Season 2, Episode 8 | Bryan Falchuk, Insurance Industry Technology Expert & Author of 'The Future of
Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's time for InsurTalk with insurance industry tech geek and Guidewire chief evangelist, Laura Drabik. In this podcast series, we don't just talk about innovative ideas and P&C insurance, we talk with industry trailblazers about the big ideas they made happen and how they did it. If you're looking for insights on the trends and technologies reshaping the industry, an all new InsurTalk starts now.
Laura Drabik (00:27):
Welcome to InsurTalkk. My name is Laura Drabik and I'm the chief evangelist at Guidewire. In this episode, I have the privilege of interviewing Bryan Falchuk, insurance and Insurtech executive and advisor. Bryan is also a best selling author, leadership coach and professional speaker. The focus of today's discussion will be on The Future of Insurance, which coincidentally is the title of Bryan's best selling book series. Hello, Bryan, thank you for joining my podcast.
Bryan Falchuk (00:57):
Thank you so much for having me on, Laura.
Laura Drabik (00:58):
Tell our listeners about yourself and how you spread thoughtful ideas on the future of insurance.
Bryan Falchuk (01:03):
Sure. I'm an insurance veteran. I've been in the P&C space in particular for just over 20 years, and I've had the pleasure and honor of working for a couple different carriers and then also spending some time at McKinsey in their insurance practice. And I got my dream job. I was in the C-suite of the last carrier I was at and I left to join an Insurtech right after they raised their series A, which a lot of people were scratching their heads. Like why would you do that?
Bryan Falchuk (01:26):
But it was fun and exciting and interesting. And there's so much going on in this industry, what a great way to see the other side of the equation and the movement going on. And so I ended up leaving that after a year to try to help more insurers more Insurtechs kind of navigating this really interesting time of change and opportunity.
Laura Drabik (01:45):
In your book, The Future of Insurance: From Disruption to Evolution, you described the first disruption of insurance being from the internet.
Bryan Falchuk (01:51):
Yes.
Laura Drabik (01:52):
The new idea being that people would actually want to quote or even buy insurance online. So Bryan, how did insurers navigate this disruption and what did they learn from this experience?
Bryan Falchuk (02:02):
It was so funny, Laura, because it wasn't just the internet. It was, people were like, "Have you heard of this internet thing?" Like we had to use the word thing, because we didn't quite know what it was yet. That's how early days it was. But I think it was a time where Renters was just starting to think about offering quotes online. I mean, it was really early in what the internet was going to mean for the industry. And I don't think people had figured it out and there was a ton of doomsday predictions going on. I mean, that was the first thing I got my first day at Liberty Mutual where I started my career. Was someone's like, "Did you hear about this internet thing? Agents and brokers are going to be gone in like a year."
Bryan Falchuk (02:34):
And of course over 20 years later, that's not been the case, but a lot has changed. And I think for so much of us in the industry, we engaged in the question of what the internet could be in more traditional ways, which were much more insular, waterfall kind of approach and with trepidation. And I think if you fast forward to today, you're seeing a lot more discussion about customer centricity and how you engage in these new ways of transacting and trying to listen to what customers and your various partners actually need and meeting that instead of presuming the answers for them.
Bryan Falchuk (03:05):
So we still have progress we need to make as an industry, but that was probably the biggest learning is for a lot of folks, we thought we were just digitizing the paper that we had always dealt with, or removing the facts and doing it through a webpage. And that's not really the right answer because it's a totally different medium. And a lot of use cases and use styles still needed to develop. So it's been really interesting to watch. It's kind of strange after 20 years seeing some carriers still sort of stumbling in that respect, but I think for the vast majority, things really have changed dramatically and it's not so much what they're doing online or how they're doing it, it's the way they're coming to those answers of what to do online. And that's a totally different kind of engagement, which I love to see.
Laura Drabik (03:43):
I couldn't agree with you more. It isn't about just digitizing the paper. It's about new ways of doing business, new styles, new frameworks. And by the way, Bryan, I think my father still refers to it as that internet thing.
Bryan Falchuk (03:56):
Yeah. It's just a thing. It's a phase, really?
Laura Drabik (03:57):
Yes.
Bryan Falchuk (03:57):
It'll pass.
Laura Drabik (03:58):
It'll pass. So how did online quoting and issuance impact agents and agency distribution models?
Bryan Falchuk (04:05):
It was a really tense time in the 2000-ish time period because of all of the end of insurance agents kind of mentality. And so you saw carriers' hands were being forced from a channel conflict standpoint. For most carriers, the way that they were going about it was figuring out how to ascribe credit for the sale that came through the internet to some agent. At Liberty, we had our own salespeople so it was figuring out like what local salesperson got credit for that sale versus if you work through independent agents sending the insured to that agent's page and giving the agent credit. It reminds me of actually what Best Buy was doing with their online portal. And of course we don't really think much about buying technology products and other consumer goods online. But in the early days, Best Buy was so invested in stores, they would give local stores credit for those sales based on where the purchase was made.
Bryan Falchuk (04:54):
But in reality, the store had nothing to do with that sale. And so you could call it crutches. You could call it enabling a problem in the industry, instead of recognizing what was really going on and finding another way to navigate. And that's what we've come to today. So you don't see carrier X round robinning sort of who gets credit for this direct sale to whatever local agents they have in the area. You see totally different tools at play.
Bryan Falchuk (05:16):
And so we have historically agents sold carriers who are also selling direct or selling through a variety of different platforms that maybe aren't technically direct, but there are alternative distribution that could be seen as a direct threat to the agents. But then you also see those agents really accepting and embracing a lot of these same platforms as ways to digitize their business because they need those things too.
Bryan Falchuk (05:37):
So I think it was a difficult moment for the industry. I don't know that we necessarily navigated it perfectly, but things were so early it was hard to figure out what perfectly looked like. And today you see much more openness and collaboration on both sides. And I think that's a big part of why agents are still around. I think, at least in many lines, they will be for a good long while, if not forever, because it's about everybody evolving instead of taking it as a threat that you need to fight against.
Laura Drabik (06:02):
Speaking of seeing agents forever, according to Oxbow's latest report on glacial shifts in P&C value, independent agents will steadily increase in value up until the year 2030. So this makes sense due to economic reasons as well as growth opportunities by providing carriers with access to existing distribution channels for new lines. So Bryan, do you have any thoughts on the future of independent agency models and how the strategy will evolve in the future?
Bryan Falchuk (06:28):
It's a tricky one to pin down the exact specifics of what lines of business and how big and what market segments and all that. But what I do know is the war cries from a lot of the Insurtech insurers were around how stupid distribution and insurance is. "A lot of things in insurance are stupid," is what a lot of them were saying. But in particular distribution's so broken. Why would you pay an agent or a broker 12, 15, 20%? That's such a waste. We can just sell direct. Look what we're doing with our tech background, we can just cut them out and instantly we're going to have 15 percentage point better economics than any of these incumbents.
Bryan Falchuk (07:02):
And you kept hearing that same refrain over and over again. And with almost zero exception, they pretty much all turned on agents and brokers. And it's because for a lot of these startups, they realized, you know what, distribution and insurance is incredibly hard and it's also not free. Just because you're not pay commission, doesn't mean you're not paying. You're still paying for marketing and you have to build that brand and that market access and their customer acquisition costs for a lot of the startups is astronomical.
Bryan Falchuk (07:27):
A number of them also realized you can't tell customers how to do business with you. You need to recognize where customers are signaling that they want to transact and meet them there. And for some people that is through an agent. This is not a product that has high engagement, which means people aren't just like, "Oh, you know what? Let's go buy some insurance today." You don't ever see that. They bought something that they then have to get insured. And they probably wish that they didn't, that takes getting some help. And so I think what you find, especially with the startups, is a recognition that there are multiple channels and there will likely always be multiple channels. And that's okay.
Bryan Falchuk (08:00):
So I advise carriers to be aware of that and it cuts both ways. So it's not just about only direct is the only way to go, but it's also maybe being purely agent distributed, isn't always the right answer for everyone. And you may be okay with that and stay in the agent channel and that's fine, but just recognize that means you are selecting into a specific piece of the population. It could be a huge piece, but just understand what that means. It could be you have different risk characteristics in your insured base than if you saw the market more broadly. So there's nuances to it. And I just say above all else, you must meet the customer where they are and customers don't all do things the same way. And that's why I think the channel, direct, intermediate, we're going to be having the same debate for decades.
Laura Drabik (08:41):
I really like your point. You can't tell customers how to do business with you. So meet the customer where they are. Really well said. Bryan, you're well aware of the many headwinds that prevent insurers from innovating and evolving, like pressures from let's say compliance, regulatory bodies, distribution models, and the list continues. What is your favorite insure innovation story, an insurer that was able to overcome strong headwinds and still successfully evolve how they do business?
Bryan Falchuk (09:08):
I think there's one that is such a brilliant example of those moments where we say, "Oh, you know what? We can't because X. Bryan, I hear that story, but we can't do that because we're facing this over here. We've got this compliance constraint. Or our systems or this or our cat exposure is that." We all face the same constraints. Maybe not every carrier facing exactly the same ones as the next carrier. But as an industry, we all face the same things. And most of us face many of those same things in the same way.
Bryan Falchuk (09:35):
So what I love about this particular one that I'm going to share with you is it really busts that notion that you can't do it because... insert whatever barrier headwind that we all have. And the example is the State Compensation Insurance Fund of California.
Bryan Falchuk (09:48):
Well, first of all, there's a barrier, it's like, that's not a name that rolls off the tongue, right? It's not a marketing friendly kind of name. But SCIF, to save time on saying their full name, is a monoline comp carrier. That is actually a part of the state of California, for those who don't know. When we sit here and list off all the constraints we face as a carrier, they face the same ones. But when you talk about politics, "Oh, we've got all this politics in our company." They have all that. And they have actual politics because they're a unit of the state of California. Their CEO ultimate is beholden to the governor of California. And that governor changes every so many years. 99% of the carriers out there never face that kind of politics. They also have unionized staff in many of their roles.
Bryan Falchuk (10:27):
I was a chief claims officer. Their claims team is largely unionized, including the attorneys. I've never heard of that. And you start to layer all these things on. And when I hear a carrier saying, "We can't because X," I look at SCIF and I look at what they've been able to do, despite those same X's and 50 more that most other carriers aren't facing. And it gives me hope that maybe your barriers aren't as bad as you think they are, or maybe you're more capable of achieving change than you insist because they've done it. They've instituted automation and straight through processing and more digitization and a direct channel and all these other things. Can you get your staff to agree to training or using a new tool that could limit their job possibilities or the number of people who are needed in the business? Like automation and that fear that people have that they're going to get automated out of their job.
Bryan Falchuk (11:13):
One of the hardest places to do that in any industry is when your staff is unionized, because you have to get the union to approve that. Well, SCIF's able to do that. So they're able to put in new tools and streamline things and change their staffing needs by implementing these tools. But that takes having the union on side. And they've built a really good relationship with their staff and with their unions. I love that example because it gives me the ammo I need to come back at anyone who's like, "Oh no, we could never do that. Because we've got it hard." Yeah. So does everybody and some folks have it harder than you, so you can still do this.
Laura Drabik (11:42):
Excellent example. And in fact, we've had a number of our carrier customers where we've had to work with the union, not around them, in order to help them transform and innovate. So thanks for sharing. But what do you think was key to their success?
Bryan Falchuk (11:56):
There's something that really becomes clear as you talk to people across the organization. And it absolutely starts with their CEO who's got a ton of energy, this guy, Vernon Steiner. What it really was, was the genuine involvement of everybody. I've been at lots of carriers where we talk about doing like strategic projects and we're going to put people from the front lines in these working groups and we're going to involve everyone, empower everyone and they're all charged up. But the reality is you don't really do that much with your people after those little events or working groups. And maybe the people present their idea at the end to the C-suite and they get an Amazon gift card. And that's sort of the end of it. To me, that's not genuine involvement and engagement.
Bryan Falchuk (12:30):
For SCIF, literally the entire company was trained on things like design thinking and how to do customer journey maps and how to structure these projects. And literally everyone in the company was to participate in these project ideation groups. So they come up with an idea, they build the idea out and they make a proposal. And when I wrote the case, there had been 30 different proposals put up and 18 of them, at that point, had been, or were being implemented.
Bryan Falchuk (12:55):
So I think if we all look around at our own projects and our own ideas, how many carriers look at an 18 out of 30 success rate for ideas they came up with that actually were going to market? I think that's a pretty good hit rate. We wish our quotes were getting taken up at that rate. So that to me is a sign that whether you're an underwriter, a claims professional, an assistant, or what have you, everyone was involved. They were trained, they were engaged, they were empowered and they got to see what they were doing successfully, but actually also the things that weren't working out, it was okay to share that and talk about it instead of that project failed and we just don't talk about that anymore. It was very open and very inclusive. And I think that's a critical shift from a culture standpoint if you want to see these things succeed.
Laura Drabik (13:33):
Great information. When we come back after this short break, we'll continue our conversation with Bryan Falchuk.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
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Laura Drabik (13:54):
And welcome back to InsurTalk. This is Laura Drabik and I'm talking to Bryan Falchuk, industry executive and advisor. Okay. So global insurtech venture activity hit a new high in 2021. Insurtech funding reached 566 deals, an all time record, and 15.4 billion in capital. The majority of the investment though was not into new forms of tech to improve the efficiency of an insurance process, but into new forms of insurers. And in, particular digital insurers.
Laura Drabik (14:24):
If we follow the money, Bryan, do you think the market believes that we need to disrupt the entire carrier? Or can we continue to disrupt pieces of the insurance life cycle to meet consumer's evolving expectations?
Bryan Falchuk (14:38):
I think it's such a fascinating question. And I think what we have seen is a way to do it, but it's not the only way. Most of the innovation that we've been focused on in the industry has been around efficiency and cost cutting. And the truth is while those are good things, like I'm an next management consultant, I love lean, don't get me wrong, but you can't efficiency your way to success in the long term. You can only take out so much cost. The real benefit is in your product and how you deliver it.
Bryan Falchuk (15:01):
And so I think what we've seen from most existing players is this efficiency and cost cutting kind of mentality, which by the way, actually hasn't worked. If you looked at historic expense ratios, they've been pretty flat. But if you look at the startups, they're trying to innovate on product or the delivery of product. What if we could have both sides of the startup and incumbent equation, thinking about product differently, thinking about the delivery of product differently? I think that's how we could actually evolve the industry.
Bryan Falchuk (15:27):
It doesn't just have to be that we just go and fund a number of startups to come up with new ideas, there's nothing wrong with that, but it almost presupposes that the incumbents can't do that. And I think they can. It's just, the mindset is not focused there. I wish as an industry we could get there. And for me running claims, if I efficiency-ed my way out of having any staff, which was not possible, but even if I did that, I didn't have such a huge staff that it was a gigantic sum of money, it was single digit millions of dollars.
Bryan Falchuk (15:54):
But we're handling hundreds of millions of indemnity. So the real impact to the industry and the real impact to the carrier I was at comes on the product side, on the indemnity side, on the delivery side. So that's really where we should be focusing. And that's true of any industry. Cost cutting, cost efficiency, all those sorts of things, very valuable, I'm not saying ignore them, but that's not the real prize. And so we as an industry need to remember that and go back to innovating on the customer facing bits, not just what's going on behind the scenes.
Laura Drabik (16:21):
Yeah. I couldn't agree more. Innovate on the customer facing bits. That makes a lot of sense. So there's AI, blockchain, geospatial analytics, virtual inspections, and these are all great value props within Insurtech. But what is your favorite Insurtech value proposition and how will it evolve how we serve our policyholders?
Bryan Falchuk (16:40):
Yes, Laura, this is one that I'm not sure anyone's going to follow, but I don't care because it's incredible. It's Branch Insurance, who I talk about in my second book. What Branch is doing is mind blowing. And it's a question of how successful they end up being, whether it will catch on. But they do a lot stuff on AI, geospatial analytics embedded, but where they're game changing, and this is why one of the founders he's like, "I couldn't sleep at night. I started doing proformas in the middle of the night." And it's like, "Well, who does that? Right? That's wild." But it's because of the way they think about the capital and the exposure base. And for those who have seen the way capital's allocated in a carrier, it's typically by product or by line of business, and then by year of account. So you have these large pots of statutory and reserve capital sitting, allocated to specific products and within that, years of account, which makes a lot of sense.
Bryan Falchuk (17:24):
The problem is you may have overlapping exposures between products. So you end up carrying extra capital that you didn't need to carry because you're basically covering for it in too many different pots. If you can think about your exposure on an exposure basis, instead of by your predefined product management buckets, you can catch those inefficiencies. And as a result, your capital needs are lower. You can deploy more of it. You can write more business, you can do it more efficiently. You can charge less. And then it's like a flywheel effect. Because the more you do that, the more you can do that. It starts to unlock more. But this to me is like mind bogglingly transformative for the industry. And we really haven't seen anything like this since the 1950s where homeowners came together as a product, whereas it used to be these separate products you bought from lots of different carrier.
Bryan Falchuk (18:08):
And so you're paying for the expense base on each of the carriers for your fire policy and your liability policy and whatever other policies you're buying. And then the Insurance Company of North America, INA, put it together into one homeowner's policy and you had a much more efficient logistics and administration behind that. And so they were able to charge far less than the sum total of all those component products.
Bryan Falchuk (18:29):
We've never seen anything since then until Branch. It's really early, but it could be unbelievably transformative. And then we have to ask, could carriers actually change their whole capital regime? I'm not sure how many can. It's a very hard exercise, but if Branch proves it out, that could unlock literally trillions of dollars at the kind of scale that the global insurance industry operates at.
Laura Drabik (18:49):
I love this example, I sure hope they are successful. So according to McKinsey, up to 25% of all personal line premiums could be generated through embedded insurance ecosystems by 2030. For auto, that figure could reach 30%. For travel and personal liability, it could top 50% or more.
Laura Drabik (19:06):
So I think that the beauty of embedded insurance is that the customer no longer has to go and hunt down insurance, insurance comes to the customer. Bryan, what are your thoughts on embedded insurance? And in particular, how will it impact auto insurance?
Bryan Falchuk (19:20):
I fully agree with McKinsey. They may even be under egging it. I don't want to go on record saying that because usually with these predictions, they're over zealous, but this could be such a dramatic changer of the way insurance is sold and consumed because it's happening without even thinking about it. I just bought a flight right before we hopped on to record this, and I never buy travel insurance. And it was right there in front of me. It was a single click. So easy. I didn't have to reenter anything, payment information, traveler information, anything, and it wasn't that expensive. So I just did it. And it's managed right there within the airline carrier site. I don't have to think about it. No way I would ever have gone and done that. But travel insurance is optional. You start to think about lines of business where it's not optional, like auto insurance or homeowner's insurance if you have a mortgage ,which most people do, and renter's insurance and commercial property insurance on leased property. We're seeing more and more that it's built into the contract that you must carry this coverage.
Bryan Falchuk (20:13):
So that means you may not get that house or that car. And the idea that could actually cost you that purchase of the thing you actually wanted, because you didn't want the auto insurance, you wanted the auto its inuring, that's really hard to stomach. And we actually already have seen signs of how much that friction in going out to get the auto coverage so you can get the car, is impacting things. So Root startup Insurtech carrier on the auto side, announced a partnership with Carvana to embed Root's coverage into Carvana's checkout process. Just a single click. Carvana already has all the information they need for Root to do its underwriting.
Bryan Falchuk (20:48):
So you're just opting in, opting out. You already see the price. There's no like click here to go get a quote. And the reason is not because Carvana wants to make commissions on selling auto insurance, it's because Carvana's actually losing a material number of sales because insurance wasn't squared away when they went to drop off the car. So they bring the car to the customer only to find they have to bring it back to their lot and can't sell it to them because there's no insurance in place. Carvana not only loses the sale, they're delivering and bringing the car back. So they've got double the transport costs for no gain. So not having insurance squared away as part of the process, is actually costing Carvana in its core business. They don't care about the risk transfer, they care about the threat to their core business.
Bryan Falchuk (21:28):
And we're seeing that in other places, other car manufacturers who are building it in like Rivian. Once your reservation is cleared, you go through the configuration process for your specific vehicle. And one of those steps is insurance and it's powered by a Nationwide in Cincinnati. I think this is going to dramatically change the auto insurance market in a number of ways. It's not like the doomsday predictions we saw where the whole personal auto market goes away. There still will be a personal auto market. And I think it will still be for the current carriers to play in, but who gets to play and to what extent and how they play will change. So the question then is how are you positioned to participate in that changed environment?
Laura Drabik (22:04):
Thanks Bryan. On the other side of this break, we'll continue the conversation. So don't go anywhere.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
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Laura Drabik (22:30):
Welcome back. This is InsurTalk with Laura Drabik, where we're talking with Bryan Falchuk. Bryan, I work for a cloud property and casualty software company and I see cloud is important to our industry because it provides insurers with access to leading edge infrastructure without the operational overhead or capital expense. And cloud software provides carriers with the flexibility to rapidly prototype and deploy new lines of business and services. Is cloud delivery of modern solutions important to insurance? Should it be? And if so, why?
Bryan Falchuk (23:02):
This is the kind of question that I think I engage in the most with carriers, because I keep getting like, "Bryan, what's the one tech we need to put." Everyone loves being reductionists. Like what's the one food we have to eat to live forever? And it was kale for a while, but now I don't know what it is. But you keep hearing this with tech too. It's like, "What's the one thing we have to put in?" And my answer usually disappoints people, because it's not a technology, it's the word flexibility. And I think generally speaking, there's one thing that can deliver the level of flexibility you really need, and that's having a cloud-based infrastructure and cloud-based tools that you can knit together through APIs openly easily. And we need to not just put them in place, but get more comfortable deploying them.
Bryan Falchuk (23:37):
The notion of integration is like the dirtiest word in insurance from a tech standpoint, right? And API integration is not old school on-prem integration that we've all suffered through. So as a carrier, to have the flexibility afforded by being cloud native, is I think at this point fully table stakes. So if you're not thinking about it, you need to start thinking about it and probably you needed to already start it. So that is critical and it's because of the possibilities it opens up.
Bryan Falchuk (24:02):
Because the reality is, you mentioned connected cars. We don't really know what data we're going to be using from these cars, in what ways, at what points in time to change underwriting. We're going to have this constant flow of data enabled by high speed data connectivities, we're going to have information from sensors. Right now with a dongle or an app, you can know like how far do they drive and did they stop short or do they accelerate hard?
Bryan Falchuk (24:24):
But you have no clue if that was for a good reason or a bad reason. Did they stop short because they saw this sudden stop short incident in front of them and avoided an accident? Or did they stop short because they didn't see the thing in front of them because they were looking at their phone or the passenger or something else? You can't know that with a dongle or an app, you can only know that with a connected car. So what are we going to start taking in from this data? Because the car can see the driver's eyes and it knows if there was a passenger in the car and it has proximity sensing so it knows what other objects were around it. Maybe there's vehicle to vehicle or vehicle to X. So the infrastructure in the other cars are giving it information, all that paints a picture.
Bryan Falchuk (24:59):
We don't know what all the nodes in that data stream look like. We don't know what all the data points look like. And we certainly don't know what they all mean, but we do know that we are going to have to make sense of it. And so when you can't predefine exactly what information and in what ways you're going to use this data, you have to have flexibility. And whatever we come up with, version one, no doubt it's going to change and it's going to change rapidly.
Bryan Falchuk (25:20):
And again, the only way to really keep up with that is to have the flexibility afforded by a cloud solution that can tie into all these different tools and new data models and new data sources and publish it out and receive answers back. I mean, all these sorts of things, you just can't do that with the ways that we've traditionally done things from a system standpoint. And so for me, cloud-based is really the only answer at this point. And I know it's a journey. Not everyone feels ready for it, but this to me is actually an existential point. So I think it needs to be a board level discussion. That's just my take on it.
Laura Drabik (25:50):
So you are very excited, obviously, about the future of insurance. What should insurers be most excited about in the future?
Bryan Falchuk (25:59):
I keep using the word disruption and some people don't like that, but I think we should be excited about disruption. Right now, what is insurance competition generally? It's who's cheapest and who's advertising the most. But I've also worked in large complex risk and maybe it's not about being cheapest, it might be about best value. But we're basically left to share stealing. Disruption is what creates that space.
Bryan Falchuk (26:19):
So I think that's really cool, is embracing it and recognizing the clouds might be parting here, thanks to disruption. And where can I move ahead in that? And back to that cloud point, then you have the flexibility to grab those opportunities right when they present themselves and not think it's a five year journey till we're ready to start thinking about possibly, maybe going after it. You just go, we should be embracing the kinds of disruptive things going on, because that's what creates the opportunity for us to really succeed with a material advantage.
Laura Drabik (26:47):
So you're a leadership coach. And based on your experience, what qualities do you think define a good leader today?
Bryan Falchuk (26:53):
There's no question we've all seen the importance of empathy, especially the past couple years, how caring for your people genuinely really matters. And your people could be your customers, your employees, your partners, but your ability to relate to and stand by other people as they're going through things and putting your own needs aside is a critical one. I would add something to that, though. It's humility. And I think this is the real leadership unlock. For anyone, humility is the kale of living forever. Like it's the thing that defines the difference between a great leader and one who is there to serve themselves. And it's a thing that can separate the best companies from those who might be just best right now, but don't have the staying power. Because through humility, you recognize that you don't have all the answers and when you're wrong, you're excited to learn from that.
Bryan Falchuk (27:36):
So you have reverence and respect for your competitors and what you can take from them, frankly, even when they fail, right? We can laugh at them for being a failure and how bad their idea was, but I guarantee you there's something in what they did that is worth learning from, and maybe doing yourself. Maybe they just lacked other things, other resources or maybe the timing was off that kept them from succeeding.
Bryan Falchuk (27:56):
Laura, you and I have talked about subscription music. When the iTunes Music store came out, there was also subscription options. Microsoft Zoom, for anyone who remembers that and plays for sure, or Rhapsody, total and utter failures. And everyone was like, "What a stupid idea. Everyone wants to own their music. Who wants to subscribe to it?" Fast forward to today, 83% of all music industry revenue for song sales is through subscriptions. It was great idea Microsoft had, it was just not the right time.
Bryan Falchuk (28:21):
So to swear something off because you're better, you're missing out on some real opportunities that add in your resources and your capabilities to what you learned by looking around with that open mind and that humility, transformative. So that's why for me like empathy, yes, but I think humility is the real unlock.
Laura Drabik (28:37):
I couldn't agree more. Thanks for sharing that. So speaking of music, what's on your innovation playlist?
Bryan Falchuk (28:43):
It's embarrassing. But what I realize is when I'm really like jamming on an idea, oftentimes I will have the same song playing on repeat and I'm totally unaware of it. I mean, I've said to my wife, like I was cooking on something in a flight and I just like, I was in the zone and working through it and I realized I had the same song playing for the entire four hour flight. And then it was kind of like, "Well what's wrong with me?" Well, clearly like I was so in the zone, I wasn't even aware of it or I would've hit next. So I don't know that there's any specific thing out there, but for whatever reason, just one random song seems to go hand in hand with maybe my most inspirational moments, which is kind of a weird thing, I think.
Laura Drabik (29:19):
Yeah. You know, I'm a lot like you as well. I find that my most creative ideas come when I run and when I'm running, I'm like you in that I have one song that I am playing over and over again because I'm in the zone and I'm just focusing on the running and the ideas flowing through my mind.
Laura Drabik (29:35):
So Bryan, thank you very much for your time today and your incredible insight into the future of insurance. You've showed us it's not just about ideas, it's about making ideas happen.
Bryan Falchuk (29:44):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Tune in next time for an all new episode of InsurTalk with Laura Drabik, brought to you by Guidewire, the platform P&C insurers trust to engage, innovate, and grow efficiently. For more information, visit guidewire.com.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to InsurTalk, the podcast where we don't just talk about innovative ideas and P&C insurance. We talk with industry trailblazers about the big ideas they made happen and how they did it. This podcast is brought to you by Guidewire, the platform P&C insurers trust to engage, innovate, and grow efficiently. Visit guidewire.com for more information. And now, let's make it happen.
Laura Drabik (00:31):
Welcome to InsurTalk. My name is Laura Drabik and I'm the Chief Evangelist at Guidewire. In this episode, I have the privilege of interviewing Brent Hammer, Innovation Officer at Grange Insurance. Brent is a self-proclaimed insurance nerd. He drives innovation efforts in support of Grange's enterprise strategy and decisions on innovative solutions to position the carrier successfully for the future. The focus of today's discussion will be on how Brent and Grange are accelerating insurance innovation to revolutionize the industry. Hello, Brent, thank you for joining my podcast.
Brent Hammer (01:10):
Oh, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.
Laura Drabik (01:10):
Tell our listeners about Grange Insurance and your role there?
Brent Hammer (01:13):
Sure. So Grange is based in Columbus, Ohio. Our mission is really to provide peace of mind and protection to our customers. And we've been doing that for more than 85 years. We're a property and casualty carrier. We've got a top line of about 1.4 billion annually in written premium. And we provide our products exclusively through our independent agency partners in 13 states across the Midwest on the Southeast. We're really a learning organization at our core. And we wanted to develop a repeatable and successful innovation strategy to tap into, one, our associates creativity, as entrepreneurs. But also leverage the growing Insurtech ecosystem and those entrepreneurs who are looking to enable carriers.
Brent Hammer (01:53):
So part of that was the organization making a dedicated investment in forming an innovation team. And that occurred in mid 2018. I actually moved from a role in finance to become our first innovation officer and to lead our G-Force Innovations effort, which is the innovation arm of the Grange Insurance Enterprise.
Laura Drabik (02:11):
So great segue into my next question, is that Grange launched G-Force Innovations and incredible initiative with the goal of advancing promising startups and building long-term partnerships with them. Can you tell us about G-Force?
Brent Hammer (02:25):
Yeah, absolutely. So it really started with a transition in our corporate structure. We moved to a mutual holding company structure at the very beginning of 2019. And what that enabled us to do was to create a separate innovation arm in R&D focus outside of our insurance operations. And so that is G-Force. It's really a dedicated investment of resources to identify, develop, and most importantly, adopt Insurtech solutions that are driving new products and better experiences for our customers and agents.
Brent Hammer (02:59):
I'd also add that G-Force is really intentionally business first, not tech first. Said another way, we're very highly integrated with the business, even though we're technically a separate P&L. And we're focused on identifying problems that need solutions, not necessarily a brand new shiny insurtech solution that's searching for a problem to solve.
Laura Drabik (03:18):
That is really refreshing. Highly integrated with the business and identifying problems, not looking for the cool whiz-bang tech, necessarily. Well done. So with G-Force, you focus on delivering innovation for both the insurance consumer and also the independent agent. What's the main Insurtech category you're focusing on for the consumer versus the main category of focus for the independent agent?
Brent Hammer (03:42):
Maybe I'll start with a saying, and that is, things have never moved as fast as they are right now. And they'll also never be this slow again. I like to say that a lot, and I haven't seen anything in the last three years to lead me to believe that is not going to continue to be the case.
Brent Hammer (03:58):
So there are a lot of shifting perspectives, and I guess I'll start with the agent. Because I think the distribution phase and distribution strategies are definitely something that are changing rapidly. And for both our customer and our agent, we're really eager to simplify and automate those day to day workflows. And really that enables us to also compete more aggressively on our pricing for our customers and our commissions. And so I think to that end, we've invested a lot in new data stacks. We've got middleware, so new APIs. We're really cleaning up our data and augmenting it with new novel data sources to improve our predictive analytics. And we're introducing new product lines, as well, to meet the shifting expectations of our agents and our customers. Not just to meet those expectations though, but ultimately the goal is to gain an edge. And so this type of innovation we think has the most substantial impact during those moments of truth. Thinking about insurance from quote to claim and everything that occurs in between.
Laura Drabik (04:55):
I love how you're taking a big picture perspective, which is the entire insurance life cycle. Well done. So AI, blockchain, geospatial analytics, virtual inspections, and the list continues. These are all hot value propositions within Insurtech. Brent, what are your main areas of focus and how do you decide which categories of Insurtech to focus on?
Brent Hammer (05:14):
Laura, that is the million dollar question, because there's so much out there that's trying to buy for your attention. Whether it's a technology specifically, or it's the next Insurtech company that's raised a huge round. I mentioned earlier that we really are integrated with the business and are business first. And so we really primarily rely on our internal network of thought leaders. And I view it like two cogs in a machine. And our innovation team, the G-Force team, is a really tiny cog. And it's connected to the business, that giant cog. And as they turn, we're turning very, very rapidly internally, trying to assess the things that we think are relevant to communicate back to the business. And those that are not.
Brent Hammer (05:56):
It's really a two-way street though, because we're also listening to the business as we engage with them. And as we tease out those friction points and the problems that they're incurring, that actually seeds and informs what we call our internal hunt list for G-Force. Ultimately, we're trying to play matchmaker between what the business needs internally and what is being developed by entrepreneurs and Insurtechs, externally. And if we can be a hack or a cheat code for making those connections, we know we're doing it right.
Brent Hammer (06:25):
When you talk about the tech specifically, also, I think there's a formula that you need to be conscious of. And that is success equals the quality of the technology, the quality of the solution times the level of adoption that you're going to get. You could have the most whiz-bang amazing tech in the world, but if you can't convince people to adopt it or it's ahead of its time and people aren't ready to adopt it, you're going to run into trouble. And so I think blockchain still has a little to be determined. I think AI is maturing and it's maturing very rapidly. But geospatial analytics, that's been nice and mature and we're leveraging that, we're leveraging RPA. And all of these items are really helping us to establish ourselves as a trusted enabler to the business. Because I think some of this emerging technology, sometimes the business can view as a potential disruptor. So that's a little bit about our approach and how we assess those emerging technologies coming out, not trying to fit a square peg into round hole. But understanding the solution that the business needs.
Laura Drabik (07:21):
Indeed. So Brent, it's estimated that half of the American workforce will be freelancers or at least part of the gig economy, by 2028. That's a glacial shift from previous decades of how we work. And that also affects the insurance products and services that carriers bring to market to address this shift. What is the number one glacial shift you are seeing in consumer or agent behavior? And how does that influence which Insurtechs you seek to collaborate with?
Brent Hammer (07:48):
So going back to the adoption, I think this ties in nicely. I think one of the biggest shifts that I'm seeing with the agents and with customers is we've been bombarded with Insurtech so much. Probably since 2015, 2016, there's this growing swell around in Insurtech. And I think there's more than ever, a willingness for agents to start to adopt and for customers to start to engage using these new technologies. I think back to when the internet was kind of first gaining traction and Amazon came online. And I remember, I said to myself, "I'm never going to buy something online. Why would I put all of my information online?" And it's matured to a point now where, of course, everything gets purchased online. And I think the Insurtech ecosystem really is no different. The willingness to adopt because it's had time to mature is probably one of the biggest shifts that we're seeing.
Brent Hammer (08:39):
And maybe if I piggyback off that a little bit, one of the things that I think is showing the maturity in the space, is that several years ago, most of the companies you would talk to had a concept. And they needed a carrier or someone like Guidewire to help them build it and validate it. Now, you go out to Insurtech Connect and any of these conferences, you've got two or three entrepreneurs that have a working active prototype ready for you to pilot, or do proof of concept with. And if you take that even one step further, I think two or three years ago, most of the Insurtech players were focusing on developing point solutions. Whereas now, I think many of them are really saying, "How can I actively partner with someone either ahead of me or behind me, in terms of the value stream? Or to my left or my right." And seeking out those productive win-win type partnerships to collaborate together.
Laura Drabik (09:27):
This is such great information. Before we continue, listeners, if you're enjoying this podcast, be sure to subscribe to InsurTalk on Amazon, Apple Podcast, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcast. And you can rate and review this show on Apple Podcast. It helps others learn about and discover the show. Now this is Laura Drabik, and let's get back to our conversation. I'm talking with Brent hammer, Innovation Officer at Grange Insurance.
Laura Drabik (09:52):
When exploring the G-Force website, this statement, Brent caught my attention. And I'm just going to read it out loud. Do you have a revolutionary idea that could transform financial services? We want to partner with you as early adopters to validate the marketplace, advance the value proposition and generate revenue for promising startups and entrepreneurs. At high level, can you describe the process you undertake for validating and advancing value propositions, as well as generating revenue?
Brent Hammer (10:21):
Yeah. Great question, Laura. And again, I think the real magic and do you succeed or fail, is largely baked into the process. And I would say first and foremost, we have buy-in at the highest level from the board, to our CEO, to our senior leadership team in the process. So that's a good start and a critical element.
Brent Hammer (10:39):
But when the rubber meets the road, one, as we evaluate them, we want to make sure that there's strategic alignment. As a regional carrier, we really have to be highly disciplined in which Insurtech entrepreneurs and companies we engage with. And which ones we say no to. As a regional, we can't necessarily dabble, again, with those shiny things, which probably is why we've taken the approach that we do. But number one, strategic alignment. Is it helping us to provide greater peace of mind and protection to our customers?
Brent Hammer (11:07):
The second, again, as a regional, is we have to be really conscious about capacity. So internally, we're evaluating, is there an internal subject matter expert in the business who could help this entrepreneur by sharing their experience? And not just help them to develop a product, but again, to validate it. So number two, after something is strategically aligned, we want to make sure we've got internal capacity from any subject matter expert that we might want to pair with that entrepreneur.
Brent Hammer (11:32):
And the final thing is, is there a compelling value or return on investment there? As we plot it, obviously you want things that are going to move the needle. But there's really a fine balance there because it can't be too big of a change or the business is going to reject it, you're going to get that organ rejection. And so there's almost this Goldilocks type of value proposition, where it's got to be more than just incremental, but it can't necessarily be something transformational to the business, or they're going to have a bad reaction to it.
Laura Drabik (12:03):
So, how do you track and measure the success of your Insurtech partnerships?
Brent Hammer (12:07):
So it really ultimately comes down to, have we created an environment where we have this virtuous cycle? And what I mean by that is, first and foremost, we look to benefit our operations. And so we're looking for a good P&L impact. And are we generating conversely revenue for that startup company? Are we helping to fill their pipeline? At the same time, realizing value within our P&L, as well.
Brent Hammer (12:34):
But then, you take that a step further and if you've really validated that an entrepreneur is a great collaborator, they're delivering value for you, taking that next step and saying, "All right, well, we're going to make a strategic investment, as well." So that not only is our P&L being benefited, but we have the opportunity for upside on our balance sheet to make an investment in that entrepreneur. But then also, perpetuate their business and allow it to grow. So if we can look at ourselves and say with this specific Insurtech partnership, we've created this environment of this virtuous cycle, this win-win. That's when we know we've got something really magic.
Laura Drabik (13:08):
How has the pandemic, and in particular remote work, transformed how you work with Insurtechs?
Brent Hammer (13:14):
So, Laura, I would say that in March, April of 2020, I'd be lying if I said, I wasn't worried that the brakes were going to get slammed on all the work that we were doing. And there was going to be a period where things were just stagnant. And I'm very happy to say that not only did that not occur within Grange, we had a great number of partnerships and POCs and pilots that we ended up doing in 2020. And then moreover, we doubled the number of proofs of concept and pilot engagements and solutions that we've placed into production in 2021. So the momentum didn't stop in 2020, and we actually saw a twofold increase in the amount of productivity in 2021, in terms of our Insurtech relationships.
Brent Hammer (13:56):
I would say that in terms of engagement then, things went well. Not only did Grange benefit, but the industry as a whole had a record number of investments in 2020. But then again in 2021. But if I talk about the pandemic specifically, I think once we realized that it wasn't going to just slam the brakes and that we had the opportunity to continue to work and even gain momentum. It was really all about, how do we collaborate effectively in a hybrid and really totally remote environment? And so we did spend a lot of time in 2020 and playing with different tools that we can use to collaborate while folks are remote. And really happy with how we've been able to clear that hurdle that the pandemic placed in front of us.
Laura Drabik (14:38):
Well, first of all, congratulations on such great success. Doubling the number of POCs and solutions in place in 2021. Well done. Any big ideas or lessons learned from starting G-Force?
Brent Hammer (14:49):
The big lessons for me over these last three years is one, celebrate the failures. And in innovation, more often than not, you're going to fail. But you've got to turn it into a fail forward. Which is, what can we learn from this? What was the root cause of why it failed? And then, do we have an opportunity to refine the process to sort of mitigate that going forward?
Brent Hammer (15:09):
I would say patience is one of the biggest lessons learned, timing is everything. If you're trying to get someone to adopt a solution, you've got to wait till they're ready on their end, you can't force it from the innovation perspective. Which kind of goes back to that importance of adoption that we spoke to. And then the last lesson learned is, you really have to be deliberate about moving linearly, the way that you innovate. From core, incremental, then into adjacent, and then starting to explore the transformational stuff. If you jump right to big adjacent innovation initiatives or even transformational, you're going to have organ rejection when you try to bring those back into the business. And so moving linearly and sort of warming the water gradually, rather than throwing the business into a boiling pot is so important for a successful innovation organization.
Laura Drabik (15:57):
Celebrate the failures, have patience and deliver it. Sage advice, Brent. You have an innovation studio, it's bright and airy with large windows, instead of walls. There are pops of bold colors and monitors displayed around the center, it's an intentional design. What's the strategy behind the design? And how does it facilitate creativity, collaboration, and ultimately, innovation?
Brent Hammer (16:20):
Yeah, so we really love our new innovation studio or new-ish innovation studio, I would say. Personally, I'm back in the office, so I enjoy being in there and using it quite a bit. The usage is probably not what it was in February of 2020, but we're gradually getting back and re-acclimating with the space and using it. But the space is really laid out to be art and science. Having it be a really creative space that enables our workers to get together, to collaborate, to use different visual tools. We have design thinking kits all over the place. So there's actually construction paper and tape and tin foil, if you're familiar with the design thinking process.
Brent Hammer (16:57):
But then there's the science aspect to it, as well. So we've got several different meeting rooms, dedicated spaces where we're very deliberate about their use. And actually I'm a big music nerd. And so as we were designing the space, I said, "We have to have a music room." And so we've got a turntable in there and we were able to curate about 50 or 60 different records and genres that we put in there. So lots of art, lots of deliberate science. And ultimately, it's all about diversity and how do we bring in those different perspectives? Get people to think differently and create an environment for the ultimate collaboration.
Laura Drabik (17:30):
Well, it sounds pretty cool. May I ask, how are you using the music? And favorite song to cure innovation?
Brent Hammer (17:37):
Well, if it's innovation, I'm probably going to be listening to some Daft Punk or some M83. Or we've got the Beatles Sergeant Pepper and the Beatles White Album in there, too. So, pick your poison there. But for me, boy, it's a tricky one. Led Zeppelin is probably my favorite band. When I hear When the Levee Breaks by Led Zeppelin, it just does something. It gets the blood flowing.
Laura Drabik (17:57):
Yeah. That's such a diverse range from Daft Punk to Led Zeppelin. I have to say, Immigrant Son gets me fired up too.
Brent Hammer (18:03):
Oh, you know what? That's an amazing one. I'm going to change my answer, I'm going to go with you, Laura. Immigrant Song is probably the better pick, that's a good call.
Laura Drabik (18:12):
We need to take another break. We just launched my new website, DrabikDigest.com. If you're enjoying this podcast and would like to review more of my thought leadership, please see DrabikDigest.com. Now, let's get back to our conversation with Brent.
Laura Drabik (18:28):
So diversity is incredibly important to innovation, and I think that the more diverse the team members are, the more likely they will draw upon inspiration from seemingly unrelated places. So these ideas lead to more unlikely and more innovative ideas. Brent, how do you build diversity into your initiatives?
Brent Hammer (18:48):
Yeah, this is such a critical point. One of the ways that we build diversity in is, one, being very intentional about it. When we're forming teams that are collaborating, we're trying to get people who have different perspectives in terms of what they've experienced in life, but also different perspectives in terms of their technical acumen and their areas that they work in. So this means, putting a marketing person together with an actuary. But it also means taking an external entrepreneur, who's got a very different lens of things and pairing them up with the right internal subject matter expert. Getting that diversity of external thought and internal thought, and that diversity of maybe a very deep technical acumen that an entrepreneur might bring. Versus a very deep business acumen, that someone internally has.
Brent Hammer (19:33):
We also at Grange have a dedicated diversity equity and inclusion group, very similarly to how we have a dedicated innovation team. Something that the business finds very valuable to invest in. It's always top of mind for us, because you're exactly right. The best outcomes come from those. But one really piece of sage advice that I got early on was the saying, think outside of the box. And in reality, you can't think outside of your own experiences and your own perceptions. True out of the box thinking, only comes when you're able to augment your proverbial box with a different box that someone else is bringing to the table.
Laura Drabik (20:07):
There is a Harvard Business Review Study that highlights one of the main reason innovation initiatives fail. And it's due to lack of alignment with the business. Now you've said a couple of really important things here, Brent, so far. Which is that you're highly integrated with the business and that you're business first.
Brent Hammer (20:24):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Laura Drabik (20:25):
How do you weave the business into your initiatives?
Brent Hammer (20:28):
Yeah, so we've spoken to it a little bit and I'm going to just play a few different notes here. Corporate structure, I think, is a big part of it, too. And so aligning the innovation team underneath corporate strategy, or at least having very frequent touch points between what are your innovation priorities, relative to what are your strategic initiatives and strategic priorities, is really important. And so at Grange, we do have an enterprise strategy, an innovation officer. And so we've got really good alignment there where I report up to her, but also our head of strategy reports up to her, as well. So lots of collaboration, lots of communication that's occurring there. But then in an addition to that, I talked about making sure you move linearly and making sure that you're focusing on problems that need solutions, as opposed to the other way around.
Laura Drabik (21:14):
Grange has been a wonderful Guidewire customer since 2016. Thank you for your business.
Brent Hammer (21:20):
Oh, absolutely.
Laura Drabik (21:20):
What are your thoughts on how Guidewire, how we connect our carriers to Insurtech via our marketplace partners and our brand new Insurtech Vanguard program?
Brent Hammer (21:32):
I'm glad you asked, because I think the new Vanguard program is such an excellent concept. Especially for a company like Guidewire to be taking the initiative on that end. The partner connect program, I think, is fantastic, as well. And so, I'm very deliberately setting a cadence to meet with the Guidewire team that runs the Vanguard and runs the partner connects marketplace on a quarterly basis. Just to make sure I'm keeping in tune with the trends that they're seeing, but also ultimately, it also helps you to determine within a very competitive space particular in Insurtech segment. It's definitely way to appear into the crystal ball or to see over the horizon of which Insurtechs are more likely to win in a particular space. If they're a company that's talking with Guidewire and really serious about becoming part of the marketplace, that's always a great sign when we're looking to evaluate a potential partnership with that company.
Laura Drabik (22:26):
Well said. And one point that I really appreciate that you mentioned is that it is a two way communication, we're seeking input and feedback from our carriers. And then you're seeing who we're vetting or who we are seeing as promising solutions.
Brent Hammer (22:38):
Yeah, absolutely.
Laura Drabik (22:40):
When I think of the insurer of the future, I think of automation, of manual redundant activities to deliver more personalized service. I think of new roles, like a technology product owner who implements algorithms using expert knowledge of patterns. And I think of new lines of business being implemented, like episodic insurance. But it doesn't matter what I think. What do you think the insurer of the future will look like?
Brent Hammer (23:07):
It's a great question. And so if I get my crystal ball out, I really see the future where insurers are, again, critical elements to providing stability and peace of mind and protection. But really taking it to the next level. And rather than being almost exclusively indemnification, really trying to be more proactive and leveraging the internet of things, predictive analytics, machine learning, et cetera. To really be a more embedded, integrated, and proactive manager of risk for our customers. Whether you're a homeowner or whether you're a business owner or whether it's life insurance. Really trying to deepen a partnership and be engaged and proactive to the extent that the customer wants you to be.
Laura Drabik (23:52):
Clearly I'm biased. But I think that everything that we've chatted about, Brent, is so cool. Why do you think insurance still isn't seen as a glamorous industry or an exciting career option for new grads? What can we do to change that?
Brent Hammer (24:08):
Oh yeah. I'll be honest, most of my colleagues and myself included, I don't think intended to get into the insurance industry, it just kind of happened. And then once you get in, the economics of this industry, the way that we help people, I mean their time of need. It's such a great industry and it's so interesting. Especially with the level of change and the opportunity that emerging technologies and the whole Insurtech movement are presenting at this point in time. So it's a really magical time, in my opinion, to be part of this industry.
Brent Hammer (24:36):
How do you get people to see that? For me, it's probably around promoting insurance as part of an overall more holistic component of health and safety. Whether it's you, as an individual, whether it's your family, it's your community, it's your business. I think that people really do value that sense of community. They really do value having peace of mind, especially in a world that's increasingly going online and digitizing itself. How do we not just protect your physical assets, but how can we be better promoters of your overall well being?
Brent Hammer (25:10):
There's no silver bullet, it's going to be a hard nut to crack. But integrating the value of insurance into, again, that more holistic wellbeing that everyone wants, I think is one way that we can start to do that. And definitely starting with the high school and the college folks, who are the few consumers of insurance. Really understanding what they value, how they want to be communicated to, and really what they're looking for in a career, as well.
Laura Drabik (25:34):
Brent, thank you very much for your time today and for your incredible insight into accelerating the insurance revolution. You have showed us it's not just about ideas, it's about making ideas happen.
Brent Hammer (25:46):
It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
This podcast is brought to you by Guidewire, the platform P&C insurers trust to engage, innovate, and grow efficiently. Visit guidewire.com for more information.