Dear Insurtech, It's Not You, It's Me

Dear Insurtech, 

It was nice getting to know you in 2016. You served your purpose and now it is time for RiskGenius to move on. It’s time for me to move on. 

There were a series of events that helped me realize that you and me, insurtech, we can’t really be friends anymore. 

I can’t be conference guy 

About two weeks ago, I was in San Francisco meeting with some insurance professionals plugged into the insurtech scene. One of them brought up a recent insurtech conference and commented, “You are everywhere, Chris!” 

I shuddered. I have never wanted to be "conference guy" but I got sucked into being just that this year. There are way too many insurtech conferences. At first, I only went if my ticket was free; then I only went if I had a speaking engagement. 

Now, well, I guess I am going to have to charge a ridiculous speaking fee. 

Little comes out of insurtech events 

I often attended Insurtech events this year and I wondered at the end, “What will come out of that?” And very little developed. As the year progressed, it started to dawn on me what was going on. And then, finally, everything crystalized in one phone call on December 13, 2016. 

A wonderful insurance professional called to let me know he was leaving his firm at the end of the year. This particular professional was frustrated by the lack of engagement with insurtech companies. 

And then it hit me: much of the engagement with insurtech companies is simply to understand what the heck it is we are doing. Often, there are no real plans for many insurance companies to actually engage with insurtech companies. 

I need to focus on the doing, not the talking 

This year we have found a tremendous partner in an insurance carrier that I hope to tell you about soon. And, small and medium sized brokerages don’t have time to “learn"; they are hungry for quick and easy technology solutions. 

There are pockets of people doing insurance technology innovation. I need to find these people; often these people aren’t at the conferences, or on twitter or linkedin. 

Additionally, some of the best events I attended were intimate gatherings. Insurance Thought Leadership invited me to a Cyber Insurance conference that I loved. Marsh invited me to an Executive Retreat that was incredibly insightful. And, an insurance carrier allowed us to participate in an innovation challenge with internal employees that changed the trajectory of our company. 

None of these three events focused solely on “insurtech.” 

RiskGenius is ready

As I look towards 2017, I am going to remove myself and RiskGenius from the insurtech scene. Instead, we are going to be actively seeking out those partners that can use our software right now. It’s no longer about tinkering and building algorithms; RiskGenius is weaponized and ready to go. 

Two areas have emerged where RiskGenius fits perfectly. 

First, RiskGenius is primed for policy automation. 

We can take an entire library of policies, show you similarities and differences and then serve up the correct policy based on what the user needs. 

Second, RiskGenius Analytics has people really excited. 

We are now able to take one insurance policy that a user provides us and compare it to all the policies we have collected and stored previously. Soon I will be writing about how we have evaluated over 400+ cyber insurance policies. 

This is awkward insurtech. But we can’t be a thing anymore. I’m sorry — it’s not you, it’s me (and RiskGenius). We want more for our future. 

Thanks for the memories,

Chris Cheatham

CEO RiskGenius