Instech London Podcast

Fadata’s CEO, Liselotte Munk, returns to the InsTech podcast with Robin Merttens to discuss the company’s recent developments, including its expansion to APAC and South America.  Discover in this episode the intricacies of running a policy admin system provider, where Liselotte thinks the market is heading to next and the challenges with entering new regions. Key talking points include: The market’s maturity and the problems this may pose. Running a business when policy admin system changes are rare  Working around compliance  Working with a new generation of tech-savy insurers Culture shocks upon entering new markets Navigating a highly competitive marketing with key players Using AI in Fadata Ecosystems versus agnostic systems provider - which is best? If you like what you’re hearing, please leave us a review on whichever platform you use or contact Matthew Grant on LinkedIn. Sign up to the InsTech newsletter for a fresh view on the world every Wednesday morning. Continuing Professional Development This In

According to Mike Hobday, CEO of Insurants, the company is “a bit like being the Google Translator of the commercial insurance market”. Insurants is developed by Antworks in collaboration with Marsh McLennan to help commercial insurance companies manage and process their documents. This week, Matthew caught up with Mike, who previously having spent 12 years at IBM, witnessed early AI automation with the likes of Watson, through which he fell in love with document processing. At Insurants, Mike is bridging the language barrier (so to speak) between data that flows between brokers and carriers. Key talking points include:  The importance of summarisation - courtesy of the InsTech AI bot intern Falling in love with document processing - Mike’s career journey What is the current problem with document processing in insurance The Periodic Table Insurants accuracy - working with Marsh Commonality between insurance and the left side of the brain Moving business back to the UK Vital advice for small carriers and broke

This week we are combining youthful enthusiasm with sage wisdom on the podcast, as Robin Merttens speaks to InsurX’s CEO, Gilbert Harrap and Chairman, Michael Watson. InsurX is a platform that enables insurers and brokers to undertake portfolio underwriting, automated contract binding, algorithmic underwriting and instant risk matching. Touching on the importance of driving digitisation in the London Market, Michael also shares highlights from his distinguished career, with a focus on his success at Canopius and his reasons for joining InsurX.  An important episode for all those interested in digital trading, algorithmic underwriting and the future of the London Market. Key talking points include: The Hot Topic - digital trading solutions and an introduction to  Never close to being at the “end” of a career - looking back at career achievements Wise owls and youthful enthusiasm - the perfect pairing? Plans for fundraising  Development in the London Market - where are we at? The tension between centralised inf

According to Yann Barbarroux, Co-founder and CEO of Otonomi, “every year is like starting a new company”. It has been a year since we last caught up with Otonomi, and Matthew reconnects with Yann to discuss how parametric insurance helps mitigate supply chain risks, particularly in situations where traditional insurance falls short. Key topics include: Addressing pain points in maritime freight and global trade Developing and refining parametric insurance products Real-world case studies demonstrating Otonomi’s solutions Strategies for managing accumulation risk Yann’s expertise in risk management and its influence on Otonomi’s approach Expansion of the air cargo market and new maritime product offerings Growing awareness and adoption of parametric insurance Leveraging AI to scale and enhance business operations Otonomi’s global expansion plans and future funding strategies If you are interested to learn more about parametric insurance and non-damage business interruption, read our report here. If you like w

At InsTech, we love featuring founders who took matters into their own hands to solve the problems they encountered. This episode shines a spotlight on one such entrepreneur who did just that. In the insurance industry, manually cleaning data remains a costly and time-consuming challenge. To explore this issue, Matthew Grant sits down with Nicola Turner, CEO and Co-founder of Scrub AI. Scrub AI is a platform that automates repetitive data cleaning tasks—a solution born from Nicola's own experience as an underwriter struggling with inefficient processes. Key talking points include: Nicola’s journey from underwriter to ‘accidental’ entrepreneur How identifying a persistent problem led to a solution The challenges and successes of raising funding for a tech start-up Why data management remains such a significant issue in the insurance sector The role of AI, machine learning, and technology in transforming data processes Insights on working with co-founders and finding the right partners Balancing the demands of

Next month, Martin Reith will mark 40 years in the London Market. As he approaches this significant milestone, we sat down with him to discuss his journey into the industry, his most notable achievements, his decision to become Chairman of Artificial Labs, and his thoughts on the challenges of modernising the London Market. We also explored his strong advocacy for algorithms and the advice he has for the next generation of industry leaders. Key talking points: Starting 40 years ago Founding Ascot Underwriting and receiving backing from AIG  What has gone well in the Lloyd’s Market and what can be improved? Is there a good time to invest in technology Smart Follow - a term often misunderstood The world of algorithms Martin’s advice for anyone thinking about entering the Marketplace The London Market - it works on people If you like what you’re hearing, please leave us a review on whichever platform you use or contact Matthew Grant on LinkedIn. Sign up to the InsTech newsletter for a fresh view on the world e

What does it take to build a company like Guidewire or attract investor interest? This week, Matthew Grant talks with Marcus Ryu, Co-founder and Chairman of Guidewire, and Partner at Battery Ventures. Marcus, one of Guidewire's five founders, shares his experiences from starting the company in 2002 and the lessons he learned along the way. In this episode, Marcus discusses his shift from leading Guidewire to investing through a multi-stage technology investment firm. The conversation covers topics relevant to those interested in the insurance industry, current trends in insurance technology, and practical advice for entrepreneurs and investors alike. Key talking points include: Graduate school and finishing at the beginning of the dot-com era What ingredients are necessary to found a successful company?  Startups are insurgents The first sale cycle - what is ‘wandering in the desert’? Why you need recklessness to start a company The Guidewire story and staying agile in 2024 From founder to investor - joining

Have you ever built your own solution to a problem? Quotech, founded by Guillaume Bonnissent, provides technology for commercial underwriters and brokers. Its integrated solutions cover data ingestion and extraction, pricing, distribution, policy administration and claims. Matthew Grant caught up with Quotech’s CEO and founder to touch on his underwriting past and how it has helped build a company, the issues with Excel spreadsheets and targeting specific insurance lines to produce tailored products. Key talking points include: From underwriter to entrepreneur - the journey Producing innovative solutions for underwriters  Targeting specific insurance lines - can you really do everything if you can do marine? The importance of user experience Transitioning from coding to leadership Investors and future prospects If you like what you’re hearing, please leave us a review on whichever platform you use or contact Matthew Grant on LinkedIn. Sign up to the InsTech newsletter for a fresh view on the world every Wedn

This week Matthew and Robin are pointing the microphones at each other and back for our popular "Partners' Chat" as they review the world around us. Find out what is making Robin happy this month - almost 10 years after the term Insurtech was coined are established insurers now finally embracing innovation and technology? What can we learn from the start of the hurricane season and do investors share our enthusiasm for the role that start-ups and scale-ups can play in really changing insurance for the good in 2025. Key talking points: Robin on becoming a grandfather Robin’s article on the positive aspects of the industry Alignment of interest between technology and insurance in the US Reflecting back on InsTech’s events in New York Hurricane season and the companies to look out for Is parametric insurance a potential solution to volatile risk? 2024 and funding The rise of partnerships and ecosystems and Smart Follow Wine tasting and looking into what InsTech has in store for 2025   If you like what you’re he

Joining Insurance Thought Leadership over 10 years ago, Paul Carroll’s motivation was his belief that of four areas yet to be disrupted by digital innovation, insurance was one of them.  This week Matthew Grant caught up with Paul Carroll to ask after 11 years of looking at insurance, how are insurers doing with technology? Key talking points include: Looking back, we predicted greater disruption: the fault of regulation and risk capital The industry metabolism and its speed Dinner with Bill Gates When looking at insurance, are there disruptors equivalent to Microsoft? The birth of catastrophe modelling after Hurricane Arthur in ‘92 The ‘Trough of Disillusionment’ The rise of the platform  The Laws of Zero How has the way we consume information digitally changed? If you like what you’re hearing, please leave us a review on whichever platform you use or contact Matthew Grant on LinkedIn. Sign up to the InsTech newsletter for a fresh view on the world every Wednesday morning. Continuing Professional Developmen

As one of the oldest insurtechs and thirty years in the business - what can we learn from Insurity? Robin Merttens spoke to Chris Lafond, CEO of Insurity - a P&C insurance software provider offering cloud-based solutions to help companies focus on profitability. After a series of acquisitions in 2019, Insurity continue to execute their thesis from five years ago in embracing the cloud and providing the industry with out-of-the-box technology solutions. It is currently trusted by 12 of the top 15 managing agents in London.  Tune in to hear Robin and Chris discuss Insurity’s expanding presence in the London Market and whether the term “insurtech” is a helpful word.  Key talking points include: Celebrating three decades in the industry GI Partners and expanding Insurity  Looking back at Insurity’s thesis in 2019 The need for underwriting workbenches in the London Market Is AI the ‘data warehouse’ of our time? To ‘insurtech’ or not to ‘insurtech’? The future of acquisitions for Insurity The curse of past tech

Ahead of our next July evening event in London, Matthew Grant caught up with Deepak Badoni, President and Co-founder of EigenRisk Inc - a one-stop shop platform for the industry to bring all the catastrophe risk analytics in one place. Join Matthew and Deepak as they discuss the role of technology platforms in simplifying catastrophe risk analysis for underwriters amid the start of the hurricane season. Deepak shares his journey of founding EigenRisk Inc., the challenges of building a one-stop platform for catastrophe risk analytics, the importance of simplicity in complex modeling, and the growing preference for buying technology solutions over building in-house.  Key talking points: The start of EigenRisk - a one stop shop platform for the industry to bring all the catastrophe risk analytics in one place Building v buying - where do insurers stand? A solution for the entire industry Differences between building a product and building a business Finding the right modelers for the platform - the value of part

In this discussion, Leah Emma from Liberty Mutual, Caolan Kovach-Orr from Arch Capital, and Rohit Reddy from Swiss Re Corporate Solutions share their experiences and strategies for leveraging AI and technology in the insurance sector. They cover key challenges, data utilization, build vs buy decisions, and the importance of making underwriting more efficient and engaging. A must-watch for anyone interested in the future of insurance. Speakers: Leah Emma, Assistant Director of Commercial Incubation, Solaria Labs – Liberty Mutual Caolan Kovach-Orr, Head of AI & Automation, North America – Arch Capital Group Rohit Reddy, Head of Underwriting Strategy – Swiss Re Corporate Solutions Matthew Grant, CEO – InsTech Key talking points: Each company and their strategy Challenges and opportunities in underwriting AI and technology in insurance Build vs Buy: strategic decisions Engaging underwriters: culture and adoption Magic wishes for the future You can now also watch the whole panel discussion here. If you like

Crux Underwriting is a multi-line specialty underwriting business launched in early July by Graham Elliott. By combining underwriting with the tech arm of Azur Technology, founded by previous colleague Charlie Blackburn, we are witnessing the production of a 21st century MGA business. One for the technology lovers and the MGA innovators. Tune in to hear Robin speak to Charlie and Graham about entrepreneurship in the MGA world, how technology can slot itself into an underwriting business and why the cultural aspect is the hardest thing to get right. Key talking points: Journey from co-founding Azur Underwriting, to developing Azur Technology and Crux Underwriting Charlie’s experience forming long-term partnerships with MGAs as a separate technology provider Graham building out an agile insurance business in a regulated market The relationship between MGAs and capacity providers Why haven’t MGAs adopted modern and flexible platforms? Azur Technology: working on Salesforce  What is it about technology that makes

Reserv’s proposition is to help MGAs and carriers improve claims handling and increase data availability, making claim information available through multiple large language model (LLM) tools feeding automated workflows. After our successful May Evening Event hosted in collaboration with Reserv, Robin Merttens caught up with CEO CJ Przybyl and discussed the technology behind Reserv, including the integration of generative AI and modern data infrastructure, as well as the company's growth and expansion plans in the UK and Europe. Key talking points include: Origins of Reserv and CJ’s experience co-founding Snapsheet Noticing an opportunity for start-up and established MGAs Building and scaling Reserv - the success story Why the UK market is unique for TPAs First job out of university - defining a trajectory Ensuring underwriting and claims are more conjoined and reactive  The ideal balance in a claims adjuster's world between what the machines do and what the humans do Dissatisfaction to digitisation - looking

In anticipation of our upcoming release of panels from our most recent event in New York in June, we are taking another look back at our star-studded line-up from March.  We asked: what does the future of insurance look like? One answer is digitising how risk flows. In this discussion, industry experts Nigel Walsh from Google Cloud, Meghan Hannes at K2 Cyber, Zaheer Hooda at Cytora and Charles Clarke at Guidewire delve into the current progress made by insurers, the challenges they encounter, and a playbook for accelerating AI-assisted underwriting.  Watch this space for more releases soon... Key talking points include: Is the industry heading in the right direction with regard to AI? “Augmentation” - why using the right vocabulary matters The perspective of insurers working for technology companies - what is working? The rallying cry for insurers How to make a case internally for adoption of AI? Don’t aim for the moon, aim for standardisation Can generative AI solve technical debt? Implementation differences

Is your insurance technology up to speed? This week on the podcast, we have an insightful conversation with Joe O'Connor, Deputy CEO of RDT. RDT is a well-known software and services provider for the motor insurance industry, with plans to expand into the specialty market. Joe discusses how technology provision has changed over the last decade, what RDT has learned from providing services to general insurers, what the specialty market can learn from achievements in the retail sector, the launch of its new workflow and orchestration platform (ACE), and RDT’s future plans. Learn how RDT has identified a market need, worked with existing customers to build technology to meet those needs, and why they have great hopes for ACE, now that they are ready to "come out to play." Key talking points include: RDT’s transition from traditional software to managed service and SaaS. Expanding scope beyond the traditional focus on motor and niche insurance sectors. The impact of claims inflation and degradation of claims hand

Is climate risk a part of your analysis? On the podcast this week we are spotlighting an important collaboration between Mitiga, a climate risk intelligence provider, and insurer HDI Global. As climate change rises to become one of the most pertinent and defining risks of our generation, find out how the partnership is working to evolve the landscape of climate risk management for various industries. One such asset is Mitiga’s platform EarthScan. Joining Matthew is Wiebke Cundill, Senior Risk Engineer at HDI Global SE and Jonathan Liddell, Customer Success Lead at Mitiga. Key talking points include: How EarthScan can help customers understand the risks posed by climate change The transition from focusing just on natural hazards to climate risk Downscaling data into an asset class Business as usual, Emissions peak in 2040 or Paris-aligned future? Mitiga helps HDI move into the future  How HDI offers site specific assessment of climate risks - from site to consulting and adoption Importance of trust and collabo

In the first iteration of our upcoming parametric series with Raincoat, Matthew sat down with Jonathan Gonzalez to delve into how parametric insurance can be integrated with traditional indemnity insurance, the technical and regulatory challenges, and the importance of creating products that customers perceive as fair.  Watch this space for some very exciting episodes coming up. Key talking points: Importance of iteration and scaling  Parametric should be looked at as a tool The connection to smart contracts and parametric What is ‘truth’ in insurance? What is ‘fair’ in insurance? The key to successful integration How much human intervention goes into running the model Evolving role of brokers  The openness of the insurance industry to new solutions If you like what you're hearing, please leave us a review on whichever platform you use or contact Matthew Grant on LinkedIn. To find out more about InsTech, our membership and offerings visit www.instech.co or contact us hello@instech.co Continuing Professional

Unstructured data - is this a challenge that will ever go away? Or can it be a challenge which insurers adapt to work in their favor… At our last New York event in March, InsTech gathered three leading industry experts to candidly discuss what change in the industry looks like to them, specifically in the way unstructured data is handled and managed.  We all know streamlining underwriting processes and optimizing data intake & routing will aid with precise risk pricing, but how are the US’s biggest carriers approaching the problem? Hear from Patrick Gallic at Tokio Marine HCC, Georgeanna Munger at Allianz Commercial, and Brad Craner at Zurich North America about pocketed digitisation, implementing best practices, moving blame away from the brokers and how generative AI can serve to repurpose the underwriter’s time for the better. Key talking points include: What are the current challenges underwriters are facing  How is technology addressing these issues The dichotomy between late-career and early-career