Embracing Technology in Insurance with Tim Hardcastle, CEO and Co-Founder of Instanda
In the latest episode of Risk Management: Brick by Brick, Jason Reichl takes a trip to InsureTech Connect 2023 to chat with some of the best in the Risk Management world. This time, he chats with Tim Hardcastle, CEO and Co-Founder of Instanda, a SaaS company delivering unprecedented flexibility to designing, distributing, and managing any type of insurance product on a global basis.
https://youtu.be/ii7b2GzYsZk?si=6oaZp0GAbaGM-MnL
Jason and Tim dig into the insurtech revolution and how that has changed the insurance industry for the better, the future and outright importance of brokerages, and what makes a successful customer.
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Technology in Insurance
It wasn’t until five years ago that the insurtech revolution truly began with a wave of change and overhype when the industry saw how modern technology could make insurance more agile.
Over the past five years, technology has progressed rapidly, and company boards are now aware and expectant of the potential of tech to make their lives easier and their jobs more efficient.
The Future of Brokers
Over the past decade, insurance growth has stagnated. In fact, today less than 15% of insurance transactions globally are direct-to-consumers. Following the insurtech revolution of five years, more and more products have become fully digitized, so this statistic makes sense, as most consumers will be acting within a self-service model.
However, even with the insurtech wave, there are still a lot of complexities and diversities around insurance. This is why Tim actively advocates for intermediaries, i.e., brokers. They know their customers and can thus assist and enable the creation of personalized products backed up by technology that can be set up for customers on a timeline that suits them.
But they still have a way to go, as Tim would like to see more brokers take on a more sophisticated advisory role. He says, “What we would like to see is the brokers being increasingly sophisticated in the kind of advice moving not just from here’s your product, but leading into some of the preventative advice that the customers would expect.”
What it Takes to be a Successful Customer
When Instanda first started, albeit before the insurtech revolutionary wave, they focused on making insurers’ lives easier through leveraging technology. Today, they have helped many different businesses design, distribute, and manage their insurance products through implementing digital strategies. But what does it take to be a good customer for them and other companies?
Well, those who are successful often have a progressive mindset, with a clear statement of intent of where they want to go and what they want to achieve. Ultimately, implementing a digital strategy requires a company culture that engages your wider team members with the goals and outcomes of the changes. In fact, Tim has seen projects go wrong when underwriters are not actively engaged, instead fighting tooth and nail against the implementation of any strategy. Tim says, “The thing still to change is that behavioral component, and that’s not a technology issue. That’s just a pure old traditional change management issue.”
To find out more insights from Tim on the insurtech revolution and its impact on the industry, tune in to this episode of Risk Management: Brick by Brick.
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