The Salty Adjuster

“Indecision is not something that I think is worthwhile for the future. Take the damn first step.”

The insurance industry has an AI obsession. But before we automate everything under the sun, shouldn't we figure out what the hell we're trying to solve.

This week, Kabir Syed, founder and CEO of Ennabl and one of the godfathers of insurtech, joins The Salty Adjuster alongside returning guest Whitney Carpenter, fresh off being named a finalist for Insurance Influencer of the Year at the Global InsurTech Awards.

And neither is particularly interested in sugarcoating the industry's technology problems.

From garbage data and questionable AI investments to the uncomfortable question of who actually owns the information brokers have spent decades collecting, Kabir and Whitney challenge insurance professionals to stop chasing buzzwords and start asking better questions.

We get into why understanding insurance matters just as much as understanding technology, what brokers should demand from their vendors, and why waiting for the perfect AI strategy might be the worst strategy of all.

Along the way, Kabir makes surprising progress in convincing Salty to reconsider his longstanding hostility toward his refrigerator's Wi-Fi capabilities. We're not saying Salty is ready for a smart home. But diplomatic relations have improved.

And Whitney leaves listeners with perhaps the most important question of the episode: Which dinosaur would make the best account manager at an insurance brokerage? We expect answers. Defend your choice.

It's a conversation about innovation, ownership, trust, and the courage to get started, featuring two people who know the insurance industry well enough to challenge it.

Because the future isn't waiting for insurance to make up its mind.

Take the damn first step.

🎙️ Featuring Kabir Syed and Whitney Carpenter of Ennabl, with Salty and Producer Brett.

"AI-Powered. Slapping those two words on a product does not magically make it fully useful.”

AI is everywhere in insurance. But is it actually solving anything?

Fresh off being named a Global InsurTech Awards Insurance Influencer of the Year finalist, Whitney Carpenter returns to The Salty Adjuster, and this time she's joined by Ennabl CEO and founder, Kabir Syed, one of the originators of the Insurtech movement dating back to when he founded RiskMatch in 2012.

Kabir has spent years helping shape the insurance technology landscape, and he's got some thoughts about an industry suddenly convinced that artificial intelligence is the answer to everything.

Together both in their day jobs at Ennabl and on our next episode (dropping 11/1), Kabir and Whitney challenge the AI gold rush, the disconnect between technology developers and the people actually working in insurance, and the industry's habit of chasing shiny new tools before figuring out what problems need solving.

Because as Kabir puts it, maybe we're asking the wrong question. We should be asking: What if the future of AI in insurance starts with understanding the problem instead of buying another solution?

“By the time women get to their 40s and 50s … they’re tired of silencing themselves, or being extra polite, or whatever, you know? And so, someone else may interpret that as being unhinged, when they’re just … speaking their mind to the same extent that a man is speaking his mind, right?” — Dr. Amy Diehl

Too young to know what she’s doing. Might have a baby. Might be going through menopause. Women’s experience grows, and the excuses for questioning their credibility keep changing.

In part two of our conversation with technology executive, gender equity researcher, and Glass Walls co-author Dr. Amy Diehl, we explore how age bias follows women throughout their careers, and what happens when an experienced woman stops softening everything she says.

Amy explains how women in their 40s and 50s can be labeled “unhinged” or outspoken for expressing opinions with the same confidence routinely accepted from men. Producer Brett shares her own experiences and pushes back on the assumption that it somehow erases a woman’s competence, ambition, or hard-earned expertise.

The conversation extends to women’s physical safety, how employers respond when an adjuster feels unsafe, and the everyday actions that make someone a better colleague and ally. Salty and Producer Brett also share some statements from women recently impacted by inappropriate behavior at insurance trade shows in the hopes that we can shift to an industry that does better for female professionals.

Experience should build credibility. Women deserve workplaces where theirs counts.

Content note: This episode includes discussions of sexual assault, harassment, victim blaming, and personal experiences of trauma.

“I hire young people to teach me how to stay on the cutting edge.”

Mark Habersack has spent decades in risk management, and he still expects to learn from the newest people in the room.

Recorded live from In2Risk at Resorts World Las Vegas, this Grains of Salty minisode brings Salty together with the property’s Executive Director of Risk Management for a conversation about staying curious, listening across generations, and questioning the processes insurance keeps dragging into another renewal season.

Mark shares how he approaches AI adoption with his team, including his response when the CFO asked how many positions the technology would eliminate. He also explains why brokers and underwriters need to spend time inside the businesses they insure, and why a digital application that still needs to be printed and signed deserves a little scrutiny.

Plus: fabricated claims documents, an enthusiastic endorsement of New Zealand, and a dinosaur question that briefly catches our risk manager off guard.

This episode is sponsored by our friends at Barga. Every claim is different. Barga puts in the work to find the opportunity through reuse, repair, parts, or material recovery. Learn more at Barga.ca.

“The goal of hostility … is to push women back, keep them in their assigned place in the gender hierarchy, underneath the men.” — Amy Diehl

In the first of this two-part conversation, technology executive, gender equity researcher, and Glass Walls co-author Amy Diehl joins Salty and Producer Brett to name the barriers women encounter at work, including the ones they’ve been taught to blame themselves for.

They dig into “Queen Bee” behavior: women in leadership who protect their position by shutting other women out. Amy explains how discrimination and the message that there’s only room for one woman at the top can fuel that behavior. Brett shares how it can derail a promising pipeline of women in insurance who hoped someone would help open a door.

The conversation also tackles the constant demand to prove your expertise, the work women do that goes unrecognized, and the damage caused when leadership treats one woman at the table as enough.

Salty shares that in 10 years of property claims, he’s worked with only two women providing ladder assists. That observation opens a discussion about women in physically demanding roles, the assumptions made about their capabilities, and the “concern” for their safety that can become another excuse to hold them back.

Amy also explains why stepping away can become a rational choice for women, and what an industry loses when capable people decide they’ve had enough.

In Part 2: physical safety, age bias, motherhood, and what meaningful support from colleagues and employers should look like.

Please listen with care. If you'd like to share your own story, email TheSaltyAdjuster@gmail.com

“This industry has a place for people of any background.”

Brian Schmidt was managing a beer garden, working late nights, and changing kegs when a college friend told him about a job involving motorcycles, collector cars, and considerably less beer on his clothes.

That was his introduction to insurance.

Live from the CPCU Society’s In2Risk in Las Vegas, Brian joins Salty and Producer Brett to talk about the careers people don’t know exist in this industry, and why we need to do a better job explaining them.

He shares how experience in body shops, medical fields, and other professions can translate into meaningful insurance work. We also talk about making connections when you’re an introvert, what students can teach experienced professionals, and how previous guest Michael Koscielny Jr. helped Brian get involved in the CPCU community.

Plus: the work before and after every meeting, a swear jar for “connection,” and a motorcycle enthusiast’s reminder that we work in risk management, not risk elimination.

And finally, someone gives us a Spinosaurus.

This episode is sponsored by our friends at Barga. Barga connects insurance partners with buyers through online auctions, helping find opportunities for equipment, commercial goods, building materials, and household items. Learn more at Barga.ca.

“I was just a voice on the other end of the phone.”

Dr. Brad Gronke still receives Christmas cards from a woman whose husband died in a workplace accident. As the adjuster on that claim, he helped make it possible for her to speak with her husband one last time.

Live from the CPCU Society’s In2Risk in Las Vegas, Brad joins Salty and Producer Brett to talk about compassion, advocacy, and the recovery claims professionals need themselves.

Salty shares his own experience with vicarious trauma: handling a claim involving a 13-year-old boy who died by suicide. Six or seven years later, he still thinks about it. He remembers, too, the manager who paused his incoming assignments and checked on him, giving him time to process what he’d encountered.

Brad explains why that time matters and why leaders need to make room for it. We also discuss his hope that AI will give adjusters more time to listen and help.

There are laughs along the way: a humbling CPCU exam, a shared dislike of “circle back,” and the dinosaur dad routine that earned this episode its title.

This episode is sponsored by our friends at Barga. Barga connects insurance partners with buyers through online auctions, helping find opportunities for equipment, commercial goods, building materials, and household items. Learn more at Barga.ca.

“You have to learn to trust people.”

Early in Michael Koscielny Jr.’s underwriting career, a manager helped him think through a decision, then trusted him to make it. He’s carried that lesson ever since.

In our fourth of ten episodes recorded Live from the CPCU Society’s In2Risk in Las Vegas, the former CPCU Society president, educator, author, and founder of Born2Lead joins Salty and Producer Brett to share what 44 years in insurance have taught him, and what his students are teaching him now.

Michael credits Precious Norman-Walton’s “Your network is your net worth” advice as a reminder to use his connections to help others. He also shares how previous guest and friend of the show Chris Stanley helped inspire his minibook approach to writing.

We talk about mentors who become students, students who ask good questions, and why Michael now teaches the CPCU accounting class he once needed a tutor to pass.

Plus: whether someone can be Born2Lead and still run a terrible meeting, another questionable CPCU acronym, and a dinosaur choice we respect.

This episode is sponsored by our friends at Barga. Barga connects insurance partners with buyers through online auctions, helping find opportunities for equipment, commercial goods, building materials, and household items. Learn more at Barga.ca.

“My mom’s my hero.”

You know Heather Blevinsas the insurance rebel, an advocate for claims professionals, and our associate producer. Her daughter, Alora Bailey, knows the woman who came home after those long days.

In our third of ten interviews conducted at CPCU's #In2Risk this week, Alora sits down with Salty and Producer Brett to talk about growing up around the claims floor, watching her mom study for her CPCU, and learning from her example. Now working in finance, Alora still turns to Heather for encouragement when work gets difficult.

She talks about her mom’s confidence, her empathy, and the exhaustion that people outside the family didn’t always see. She also shares how proud she is to watch an industry she grew up around embrace someone she’s loved her whole life.

Of course, being an insurance professional’s daughter comes with a few stories. There’s a very Heather response to a car accident, an unsuccessful attempt to roast Mom, and a favorite dinosaur with a family memory attached.

We’re grateful Alora shared her mom with us.

This episode is sponsored by our friends at Barga. Learn more at Barga.ca.

“We lose the fact that we are a human business.”

The tools got faster. The workload got bigger. Someone scheduled another meeting about it.

Live from the CPCU Society’s In2Risk 2026 in Las Vegas, Venbrook Chief Claims Officer Awais Farooq joins Salty and Producer Brett for a candid conversation about leading people, staying curious, and preparing for the future of claims.

Awais shares why every employee needs something different from a leader, how a little designation envy can motivate your next career move, and why adjusters need to keep learning as AI changes the job.

Then we get into coffee-fueled action figures, meetings that could have been emails, and which insurance executives are getting voted off the island. His pick for a mandatory conference session? “Being Human.”

This episode is sponsored by our friends at Barga. Every claim is different. Barga puts in the work to find the opportunity. Let’s talk about your next claim at http://www.Barga.ca.

“Community is everything.” When you live and work in the Bahamas, those words carry the weight of what it takes to rebuild after a storm.

Live from the CPCU Society’s In2Risk conference in Las Vegas, Salty and Producer Brett sit down with Ranesha Dean, the Society’s International Ambassador and branch manager at Caribbean Alliance Insurance in the Bahamas.

Ranesha shares her perspective on Caribbean resilience, the relationships that sustain communities through disaster, and the people who helped her see herself as a leader. She reflects on her mother’s encouragement and a late mentor who gave her the support and space to grow.

We also talk about making connections as an introvert, staying curious throughout your career, and why insurance could use a designation in relationship studies. Plus, Ranesha clears up a few things Americans get wrong about the Bahamas and explains why someone who already lives near a beautiful beach might choose Vegas.

This episode is sponsored by our friends at https://barga.ca

“We lose out when we lose these very capable women.”

Next week, The Salty Adjuster welcomes Amy Diehl, Ph.D., for a two-part conversation about the state of women working in insurance, including some difficult, candid dialogues about credibility, opportunity, safety, and whose voices get heard.

Amy is an award-winning technology executive, chief information officer at Wilson College, and gender equity researcher with 17 years devoted to studying the barriers women face. She is the co-author of Glass Walls: Shattering the Six Gender Bias Barriers Still Holding Women Back at Work, and her writing has appeared in Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and Ms. Magazine.

In this trailer for Part 1, Amy joins Salty and Producer Brett to unpack the “credibility deficit”: the extra work women do to establish expertise their male colleagues are often assumed to have. For women in claims, that can mean more questions, more explanations, and more time defending decisions. When performance review season arrives, who accounts for that time? In the expanded episodes, part 1 and 2, we will address recent SA violence in the news, including the situation at Cornell. Trigger warnings will be applied; please listen with care.

Across both episodes, we explore the barriers that shape women’s careers, the personal cost of navigating them, and what colleagues and leaders can do to help. Some of these conversations are uncomfortable. They deserve space on the microphone.

We’re also taking the conversation beyond the show. The Salty Adjuster and CoVerse Communications are offering women’s safety webinars, along with a larger “State of Women Working” lunch-and-learn-style Zoom webinar in November. Everyone is welcome, including the colleagues, managers, and leaders who want to better understand women’s experiences and help improve them.

Listen to the trailer, look for both episodes next week, and stay tuned for webinar dates and registration details.

Casual Professionals, Chronically Unhinged. Certified Professional Chaos Understander. Claims People Crying Uncontrollably.

We’re pretty sure CPCU stands for Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter, but we have some proposals. Salty objects to “crying uncontrollably” because you have to be able to turn it off when the phone rings.

In this Grains of Salty episode, Associate Producer Heather Blevins, our resident Insurance Rebel and an actual CPCU, gets Salty and Producer Brett ready for In2Risk in Las Vegas next week. It’s Salty’s first Vegas trip beyond the airport, and Heather is responsible for getting us invited. Please direct all risk assessment questions to her.

Heather shares how chasing a trip to Hawaii led to a designation and a community that changed her career, why you don’t need those four letters to get involved, and how mentoring and connections can put your name in rooms you haven’t entered yet. We also cover comfortable shoes, depleted social batteries and a proposed CPCU dinosaur mascot with an endorsement for its fourth appendage.

Headed to In2Risk? Come find us. We’re friendly, curious and apparently someone’s acceptable risk.

“Once you get that binder, once you get the policy, that’s your ticket to dance. That’s not the end of the relationship, that’s the very beginning of it.”

Matthew Struck joins Salty and Producer Brett to talk about what happens after the sale, when coverage meets a catastrophe and someone is counting on you to help them get their life back.

The insurance broker, entrepreneur and Ungovernable podcast host traces his unlikely path from biomedical engineering to building an agency from scratch. He shares what Hurricane Sandy taught him about the business, why brokers and adjusters need to understand each other’s work, and how good advocacy can move a claim forward without adding another person yelling into the phone.

We also get into the cost of owning your own business, an industry that keeps poaching talent while expecting someone else to train it, and what Matthew learned by questioning his own assumptions.

Plus: an emergency penguin rescue, a wildly underfunded movie pitch and a Nirvana entrance worthy of an insurance conference.

Come as you are. Bring your questions. And please don't forget to vote for The Salty Adjuster in the Signal Awards! Signal Listener's Choice

“The people that are busy telling you they’re important usually aren’t that good.”

Alex Bond spends his days helping InsurTech businesses hire leaders. He’s picked up a few things about the ones people actually want to work for.

The FinPro founder, recruiter and Leadership in Insurance podcast host joins Salty and Producer Brett for a candid conversation about why people leave jobs, what “we work hard and play hard” might be hiding, and the trouble with founders who decide they’ve mastered insurance before hiring anyone who’s worked in it.

We talk about curiosity, ego and choosing a career that fits your own definition of success. Alex also shares what he’s learned from supporting women in InsurTech, including why women keep getting asked about motherhood and imposter syndrome when they came to talk about their expertise.

Then we hand him three hires to build his InsurTech dream team. He names names, risks some friendships and gives us a little MySpace Top 8 drama.

Plus: why he’d keep podcasts and put LinkedIn in the bin, the interview question worth asking, and a compelling case for hiring a velociraptor to run compliance.

An insurance broker, a hurricane and an aquarium full of penguins. Naturally, we’re trying to get Tom Hardy involved.

Matthew Struck joins Salty and Producer Brett with a Hurricane Sandy story involving a failing generator, an emergency gasoline run he nearly had to make and penguins he absolutely could not let down. Within minutes, we’re pitching a rescue movie with laser guns, Terminators and a suspicious resemblance to Mad Max meets Operation Dumbo Drop.

Get a taste of our conversation with Matthew, then catch the full episode (S2E7) of The Salty Adjuster coming tomorrow. Tom Hardy, your people can call our people.

Love our goofy trailers? PLEASE vote for us in the Signal Awards people's choice for BEST TRAILER! We are honored to be a finalist and need your help to take home the gold.Vote here: Signal Listener's Choice

“I had no idea that just showing up to work, a smile on my face, was doing anything but masking my own pain and my own agony.”

Natalie Arroyave was a teenager rebuilding her life after Hurricane Katrina when someone told her that her presence had helped save their life. She hadn’t known what they were going through. They hadn’t known the full weight of what she was carrying, either.

That experience stayed with her. So did losing her family’s home, which sat under 13 feet of water for three weeks. Years later, she pursued claims because she knew what it felt like to be the person who had lost everything.

For World Mental Health Day, we’re sharing “After the Storm,” our conversation with Natalie about mental health, claims and showing up for each other.

Natalie is a Certified General Adjuster, president of the Louisiana Claims Association, a RISE mentor and Baton Rouge ambassador, and the host of Adjuster Hour. Her show began with an hour she set aside every day for her adjusting crew to ask questions, work through claims and get to know one another.

She and Salty talk about the loneliness of fieldwork, burnout and what happens when you’re struggling but don’t know whether it’s safe to tell your manager. They also get specific about support: making time for your team, helping with an overwhelming workload and taking their concerns seriously.

There are laughs along the way. Salty immediately calls the collaboration “The Salty Adjuster Hour,” and they compare notes on roof arguments, deleted email responses and why Natalie wants absolutely nothing to do with your crawl space.

Read Natalie's moving post about suicide prevention which we reference throughout the episode, here: https://lnkd.in/p/gS85X4Se

And if you'd like to vote for The Salty Adjuster in The Signal Awards as referenced during the show's commercial, here is the link to do so. https://bit.ly/3U7kBrf⁠

We appreciate each and every one of you!

"If you want to be treated as a trusted advisor, act like a trusted advisor. Even if it’s detrimental or if it’s risky for you.”

Tell clients the bad news early. Know their business. Return the call. And when a claim happens, be there.

Chris Poveromo, president of the brokerage division at Poms & Associates, joins Salty and Producer Brett to talk about the everyday work that earns a broker the next call, the next referral and the client’s trust.

Chris once swore he’d never follow his dad into insurance. Twenty-five years into the business, he shares what separates a great broker from an average one: understanding a client’s industry, preventing losses and helping them through the claims that can turn their business upside down.

We talk about giving clients months of warning before a difficult renewal, why empathy can mean pushing someone toward an uncomfortable decision and how AI helps Chris ask better questions. He also gets candid about brokerage consolidation, investing in producers and why Poms is committed to staying private.

Plus: his former life as a baseball umpire, why preparation now beats instinct and a dinosaur name that takes the whole team to figure out.

Enjoy our conversation with Chris Poveromo of Poms & Associates.

“If I have a friend who is eating, I see has a pack of Starbursts and I ask for one and they hand me a yellow, they’re not the friend I thought they were.”

She’s new here, but she already knows where she stands.

Assistant Producer Sophia Fouse joins Salty and Producer Brett for a family episode about how Team Salty came together, what 32 episodes taught us and becoming a Signal Awards finalist in our first four months.

First, the origin story: Sophia moved to Chicago looking for opportunities. Brett and Salty walked into the restaurant where she was serving, looking for lunch. One conversation and a handwritten exchange of contact information later, we had a new teammate.

Then Sophia turns the questions on us. We revisit the conversation with Precious Norman Walton, for which the trailer became a Signal Awards finalist. We also talking openly about how grief matters to listeners and what it felt like to realize people we’d never met were listening.

And, if you've EVER dreamed of starting your own podcast, we give you the full scoop from both Salty's and Producer Brett's perspectives. One of them says "DO IT" and the other's answer is a little more complex. You might be surprised by what you learn.

“I also once worked in the produce department of a grocery store and I don’t eat fruits or vegetables.” — Salty

Naturally, we finish with cereal theology, Starburst loyalties, dinosaurs and rapid-fire answers that are absolutely not rapid, plus the worst thing Starbucks has ever called Brett.

Welcome to our chosen Salty family, Sophia. Pink Starbursts are on us.

Support Team Salty by voting for The Salty Adjuster in the Signal Awards HERE (https://bit.ly/3U7kBrf ) , and PLEASE subscibe and follow the show wherever you listen. Have a rapid-fire question for us? Send it to thesaltyadjuster@gmail.com.

Welcome to Season 2 and to our new "minisode" series "Grains of Salty: Behind the Episode." Going forward, these five minute snippets will capture Team Salty's reaction to pivotal conversations. Today, Assistant Producer Sophia interviews Salty and Producer Brett on being named Signal Award Finalists in the "Best Trailer" category. If you didn't listen to the episode that earned them these accolades, go back and revisit Season 1: Episode 20 "Lament" with Precious Norman Walton here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5nRgHRnD0pYsjpsjuIVpEq?si=Cg9rfEOgRGaVvz_XvbLJwQ

Salty reflects on why this particular episode is the one he's the proudest of, and Producer Brett gives the details behind assembling the trailer that earned the nomination.

Speaking of the Signal Awards... We need your support to take home the GOLD! You can vote here (please do!): https://bit.ly/3U7kBrf