The Insurance Podcast

Commercial insurance has always been product that helps a broker establish their value proposition, now as Quoteyapproaches it's next incarnation, CEO and co-founder Nick Kidd, explains in part one of this two part series how it's not longer a commercial app and quoting tool, but a serviceable CRM.

In this episode:

• How commercial insurance technology is changing for the brokers
• Why a CRM for commercial products is needed in a fragmented market
• Why PDFs are where data goes to die
• When being more like an underwriter is going to lead to better client experience and rates
• How the gaps within existing technology are affecting broker's ability to service

Nick is a passionate entrepreneur and innovator and is not only seeing where the future of commercial insurance is going but building the infrastructure for brokers to succeed.

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The women in insurance cancer crusade, or WICC, is more than an insurance based charity, it is a purpose to change how we address cancer and support the fight against it. We had the pleasure to sit down with the current co-chairs and past chair to talk about it's origins, the stigma of cancer, and how it grew to be the most important charitable initiative in the insurance industry.

In this episode:

• Why the importance 'women' in the history of WICC matters
• The journey of support for those with cancer in the insurance industry and beyond
• How the organization became a national brand
• What the value is for donations and how contributions are managed so effectively
• How the milestone of 30 years is just a start

Marilyn, Garth and Amanda share their beliefs, passion and vision for WICC and how it makes an impact far beyond the insurance industry.

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As the CEO ofXceedance Arun Balakrishnan has seen many tech changes through his career starting with selling online in India. He explains how AI does not have to upend your vision, team, and tech stack to find success with it.

In this episode:

• Who the companies will be who find success with AI, and sustain it.
• Why there will not be winners in the AI race but those who get left behind
• How to consider token usage, budgeting and maximizing ROI
• Where the most practical value lies for brokers, insurers, MGAs, and almost every insurance entity

Arun has lived the experience he speaks about with AI and shares his war stories, expertise and more to help drive understanding instead of fear with AI and the future it will play across the insurance industry.

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When insurance industry leaders want learn they show up at NICC. As we sit one month away from this conference in Quebec City, this episode will profile speakers, the agenda, and why NICC is an essential event year after year.

In this epiosde:

• What's in store for attendees
• How topics and themes are chosen
• The importance of government in the industry
• M&A panel preview
• How a new initiative makes charitable giving for insurance easier
• Previews of claims, AI, trade, and trucking panels.

We're excited to have Nevina Kishun, Marc Lipman, Stuart Carruthers and Koker Christensen talk about the conference, their roles and what's in store this year.

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It's not often someone who's business touches insurance in almost all global regions wants to share their view but Michal Trochimczuk sat down to share where he sees progress, successes, and challenges with P&C insurance and the lessons learned.

In this episode:

• What global trends need to be noticed
• The similar needs that insurers have no matter where they are
• How brokers integrate with insurers
• Why speed to decisions is driving experience for insurers
• Where successes are happening globally and why
• How challenges emerge and are they region specific or learning opportunities

Michal shows why Sollers is a sought after firm for advising insurers on many aspects of their business with his thoughtful and candid answers and insights. It's rare to have access to someone with such a refined global view and expertise and he provides insights few will find elsewhere.

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Shelley Billinghurst isn't trying to disrupt recruitment for the insurance industry but she might disrupt how insurance approaches finding great talent. As the President and founder of Hire Value Shelley has some insights about the insurance industry and it's talent attraction practices that are long overdue to be heard.

In this episode:

• Why insurance career ads are like bland drapes to good talent
• How hiring software stifles great talent identification
• Why saying you have a great culture really doesn't say much at all
• When allowing expression becomes the most important part of your brand
• How to promote your brand and not the bland

As a fellow podcaster Shelley is a great speaker and and provides an entertaining look at how insurance lags and why the results prove it and what can be done to change those results, if you date.

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Reinsurance seems to be spoken about but still largely misunderstood. Gavin Lillywhite, SVP with Xceedance pulls back the curtain and explains how reinsurance is evolving and the role it plays. With reinsurers being far more aggressively focused with their capacity and finding new opportunities for distribution, Gavin explores what the industry is asking for and how those requests are being answered.

In this episode:

• How the underwriting behind reinsurance is evolving and modernizing
• Why reinsurers are leveraging new data for growth
• Where new services and insights are required to sustain profitiballity
• How reinsurance shapes capacity through the distribution channel
• Why AI is also a tool at the highest levels and where it's impact is seen

Gavin has a great many years of experience but more importantly he can address new issues and problems without losing the lens of the past the lessons that sometimes seem forgotten.

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Smythe LLP has been producing a P&C brokerage report for a number of years so we had Alex Wong, Partner in Advisory Services, talk about the data and answer a few questions about the state of the brokerage industry last year.

In this episode:

• What are the fears most brokers have?
• How are the trends driving change and where?
• Will consolidation continue and how?
• Where are the growth opportunities?
• What do brokers need to do to keep having sucess?
• How will technology impact the future of the channel?

It's never easy to be honest and up front about an industry that is changing so fast, but Alex lays out the facts and backs it up with data and his own experience advising companies.

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Ty Robben is not a tech expert, nor is he an AI wizard. In fact he's an underwriter and someone who probably leans more to the 'old fashioned' way of doing things but that does not mean he's not trying make business processes better. We met via social media on X as Ty described his efforts to build practical AI solutions for his needs. He has been journalling his process and we wanted to talk to the man in person and hear how he bucked the trend of outsourcing and decided to build it himself.

In this episode:

• How AI has become a tool for Ty and the processes he wants to improve
• Where he has seen AI providers miss the mark entirely
• What problems insurance entities & people face that AI can help with
• Some of the challenges that still exist with AI that no one wants to address
• How easy and accessible solving problems with AI tools is and where you can start

Ty is a soft spoken but incredibly curious insurance professional, and shares his journey from entering the industry to now building process solutions with AI despite not being a 'techie' or part of an IT team. He simply sees a better way and has decided to pursue it!

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Reinsurance has long been looked at as the top end of the insurance capital food chain but with marketing conditions changing rapidly, understanding how reinsurance works and how it is more accessible than ever has never been more important. At ReConnect in the Cayman Islands, the industry is blowing up as companies set up in a favourable market with strong regulations.

In this episode:

• Why offshore jurisdictions thrive with reinsurance
• How regulation and compliance support access to capital around the globe
• Where the reinsurance industry sees growth and potential
• How ReConnect is bringing awareness and creating value for the insurance industry
• Why access to reinsurance has become easier for more entities and how Cayman supports the industry.

The three panelists share their perspectives on the growth of reinsurance, how it is regulated to support the industry in many jurisdications and why having an event like Reconnect can help many insurance organizations create new opportunities for growth.

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James Benham isn't trying to convince insurance entities to transform and modernize, he knows that's inevitable. His company JBK is there to help insurance organizations realize potential and minimize the pain along the way. In a rare business model, James and his team provide the services that allow for realization of solutions, not a one size fits all approach.

In this episode:

• Why so much waste happens by building the wrong product.
• How Excel as an underlying language and format needs to be replaced.
• Where insurance technology transformations stall and fail
• What pitfalls insurance entities are prone to experience, and why

James is not trying to upend the industry and reinvent it, a refreshing stance, more importantly he provides a path forward for companies that need to evolve and cannot afford more 'tech debt' or solutions that cannot fulfill needs.

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Jai Mansukhani didn't plan to develop AI systems for insurance however he saw an opportunity to bring expertise into an industry that needed more than another tech product. When he co-founded General Magic the name was Open Sesame but now with an incredible $7.2m seed round and a pivot in purpose and strategy Jai see's opportunity for growth and value to the insurance industruy.

In this episode:

• Learn about the challenges tech companies have when dealing with the insurance industry
• What are the most misunderstood aspect of AI and insurance
• Why some aspects of insurance still remain perplexing and frustrating
• How building partnerships slowly helps innovation
• An honest assessment of where & how insurance professionals can find value with AI

Jai shares his journey, lessons learned, and provides a candid look at how technology needs to be prepared to adapt for insurance and not the other way around.

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Steve Pieroway is no stranger to technology or insurance with a career spanning over 25 years across both fields. Now as the founder of Benevolent Marketing Steve has conducted an insuretech trust index survey and recently published the results. We caught up with Steve to help contextualize the results and dive deeper into insuretech consumer sentiment.

In this episode:

• What the data shows and how to interpret it
• Context to nuances in the questions and responses
• Why positive belief still reigns for most users of insuretech
• How insuretechs can improve their value proposition for better satisfaction
• Why understanding what ROI is needed before embarking on a purchase is important

Steve explains all this and so much more that is vital information for anyone who is looking to make an insuretech investment.

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Visualping isn't a new company but it is a new entrant to insurance. Co-founder and CEO Serge Salager drops by to discuss how his company is attempting to become the Google Alerts for insurance with real-time risk insights.

In this episode:

• How real-time data can help underwriters assess and monitor risk
• Where new data sources for understanding and managing risk are coming from
• How partnerships with distribution channels can lead to sales opportunities
• Why real-time data can prevent loss and tragedy

Serge shares a candid look at how this technology is used in other industries and what it can do for insurance as the new entrant and who can benefit by adopting this for risk management.

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2025 was a year for the making for the podcast and P&C insurance. Not only did we find ourselves at a variety of different events, these allowed the show to tap into new content and perspectives. So take a stroll down what was 2025 and get ready for some thoughts on where 2026 will go and what to look for.

In this episode

• Where technology and data align and what innovation is happening
• How to understand transformation and scale to your insurance needs
• Why industry partnerships are important and how leaders look at valuing partnerships
• The effect of CAT losses and how they drive insurance
• Why finding niches are important but so is effective insurance marketing

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It's time to revisit some of the highlights of 2025 as we enter into 2026 and the impending changes across insurance. This episode is a collection of interviews from various leaders and companies who were in attendance. What we did was take the themes that all the guests naturally arrived at without prompting.

Learn where the change is happening in macro purposes and micro usage examples. Whether you are looking at enterprise systems and strategies or smaller solutions where the industry is heading matters and this episodes gives you a roadmap with insights that a practical and with evidence of success and how they are growing and finding success.

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The Guidewire Connections event that happens every year is not just a celebration for the SaaS insurance software provider, it's a chance see the vision, and extended ecosystem of partners who make the value come alive. Curt Wyatt attended the event this year and was there when news broke, heard from partners about the future of service and value along with some interesting and perhaps more pragmatic takes on AI.

In this episode:

• Joseph Desouza from Pro Navigator on merging with Guidewire
• How claims tech is being powered by AI and the value insurers are seeking
• Why document ingestion and managing unstructured data is becoming more of a priority
• Hear from partners who are helping Guidewire grow and deliver value by experience

This episode is a compilation of thoughts from various people and sheds light on how key industry partners are working to deliver a bigger vision and better experience together.

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Reuters puts on many events and coming up is the Future of Insurance Canada, held in Toronto. As the industry adapts and manages market changes, trade tensions, and global issues we sat down with Ollie Smith, from Reuters Events to learn about the event and how it is evolving to meet the needs of the insurance industry for the future.

In this episode:

• Why curating content has to be constant to deliver value
• Showcasing the Dragon's Den panel and who are the dragons?
• Why the issue of technological debt for insurance has to be discussed
• Pete appearing on a live debate panel- what????
• How AI will affect the next generation of insurance talent
• Global issues that affect insurance locally, for everyone
•

Ollie shares the needs he hears from industry and how they have put together the content, speakers and guests to deliver a leading edge look into the future about insurance and what changes the industry sees coming.

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It's rare to get access to underwriters let alone actuaries but this episode features both as Ashley Karg and Kelly Gates from McGill & Partnersjoin the show. They share their perspectives on what goes into underwriting and the actuarial process behind and a whole lot more including debuting Arkana a proprietary solution to help bridge the knowledge gap within insurance.

In this episode:

• How the Peace Corps shaped a vision to insurance for one guest
• Why their technology helps empower risk managers for renewals and beyond
• What challenges risk managers experience when pricing risks
• How developing technology for insurance has to deal with 'real world' scenarios and not mathematical simulations
• A hilarious discovery in Declared Interests
• Candid insight into how risk are looked at, rated, priced, and covered within policies.

Kelly and Ashley are more than competent insurance professionals, they present complex and difficult issues with grace, technical aptitude, and more than a little humor as we explore how technology is driving change after the application is submitted.

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Before the advent of embedded screens in almost all vehicles there used to be accessories to help navigate and guide your trips and often it was a TomTomdevice. This episode features Vinod Poomalai the Product Marketing Leader for TomTom talking about how their location data is powering aspects of many insurance products and services.

In this episode:

• How location data is driving underwriting decisions
• What is contained in location data that is not readily apparent
• How any insurance entity can connect with APIs for real-time processes
• Why location data is helping with CAT events and loss reduction
• Learn how underwriting subjectivities are being developed using distinct attributes
• How the volume of data sources is growing and what it will help in the future

Using data is essential for insurance success, but powering your data with realtime connectivity and a growing pool of data sources will be absolutely necessary to compete and prosper int he future. Vinod and TomTom share the now and what's coming for the insurance industry with location data.

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