Josh Levine is the founder and CEO of Cake & Arrow, an experience design and product innovation company that works exclusively with insurance companies to create digital products and services that are grounded in real customer needs. With over 25 years practicing human-centered design methodology, Josh has led innovation initiatives for some of the world's largest carriers and distributors including MetLife, Travelers, Chubb, Aflac, The General, and American Family. A designer by trade, Josh is most passionate about helping insurance companies leverage a design-driven mindset to create authentic and meaningful relationships with the customers and employees they serve.

Cake & Arrow is a UX Design and Product Innovation company that works exclusively with the Insurance industry. We believe empathy sparks opportunity. Our human-centered design approach helps carriers, distributors, and service providers create breakthrough digital experiences that drive results. For more than 20 years, we've helped the insurance industry make buying, selling, and servicing insurance better for everyone, by design.

Highlights from the Show

• Cake & Arrow is a UX and product innovation design firm focused solely on insurance, starting from human needs (of the customer)
• They leverage design and human centered mindsets to help the insurance industry make buying, selling and servicing people better
• What's holding us back? Josh shared several reasons
  • We are wired to think about our company and our industry – competitor intelligence – and so we look at what we and our competitors think or are doing rather than starting with customer intelligence
    • If you don't, you'll miss the shift in customer trends, challenges and interests
  • We have a tendency to jump into solution mode, which means we put a lot of resources into projects that take years to implement, but they may not be the right things to be working on, so we're expending a lot of time and resource on things that aren't what we should really be working on
    • We measure progress by the number of features we roll out rather than the impact on the customer
• The intent to innovate is there, however, so Josh has great hope for the industry's ability to move forward

Key Lines from the Episode

• Josh's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshplevine/
• All Cake & Arrow Research Reports
  • Select articles and reports:
    • The mindset shift the insurance industry doesn't know it needs
    • Climate change & Homeowners Insurance
    • We're Anxious but Optimistic: What these 12 people want insurance companies to know about their finances
    • Beyond Burnout: Redefining Benefits for a New Era of Work

This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance book series (future-of-insurance.com) from Bryan Falchuk.

Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes.

Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.