InsureTech Connect 2021 - A Lesson in Teamwork

Goal! I had the pleasure of coaching my daughter's football/soccer (for my American friends) team this past season. As we had our final match this weekend, it gave me an opportunity to reflect on what was an incredibly eventful week for me personally as well. One that saw a return to the in-person format for InsureTech Connect—an occasion to reconnect with so many familiar faces and an opportunity to put a real face to the virtual. In many respects, this was another watershed moment for the insurance industry. A symbolic return to face-to-face discussion, impromptu get-togethers and the ad-hoc brainstorming and imagineering that has been so sorely missed for the past two years. Virtual events had kept things moving in the absence of face-to-face, but there is nothing quite like the serendipitous magic of running into an old friend or colleague that Vegas brings to the table. It was an opportunity to celebrate the successes of the past year and come together to deliberate the issues we continue to face as industry.

Much of the rhetoric around this year’s ITC was quite familiar: Themes around digitization, innovative technology, big-data and ecosystems are ones that we have all embraced over the past couple of years. What struck me as being different, however, was the common desire from every person that I spoke with, incumbent and InsurTech alike, to collaborate.

InsureTech Connect this year was equal parts innovation and integration.

Despite many of my friends from Europe being unable to make it (we will see you next year!), this year’s event once again had a truly global feel to it. InsurTech Israel, InsurTech Canada, InsurTech Hub Munich, InsurTech LatAm, all represented once again by a terrific collection of startups. In addition to that, we saw a lot of new faces from the US based accelerators—Broker Tech Ventures, Global Insurance Accelerator, BCP Tech, InsurTech Hartford, Plug and Play, all turning out to show off the latest and greatest innovation from their respective corners.

The vibe was truly collaborative.

Which is why when I watched and listened to Evan Greenberg’s (CEO, Chubb) comments, it struck me that he had completely missed the essence of what the InsurTech ecosystem had now become. A five minute walk around the expo hall would have provided a lens into a thriving ecosystem that is more about teamwork than ego. If anything, his comments felt a little bit out of touch, not focusing on the creative work that is going on globally.

An outdated perception of what InsurTech was and what it had now become.

The Evolution of InsurTech

Where we are today as an industry is vastly different to where we were seven years ago. The accelerated growth of technology has opened the doors to integration and collaboration across all sectors of the insurance ecosystem. Incumbents who had previously operated within siloed legacy platforms, now have the opportunity through RPA, Intelligent Automation and Cloud technology to reach far beyond the inner walls of the green screen and embrace the innovative offerings that InsurTechs are bringing to the table.

Looking Ahead to 2022

As we near the end of 2021 and look ahead to 2022, we need to continue to focus on retooling our own capabilities to take advantage of the amazing collaboration opportunities emerging across the industry. The broad guidelines are still the same—do you have a RESTFul API that can be easily consumed? Do you have a strategy around consuming structured and unstructured data? Do you have a dedicated team or resource focused on exploring partnership opportunities?

I look forward to a 2022 embodied by teamwork. There have been countless examples over the past couple of years of Insurers and InsurTechs partnering and collaborating, each bringing their own flavor of capabilities to solve a common problem. Technology and innovation meeting experience and industry nuance.?

Winning and Losing Together

As an industry, we are all learning to win together, lose together and as a result grow together. This isn't a case of incumbent vs new kid on the block. It isn't a case of David vs Goliath. It is a community driven effort to rebuild, refocus and figure out how as an industry, a collective community, we can come together and use our own individual strengths to emerge from a difficult couple of years and define what the future looks like.

For my daughter's team, this was a journey of discovery. I coached 16 kids, most of whom did not know each other, and were figuring out where they fit within that team dynamic. A bunch of 8 and 9 year olds finding their way. It reminded me of how we are all still finding our own feet in a world that has drastically changed in the past couple of years. Some scars are more visible than others, but if anything came out of ITC this year, it was a genuine sense that we have work to do. For ourselves, for each other perhaps most important of all, for the people out there who need us to be there at their time of need.

At Care Bridge International we are leading our own particular charge with people, process, technology and innovation. Our goal and purpose is to improve the claims journey through the deployment of our Analytic-Powered MedReserve Forecast and MedReseve Pro products. These tools enable insurance payers and employers to understand how to properly reserve funds for medical care and identify opportunities to improve claims management, mitigate bodily injury risks and improve outcomes for persons involved in a work-related or auto injury, including occupational exposure to COVID-19.

A Journey of Discovery

For my daughter, her team closed out the season with a 5-0 win. A victory that has come on the back of a very challenging season. For all of us it has been a journey of discovery, of learning: Figuring out how to win and lose together and grow cohesively as a team in the process. It has also been about fun. Enjoyment. Experimenting with new ideas, tactics, formations, to see what works and what doesn’t work. The insurance industry is no different. We are all on this journey together and the scope is now truly global. InsurTech has a critical role to play on that journey as a platform for innovation and inspiration. It isn’t perfect and there is still a lot to learn, but I hope we can continue to adopt a lens of collaboration.

For me, it has truly been a learning process. Coaching a group of kids, trying to help each player navigate where they fit in a team, and how they can provide the most value, is very much like the adult world. This is very much a team effort and I look forward to continuing my own level of coaching alongside the wonderful folks at Care Bridge International, the Global Insurance Accelerator, BCP Tech and Lloyd's Lab.

Cheers. Coach London (as they call me on the pitch.)