation in your organization?

At Western & Southern, they've adapted slowly to meet customer expectations. And SVP & CIO Jim Fitzgerald says that's actually the best decision they've made.

Fitzgerald joins the Life Accelerated podcast to reveal the ways in which the company acquired new players, experimented with and adopted new technologies, and shifted talent needs – all to meet customer demand.

In this replay episode, listen in to hear: Penn Mutual is an almost 2-century-old business—and they have the innovation and modernization to back up their longstanding success. But it doesn't come without learning curves and experimentation.

Enter Greg Driscoll, the COO of Life and Annuities. From moving to cloud services to implementing new applications and data management practices, Greg is innovating on a 175-year-old original data company's data management and utilization strategy to prioritize not only clients but also your employees. Listen in to hear how the state of technology today is enabling Penn Mutual to revitalize its 175-year-old business promise—creating a healthy life insurance business and industry.

Legal & General is the U.K.'s top life insurer in several categories. As they embark on the U.S. market, they have big ambitions.

In this episode of Life Accelerated, Legal & General's Chief Technology and Data Officer of the Retail Division Morgan Spillane reveals their globalization strategy and how technology plays a role. He also discusses the major differences between the U.K. and U.S. markets and the adjustment required to meet consumers' demands.

Tune in to hear insights from across the pond and here in our backyard.

We collected more information and data on the world in the last five years than the previous history of the universe.

And the life insurance industry is finally coming around to data science. Thanks in part to the pandemic and digital transformation.

But what should your organization be doing with all this information at your disposal? What are your first steps?

Keith Raymond, Principal Analyst at Celent and author of the viral report Data Tsunami, reveals how to improve the customer experience by leveraging data and process automation.