On Point - Insurance Journal

Property losses and coverage woes are all over the national news: fires, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods. As a result, new home buyers are fearful of the risks and costs of owning property. On this recording, we hear key findings from consumer research on home ownership from Kimberly Burdi-Dumas with DocuSketch. The insurance industry has an opportunity to educate Generation Z on home protections, the research  suggests.  DocuSketch provides accurate, consistent views of property losses to eliminate claim disputes. Kimberly says was “born and bred in insurance. My parents started a restoration company back in the 1980s before restoration was even a thing. We were called ‘carpet cleaners.’ I remember mixing chemicals. Two scoops of green and one scoop of blue. Sketch on graph paper. Wear boots and walk losses. Haul hoses and lug equipment.”

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On this installment, we check in with Luke Bills, president of independent agent distribution for Liberty Mutual’s U.S. retail markets. Luke outlines challenges for agents, including consolidation and pricing. Agents have had to deal with suffocating rate increases in recent years—“there was nowhere to hide from that,” Luke says. While auto rates are stabilizing, property is another story: “I don’t see a soft market coming,” he adds. Looking down the road, he says he is “very bullish on the IA channel. This [hard] market has shown the value of the independent agent.” With homeowners having to manage more risk and costly assets, and as insurance coverages “gets more expensive and availability gets more challenging, consumers need to have choice and expert guidance. That’s what independent agents do.” Captive agent models, too, “are moving toward finding choice,” he adds.

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Who remembers when you’d never think to “bring your whole self to work?” Boomers do! But today’s workplace is vastly different. Bosses need to watch for signs of employees’ mental health issues. On this recording, we hear from Travelers’ Joan Woodward, who highlights key findings of a new study on the pervasiveness of mental health in the workplace. Joan oversees the Travelers Institute, a public policy platform within the carrier to educate the public about all things insurance. Joan provides actionable, step-by-step guidance for managers on how to properly meet their workers in this space. Some 66% of managers have had conversations with employees about mental health, yet only 45% have received training on exactly how to talk about it. Most managers, too, say they’ve experienced mental health symptoms, to include stress, anxiety and sleep difficulties.

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Insurtechs and online MGAs increasingly will be folded into tech-enabled carriers and marketplaces. That’s the prediction of Bryan Davis, who leads VIU, HUB’s online insurance platform for consumers and business partners. Most insurtechs aren’t profitable, he says. On this recording, Bryan outlines the underlying reasons why the pressure is on insurtechs, such as more expensive investment capital and incomplete end-to-end technology. He also challenges agents and brokers to focus on sales and leave back-end processing and follow-on service instead to efficient business partners. Also, for all the emerging talent needed to join the insurance industry, Bryan defends the value of the beleaguered liberal arts degree.

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As we wrap up another eventful and informative year of “On Point” episodes, your host Peter van Aartrijk details the front-seat view he had of Hurricane Helene as it came ashore in St. Petersburg, Fla. Disasters are macabre events to watch from afar. But up close? In a word, surreal. Peter, his family and neighbors experienced what many Americans have witnessed amid fires, earthquakes, floods and convective storms. Put simply: The impact is devasting financially and emotionally. Moreover, Helene is a sad reminder of the lack of overall consumer trust in the basic insurance product and process. The mistrust and misunderstanding is deep. Combined with other factors in and out of the industry’s control, the situation is simply depressing for this four-decade insurance writer, observer and communications guy. On this recording Peter also provides some preparation reminders for natural disasters — assuming you have some advance warning — as well as advice during cleanup.

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Listen in as insurance carrier veteran Jamie Luce, who recently founded a startup, says parametric products are an “untapped” pathway to unleash more value for customers, agents, insurers and reinsurers. His firm, AIR Parametric, provides commercial customers with financial protection to mitigate the short-and long-term revenue shortfalls and expense overruns of unanticipated, extreme weather events. (Think heat spells, cold snaps, excess rainfall.) These weather events typically don’t cause physical damage to buildings or equipment — but can have devastating effects on productivity or customer behavior. For example, outside temperature is a big deal for farmers raising hogs, swine, cows, cattle or poultry. Cows produce less milk amid extreme heat, and a parametric contract offer financial relief. These products can work in tandem with traditional insurance. You’ll enjoy Jamie’s take on how a slow-to-evolve industry could innovate with new approaches to consumer needs.

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You’ll enjoy the interesting life and business journey of our guest Satvinder Kaur. She’s originally from India, and marketing executive roles at various carriers led her to the USA. Most recently she oversaw the brand refresh for the agency network Acrisure. Today, Satvinder urges insurance marketers to learn all they can about AI and employ new tools for customer acquisition and engagement. She has built a framework for learning: Her new “Find a hack” innovation workshop helps marketers discover pathways. But a dose of reality is in order, too. “Remember when smart phones were the talk of the town?” Satvinder asks. “You don’t hear people now saying, ‘The smart phone is my edge.’ AI will be like that. We’ll all have it.” She advises insurance marketers to “find the problem you want to solve. It’s not the problem the AI vendor is bringing to you, where maybe they solved a problem for a luxury brand. Find your own problem to solve.”

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The insurance industry is experiencing the infancy of general AI — not generative AI, but general AI, according to thought leader Bryan Falchuk. He’s an author, speaker and CEO of PLRB. “Specific AI is like having a cake recipe, all the necessary ingredients, and you bake the cake. General AI is asking, ‘Here is what’s in the fridge; figure out what to cook.’ It’s looking at the world around you and thinking of paths forward.” Bryan says viewing AI for expense management is not the path to profitability and change. “If we think of AI as just an efficiency tool, we won’t get the full value out of it. Because even if you squeeze a few more points out of the expense ratio, that won’t change the game. The path to ultimate success…Is where there are things that humans can never see as pieces of a disparate jointed puzzle, but humans could help orchestrate the coming together of that puzzle with the right AI tools. For us that means more coverage at a lower price for more risks, underwriting profitability and claims excellence, which is ultimately what we should be doing.” Brian also argues what is required to retain talented younger workers. Hint: Invest again in training!

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On this installment, we catch up with Ryan Hanley, a popular speaker, podcaster, consultant, thought leader on LinkedIn and Instagram, and a former independent agent. If you haven’t heard Ryan’s commentary, you’ll get an immediate sense of his edge, grit and determination to champion business success for others. His lessons for others are lessons he learned himself — and sometimes the hard way. As he sold insurance and “mastered the close,” he found himself drawn to the importance of strategy. So, today he helps other business leaders find their strategic pivot points. You’ll enjoy listening to Ryan’s stories and philosophy — which include an interesting interchange with his father-in-law. Ryan will be emcee for the agent/broker-focused track at the annual InsureTech Connect conference in Las Vegas, which kicks off October 14.

This episode is brought to you by MEM. We’re what workers comp should be! Get to know us at hello-mem.com to see how we can help you work with confidence.

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On this installment, we learn what’s on the minds of some 2,000 independent agency staffers. Jess Butler, VP of Vertafore, which conducted a national survey, outlines how agents are managing talent, the hard market and technology. Some 70% of respondents said they’re having difficulty placing risks, Jess reports. With a higher workload, 55% said they’re dealing with increased stress. A third of respondents have added new tech tools as a response to managing turbulent market conditions in the last year. Moreover, the agent/carrier relationship is under pressure—a third said they’re looking for new carriers. “There are opportunities for wholesalers and MGAs here,” Jess notes. When Vertafore asked respondents if they would refer a friend to an insurance career opportunity, only 20% said yes. “That number has been dropping since we’ve been surveying agents,” says Jess. “They’re feeling the pressure of the hard market.” She also offers great suggestions on how insurance firms can attract younger workers by changing the conversation on what it’s really like to work here.

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