Instech London Podcast

With the increasing choices that insurers have of data sources to identify property characteristics, choosing the right level of detail and certainty is essential. This week Matthew travels virtually around the world to talk to Tony Agresta, EVP and General Manager of Nearmap and Dr Michael Bewley VP of AI and Computer Vision. Topics covered include: Achieving 3-D imagery and creating virtual images of property to walk around Differences between aerial imagery from aircraft compared to satellites Working with partners The future opportunities following the Thoma Bravo acquisition We’d love to know what you think about this episode - click here and add your thoughts to our LinkedIn post about it. If you like what you're hearing, please leave us a review on whichever platform you use or leave a post on Linkedin or contact Matthew Grant on LinkedIn. Sign up to the InsTech newsletter for a fresh view on the world every Wednesday morning. To find out more about InsTech, our membership and offerings visit www.inst

With so much data now available from above us and around us to help understand properties, how should insurers, governments and others know which is the most reliable to use - and importantly - how to deal with the uncertainty and sometimes conflicting opinions? This week Matthew Grant is talking to Rachel Olney, Founder and CEO of Geosite. Join us to discover: The key problem Geosite is solving for insurers and others How Rachel discovered that insurance offered the biggest opportunity to launch a new business Lessons from working with the US Department of Defense Why does “accuracy” mean different things when identifying building locations depending on the hazard? What are the top three attributes founders need to be successful? We’d love to know what you think about this episode - click here and add your thoughts to our LinkedIn post about it. If you like what you're hearing, please leave us a review on whichever platform you use or leave a post on Linkedin or contact Matthew Grant on LinkedIn. Sign up to

We hear a lot about insurance protection for major catastrophes, but losses from frequent, local events now cause as much damage as the larger disasters that make the news. But insurance coverage is lagging behind leaving insurers and enterprises exposed to loss with no insurance protection. The Demex Group, a spin-out from reinsurer Munich Re is offering parametric cover to fill that insurance gap. This week Matthew Grant and Henry Gale are talking to President & CEO Bill Clark and Chief Risk Officer Matt Coleman, both of whom bring deep industry expertise to Demex. Topics include: Why traditional insurers and reinsurers are reducing their insurance cover for weather risks The impact of climate change on frequency and severity Why brokers are supporting the Demex offering The problem of lack of insurance and the “stub period” Understanding hyper localisation We’d love to know what you think about this episode - click here and add your thoughts to our LinkedIn post about it. If you like what you're heari

Digital innovation is creating new opportunities to support customers and create efficiencies for claims handling. Oliver McGuinness, CEO of RightIndem, and Tim Rankin, Managing Director of AA Accident Assist, join Robin Merttens to discuss how the two organisations are working together. Talking points include: How RightIndem has evolved since being launched in 2016 with a new founder and new focus The opportunities presented by Electronic First Notification of Loss (EFNOL) Advances in claims for motor and auto The role of "estimatics" We’d love to know what you think about this episode - click here and add your thoughts to our LinkedIn post about it. If you like what you're hearing, please leave us a review on whichever platform you use or leave a post on Linkedin or contact Matthew Grant on LinkedIn. Sign up to the InsTech newsletter for a fresh view on the world every Wednesday morning. To find out more about InsTech, our membership and offerings visit www.instech.co or contact us hello@instech.co Continu

Oliver Werneyer launched his first business aged 16 and later went on to launch Imburse when he discovered the true cost to insurance companies of collecting premiums and paying claims. Another fascinating story about building a business, identifying opportunities and building confidence with clients. Imburse is the glue and pipeline between insurers, their clients and payment providers. Join Matthew and Oliver as they cover topics including: How to find a problem to solve - then build a business Revealing the true cost of inefficient processes - and fixing them Gaining confidence and credibility with insurance buyers Why the regulator is your friend Why Imburse built its technology in-house The importance of partnerships We’d love to know what you think about this episode - click here and add your thoughts to our LinkedIn post about it. If you like what you're hearing, please leave us a review on whichever platform you use or leave a post on Linkedin or contact Matthew Grant on LinkedIn. Sign up to the InsT

We’re covering two main themes here - building a business that survives and thrives after ten years - and assessing the growing risk from a flood. We’ve been working closely with Fathom for many years. In Matthew Grant’s discussion with the co-founders of Fathom, you’ll discover topics such as: The advantages of building a business with close links to a university How increases in the resolution of data and increased computing power have fundamentally changed flood modelling in 10 years Why and when co-founders should bring in an external CEO Why insurers are better at understanding risk than many other industries How to represent uncertainty in decision making River gauges and aerial images - creating credible data sources to plug the information gaps Working with partners such as Reask If you enjoyed this, we recommend Episode 220 for more information about Fathom, Reask and climate assessment. We’d love to know what you think about this episode - click here and add your thoughts to our LinkedIn post about

Eigen Technologies provides natural language processing (NLP) technology to clients across multiple sectors. Chris Mullan, SVP of Product; and Tim Crowe, Director of Insurance Solutions, joined Robin Merttens on this episode to discuss how they help the insurance industry get access to all the insightful data trapped in the many bespoke, complex and rapidly changing documents that the industry relies on. Talking points include: Unstructured data and the inherent issues it causes in the insurance process The unique issues that arise from London’s Market reform contracts Past experiences of the insurance industry, including the overpromising of vendors and failure to deliver The role of AI, Machine Learning and how to accurately describe them How documents vary across geographies and the issues that creates. We’d love to know what you think about this episode - click here and add your thoughts to our LinkedIn post about it. If you like what you're hearing, please leave us a review on whichever platform you use

This week Matthew Grant is talking to Nigel Walsh, Managing Director of Insurance, Google Cloud. You'll find out why Google launched its recent “start-up” - Google Cloud - growing in excess of 36% quarter to quarter. Nigel is well known for his love of insurance and engagement across a whole range of innovative topics - and his annual predictions. He relocated to the US from the UK last year so we get a perspective of how attitudes, and technology, vary on both sides of the Atlantic. Topics include What’s changed since the phrase “Insurtech” was invented 7 years ago? What consumers really want? Don't mistake a clear view for a short distance Are insurers returning as investors with a fresh appetite for innovation? Predicting the future and scoring past forecasts We’d love to know what you think about this episode - click here and add your thoughts to our LinkedIn post about it. If you like what you're hearing, please leave us a review on whichever platform you use or leave a post on Linkedin or contact Matt

This week we are back talking to another leader from one of the largest insurance companies in the world. Liberty Mutual. Parul Kaul-Green is Chief Digital Strategy Officer for Liberty Specialty Markets. Parul is at the sharp end of driving innovation across many of Liberty’s businesses as the company moves to digital. Join us as Matthew Grant discovers how Parul is supporting Liberty’s underwriters and its clients including some of the following: All insurers are moving to become truly digital, but how does a Chief Digital Strategy Officer achieve that? Parul has a team around the world - how does she bring the underwriters and other business units along with her? What are the differences between “outputs” and “outcomes” and why is that important? Liberty’s three areas of focus: digital distribution, analytics and digital products Examples of companies that Liberty is working with If you like what you're hearing, please leave us a review on whichever platform you use or leave a post on Linkedin or contact M

Cytora is well known in London and increasingly in the US too, as providing analytics for insurers - founded in 2014 and with some well-known clients including Allianz, Beazley and Markel - this is another company that’s made the transition from start-up to scale-up.  Richard Hartley is the Co-founder and CEO. In this episode you will discover why the company pivoted from its original premise of sourcing data to help with commercial underwriting pricing - to its new solution, which is making underwriters' lives better,  improving, as Richard puts it, how information glides through companies. You will also hear: How Richard and his team refocused the business when they realised that it's not the lack of data that is often holding insurers back, but too much data and data that’s hard to organise. When insurers should be making decisions to buy versus build their own technology Some of the differences between those of you in the US compared to us here in the UK. When it's better for hiring to go and find people

Since being founded in 1688  Lloyd’s of London has grown into a marketplace supporting over £35 billion of premium. Innovation is at the heart of its success. More recently the “Lloyd’s Lab” has supported over 100 companies from around the world that are helping insurers find new solutions for the insurance protection gap and improving efficiencies. Dawn Miller joined Lloyd’s of London as the Commercial Director in 2022 after a career with some well-known global insurers - having cut her teeth as an investor and entrepreneur. One of Dawn’s responsibilities is helping the Lloyd’s market (which includes 50 insurance companies and 380 brokers) identify new types of insurance to offer, improve efficiencies  - and support customers from global enterprises to small businesses around the world. Join us for this episode to discover: The range of Dawn’s responsibilities which includes the Lloyd’s Lab, the Product Launch Lab and FutureMinds. Some of the milestones and success stories from the Lloyd’s Lab. What is invo

There are some fascinating stories about companies that have existed for 10 years. At this point, almost every company will have found its product-market fit, be generating revenue and, in most cases, moved beyond start-up to scale up - but each of them will also have had to navigate through some tough headwinds and in many cases shift tack to identify what their clients really need. Praedicat is one such company and Matthew Grant caught up again with Bob Reville, Co-founder and CEO. With a mission to help insurers, and others, understand the emerging risks and potential litigation costs from substances that have the potential to be as expensive as asbestos is - Bob and his team reveal some of the hidden problems facing society, and insurers, in the years ahead. But you don’t have to be a casualty underwriter, or even have any knowledge of liability insurance to find a lot of value from this discussion. We cover a lot. Bob explains why a change of name from its original offering - as a casualty catastrophe mo

It's New Year's day as we release this so we're giving our regular listeners a break with just a quick word from the InsTech podcast. Matthew Grant reflects on the takeaways from 2022 and a brief look at 2023. Only 4 minutes. Back with our full schedule of great guests in January. 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. To find out more about InsTech, our membership and offerings visit www.instech.co or contact us hello@instech.co

Even podcasters need a break, so we're borrowing the podcast for this episode from Supercede to bring you founders Ben Rose and Jerad Leigh interviewing InsTech's Robin Merttens. This was recorded back in August 2022 and reviews our Marketplaces and Exchanges report released at that time (available here). Topics include What Is a Platform? The Evolution of Technology Lessons from RI3K Challenges of Digital Risk Documents Vs. Data Difficulties of Industry Consensus The B3i Blockchain Initiative InsTech: Collaboration & Partnerships InsTech Marketplace & Exchanges Report Benefits to the End Consumer 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. To find out more about InsTech, our membership and offerings visit www.instech.co or contact us hello@instech.co Continuing Professional Development - Learning Objectives InsTech is accredited b

We’re back with our occasional “Partner Chats”. Robin Merttens and Matthew Grant reflect on what is going on in the world of innovation and insurance. As usual, there are some things to celebrate, and some things to grumble about. We are the guests of QBE Ventures, the venture investment and development arm of QBE Insurance Group for this episode. Peta Kilian, UK Head of Strategy and Partnerships, joined us ready with a list of questions from her colleagues across QBE. Talking points include: Does insurance need underwriters? What is algorithmic underwriting and does it really work? Sharing data between insurers and their partners - is there anything to celebrate in 2022? Energy transition and the move to reduce carbon emissions - what’s coming next? Cyber insurance - is now the time to get involved? And a lot more Thanks to QBE for inviting us and allowing us to record this session. For a quick look at what this looked like on the day take a look at our video here. If you like what you're hearing, please le

We’ve released over 200 podcasts through our usual InsTech channel. At InsTech, we’re also keen listeners of other people’s podcasts. During 2023, we will be sharing a selection of the podcasts that we like, or appear in, through an occasional mid-week or holiday season release. For this episode, we’re bringing you the “Making Risk Flow Podcast” from Cytora. Cytora’s Chief Commercial and Operations Officer, Juan de Castro, is talking to two insurance companies about the challenges that insurers and brokers are facing and how they’ve overcome those. Nic Brown, Divisional Director - Broker from Markel UK and James Wright, Head of Technology at Beazley Digital joined Juan in front of a live audience.  Topics include: How technology can add value to the broker The opportunities within the sector around data analysis  How Cytora helps companies to gain efficiency savings through automating processes You can learn more about Cytora and what we are doing with them from the company’s dedicated page on the InsTech we

In this episode we cover the highlights of our recent live event in London “Tropical Cyclone - Managing Tomorrow's Climate Risk Today with Reask and Fathom”. We heard about how insurers and portfolio managers are taking account of the increased need to understand the combined risk of floods and hurricanes. We were joined by some of the companies providing climate analytics and data including: 1:38 Jamie Rodney, CEO, Reask; Andrew Smith, Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer, Fathom; David Vicary, Research and Development Manager, Brit Insurance 15:01 Robert Porter, Product Director, VAVE; Oliver Wing, Chief Research Officer, Fathom; Sue Barenbrug, Independent Consultant 27.46 Paul Wilson, Partner, Securis Investment Partners; Thomas Loridan, Co-founder and Chief Science Officer, Reask 43.41 Dickie Whitaker, Founder and CEO, Oasis Loss Modelling Framework Talking points include: What a globally correlated cyclone model looks like The valuation of properties and how open data is impacting this Applying science

McKenzie Intelligence Services (MIS) provides catastrophe event response intelligence to the insurance market. It combines space and ground imagery with human intelligence and AI to estimate losses, helping insurers aggregate exposure data. Brush Claims is a US-based property and liability claims service provider. Matthew Grant and Ali Smedley spoke to Daniel Grimwood-Bird, Head of Sales and Marketing at MIS and Troy Stewart, COO and President at Brush Claims. They cover the way the two companies are working together and how responses to future events will change as a result. Other talking points include: MIS’ provision of event intelligence following Hurricane Ian How MIS integrates data from various sources into its GEO platform to estimate losses How MIS identifies flood and wind damage at the property level using satellites and Synthetic Aperture Radar Troy’s experience at the Lloyd’s Lab The detrimental impact of uncertainty on a claims process and how MIS and Brush Claims partnership is addressing this

PwC is a professional services network of firms. The company is one of the largest professional services networks in the world and is considered one of the Big Four accounting firms. Glynn Austen-Brown and Michael Cook, Partners at PwC, joined Matthew and covered topics including why insurance companies need to move to be fully digital and what that takes. Other topics include: Examples of where analytics are improving how companies support their customers How companies are overcoming the historical challenge of the “trust gap” Underinsurance in Southeast Asia and how insurtechs can address this market How PwC is working with companies in the insurance industry such as Admiral You can find PwC’s report referred to in the podcast here. Learn more about PwC including our past interviews, podcasts and reports from our dedicated website page 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 v

Tensorflight uses AI, aerial and street view imagery to provide property data for risk analytics on commercial, personal and industrial properties globally. Matthew Grant was joined by Jacob Grob, the Chief Revenue Officer at Tensorflight. They discuss his personal experience with Hurricane Ian, some of the latest developments in providing property data and the challenges of social inflation pushing up costs.  Other topics include:  The difference in the way insurance is sold in the US compared to the rest of the world The “assignment of benefits” and how it impacts Florida Using data to make better decisions Learn more about Tensorflight including our past interviews, podcasts and reports from our dedicated website page.  If you like what you are 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. To find out more about InsTech, our membership and offerings visit www.ins