As a veteran in the insurance industry, Sean brings nearly 30 years of experience and expertise to Lemonade as Chief Claims Officer. In this role he’s responsible for claim handling policies, procedures, and execution across all US and EU territories for Lemonade’s full book of insurance products spanning renters, home, pet, car, and life. Prior to joining Lemonade, Sean spent more than 25 years at USAA  holding various leadership positions, the latest being Chief Claims Officer where he had oversight of claim handling for all personal  and small commercial lines of business. During his tenure, the company doubled in size, becoming the third-largest homeowners and fifth-largest auto insurer in the US, all while delivering industry-leading loss adjustment expenses and being consistently recognized as the highest rated in claims service by JD Power. 

Highlights from the Show

• Sean has spent nearly 30 years in P&C, all of which was with USAA where he was Chief Claims Officer, before joining Lemonade earlier this year to serve as their Chief Claims Officer
• What attracted Sean to Lemonade is a view of being there for customers throughout their life and needs rather than a single product or life moment, the technical capabilities to deliver that, and then the people and culture that embraces change and possibilities
• Lemonade built its own tech, from the start, from the ground up, and tries to be vertically integrated in their tech, which Sean sees as enabling a lot of advantage to what they can do and how they do it
• Balancing the outside mindset from Tech and the Insurance expertise of industry veterans is hard, but important so you can have the expertise but still stay open and flexible
• Lemonade is launching their Car product, which coincided with Sean joining, which is a huge undertaking, but an important one to covering the complete picture of their customers
• It also represents a big opportunity around telematics, which makes sense given how digital Lemonade's customer base is, which yields a 90% take rate for telematics-based coverage
• Moving into Car will help Lemonade grow given the premium, but also given the importance to their customers
• Acquiring Metromile also helps here because of the data Lemonade gains through the acquisition after years of insuring cars and collecting telematics data on them that Metromile brings Lemonade day one
• Telematics can help with claims by better informing what's happened and how to help as quickly and appropriately as possible
• Sean's first day on the job, he talked to an adjuster who shared that claims are 70% done by the time she gets it, meaning she can really focus on helping the customer and using her expertise rather than dealing with the administration of handling a claim
• Sean talked about the shift from being so price-driven to being trust-driven, knowing there's someone who stands with you throughout your life
• AI is not about people losing their jobs, it's about letting people focus on doing the work that matters and having the space to engage personally rather than being overloaded with process
• Lemonade doesn't just measure customer satisfaction, but also measures empathy they got from the advocate at Lemonade

This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series (future-of-insurance.com).

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