Breaking down insurtech and the opportunities ahead

Speaker 1 (00:07): Welcome back to Your Thriving Practice, a podcast from Global Atlantic. I'm your host, Dan Corcoran. Global Atlantic is a leading retirement and life insurance company that creates innovative products to help meet your client's financial goals. In our last podcast, we talked to Steve Gresham of the executive project about wealth tech and he gave us a clear overview of this changing landscape. In today's podcast, we continue to explore the topic by drilling down into Insurtech to find out how it's affecting the industry, what it means to financial professionals, where it's going in the near future, and the challenges and opportunities involved in its continued evolution. Helping us with this topic will be Greg Hoffnagle, a partner at the Goodwin Proctor Law Firm, where he focuses on the intersection of technology and insurance as part of the firm's financial industry group and insurance practice. Joining us in this conversation as well is Brock Scheck, Senior Vice President of Insurtech Partners and Platforms at Global Atlantic. Greg, Brock, thank you both for being here.

Speaker 2 (01:09): Today. Thank you. Great to be here. Yeah,

Speaker 1 (01:11): Thanks for having us. So let's get really basic just to start out and talk about what Insurtech really is. I mean, what types of companies and players are involved in his development and just define it if you can at this point. We'll start with you Greg.

Speaker 3 (01:23): So Insurtech has a wide-ranging meaning depending on who you ask, and it also applies to a number of different players coming from a law firm I think of who the clients I service and those vary. Those are startups that their core focus is improving insurance through technology or innovative ideas. And then you also have what I'll call sometimes the more traditional players, the full stack carriers, the ones that you know of. And then the last, you know, players that have really risen recently in the Insurtech space and that I do a lot of work with are the investors. It's, it's the money that's in this space. And again, you could imagine that sometimes often the traditional carriers or the traditional brokers, but more recently it's been private equity firms and VCs.

Speaker 1 (02:07): And Brock, when you think about the term Insurtech, what do you see out there in the world?

Speaker 2 (02:12): Yeah, from a carrier's perspective, we are really trying to think about it from the financial professional and how they view it and, and it's really a way for us to connect to them and meet them where they are. A rallying cry, if you will, is God are the days where carriers can force financial professionals to interact. How we want to interact with them, we need to interact with them, how they interact with us and how they want to do that. And so that's how we think about it and it's just using digital platforms to integrate all those currently disparate technologies that they use today.

Speaker 1 (02:39): And are these digital platforms in these technologies already here? Are they in development? Both.

Speaker 2 (02:45): I would say most of them are already here, but they are evolving as well, getting that adoption, continuing to add more technologies, get them connected so that again, it's one interface for those professionals or not swiveling their chair constantly going back and forth in multiple technologies.

Speaker 1 (02:58): Technologies. Is that how you see it too?

Speaker 3 (03:00): It is. You know the, the technology aspect of it is interesting. I do think a lot of the technology is already here, the use of APIs or different sort of software to improve the experience. And I think that's one tranche of the Insurtech and then there's the bigger picture or shooting for the moon and that's more of blockchain or artificial intelligence where you go to a lot of these conferences where you have a lot of clients that are theoretically talking about their application, but I don't think really currently have a meaningful impact in the insurance space. Doesn't mean they won't, but, so there's two types of technology technology that can actually be used now and they're improving it. And then I think it's like forward thinking of future technology that often comes up in the Insurtech space.

Speaker 2 (03:44): Yeah, I completely agree with that. And it's, it's kind of what's happening now and then what's that next big wave? And I think that's what gets most of us really excited about this opportunity.

Speaker 1 (03:53): And when you think about this industry, these technologies they keep developing, they keep changing. Is there a lot of confusion about what Insurtech really is and should financial professionals be trying to educate themselves about what it is.

Speaker 3 (04:06): Is? I definitely think there is. I mean, for example, I started at Goodwin about a year ago and on a daily basis I continue to tell my partners what my Insurtech practice is. And again, I think you try to break it down what it really is, the use of technology, sometimes new, sometimes old and innovative ideas to, I think streamline the process. One thing that I think most insurance people can agree with is insurance can be clunky, can be time consuming. And so I think the real focus of Insurtech is the efficiencies and finding ways to bring products to customers in a less friction-based impact, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (04:49): Yeah, absolutely. And I think from that perspective with our financial professionals, again, they want us to meet 'em where they are. They're doing business like this today already in many cases. We just haven't built life and annuity products into that like we need to be and that, and that's really the focus moving forward.

Speaker 1 (05:04): So what forces are propelling that to happen right now? I mean how, what's pushing that forward?

Speaker 2 (05:09): Uh, I think a lot of it centers around other technologies, other financial products have already done that. I mean an example we use and it's not only relevant today, but you, you think back to the eighties and the technology enhancements to make mutual funds readily available and now almost everyone has a mutual fund in their portfolio. Well that's starting to happen with other investment products whether it be alternatives or other products they can buy. It's just the life in the annuity space has been so far behind that and it's really challenged us and now those financial professionals are starting to look at other avenues because those are incorporated into how they do business today and our products aren't necessarily that way. That's really driving it from our perspective.

Speaker 3 (05:48): Yeah, and I, I think there's a couple aspects. It's one what's driving it is competition. Some people started implementing technology and making their user experience better. It's hard to compete with them. So I think that's one, selling products to new demographics, it's a little bit different with life insurance but other types of insurance, if you want to hit a certain demographic you can't do it with a fill out an application and mail it in. They just don't work that way. And so I think it's, it's, it's the market. It's the consumers that really drive it that want a better experience, want an experience that they can relate to or want an experience that they're willing to partake in. And like I said, if you, I'm not longer 20, but if you're in your twenties, you wanna be able to do something on an app or you wanna be able to do it online, you want to be able to do it fast and if you can't you're just not gonna do it. And so I think there are, you know, competition and the consumer I think really are, are two of the more major key factors that drive the Insurtech.

Speaker 2 (06:41): Space. Yeah, and to add onto that, you know a stat I like to go back to, if you look at total annuity sales over the last 15 years, it's basically relatively flat. But then if you look at the number of Americans to aged 65 and older over that same period that's gone up by just, I think it's just over 50% and that should really be a sweet spot for us. That's the point in their lives with a lot of these investors want to de-risk their portfolios and annuities and these type of products are the perfect way to do it. We're just not reaching them. We're flat while that demographic is significantly higher. And so to Greg's point, the consumers are really the ones driving this because they're picking other products.

Speaker 3 (07:15): Yeah and I guess one last point I think that maybe some people wouldn't think of as driving it is the other tech vertical. So people in their everyday life, whether it's FinTech or wealth tech or ed tech or Cleantech, almost any industry has a tech Aon. And so FinTech has been a major driver. I look at Insurtech as being part of the overall FinTech umbrella, but people are starting to pay for everything online, pay faster. And so you start looking at why can I do something this way my banking fast, but when I buy insurance it seems extremely painful. And so other markets that have nothing to do really with insurance but what consumers have come to expect from their experience when buying things has driven insurance and tech to come to the forefront and say we need to keep up.

Speaker 1 (08:00): Let's talk about that a little bit more about what this would look like in the real world. And these technologies actually do land in the hands of not just financial professionals but also their clients. What is it gonna look like? Is it more apps, is it more mobility? I guess what is it gonna look like?

Speaker 2 (08:14): I think it's a little bit of that so will be more app based, it will give the consumer more control over their products that they just don't have today. They may get a value once a year, their financial professional may sit in front of them once a year and do a review but that's it that other, you know, 11 months of the year they're getting no values, no updates and so it'll give them more control. It'll also give financial professionals more control because now it's tying all these systems together. So right now they're so disparate and if you're financial professional you're probably using anywhere on average from three to six different technologies to complete a sale. Each one you're having to sign into, you're having a rekey in information, it's just a really clumsy experience. And now that you've tied those together and now you can bring annuities into that as well, it just makes it so much easier to give your client more value and more information on a much more timely basis

Speaker 1 (09:02): And maybe more value for a bigger number of clients.

Speaker 2 (09:05): Absolutely. I think that's the blue ocean for all of us is the other thing we haven't really talked about is, we feel from a Global Atlantic perspective Insurtech is gonna open up distribution opportunities for us because it is gonna kind of democratize some of these products and make them available to a wider base of people than they are today.

Speaker 3 (09:22): It it is interesting. I know, and this is maybe a non sequitur though, is Insurtech a couple years ago was thought of taking over the insurance space or doing things that carriers or traditional brokers didn't do well and that was their perception, and it was one of those things that we're going to take it over. Now it definitely, I think, has evolved and rightfully so that each partner, traditional players and new tech companies realize we all have a seat at the table here. We all do different aspects of the business better than others and if we can somehow work together we can create a better user experience and and that really is significantly different. I think that's where the market is today where four or five years ago when I was at conferences or talking to Insurtech, there was like an us against them mentality and that definitely in my opinion has gone away.

Speaker 2 (10:11): Yeah, absolutely and maybe there's some initial opportunity on the short term for one carrier to use this more advantageously than another carrier. But we really think about it, the industry needs this. If the industry doesn't grab this, if traditional carriers don't latch onto this and move it forward, we're gonna become dinosaurs. And so we really think it'll benefit all of us, not just with our existing customers but again the comment I just made a few minutes ago about reaching new customers as well. So we are actually trying to partner with other carriers to say let's do this collectively because we as an industry need this and one carrier can't do it, it's got to be us as a collective.

Speaker 1 (10:44): So things keep changing of course and we often hear about the term insurtech ecosystems. What is that and why is that model so important? Why are industry partnerships such a key element in the spread of Insurtech?

Speaker 2 (10:58): I mentioned this a little bit earlier, there's so many disparate technologies, there's not one technology that completes the entire selling cycle. And so if you have these disparate cycles and three of the five are connected, you might as well not have any of 'em connected. So you've gotta add those together and everyone needs to be as part of this ecosystem because it may just be a one off benefit for that financial professional or whomever, but if one piece is missing, it creates a gap and that gap can, you know, affect adoption going forward.

Speaker 3 (11:25): Yeah, I totally agree on that point. I think the ecosystem is you wanna bring the best of the best of the table and I don't think any one entity has cornered the market. It's doing things great not speaking to about Brock's organization, but the insurance industry in itself hasn't been known for its own technology that it creates. A lot of the technology that it's used over time has been third party vendors and that's kind of the same system here, but you now have some new technology and new ideas coming into the ecosystem to try to help build it. The other thing that when we talk about ecosystem though is Insurtech or the insurance industry is extremely broad. So these technologies, I may have been alluding to customer facing technologies but they're often back office technologies. There are often technologies that help them connect with their business partners, whether that's brokers or whether that's their reinsures. And so the industry is vast, the industry some may say is somewhat antiquated. And so there's a lot of areas where technology and players within the Insurtech space can play a role.

Speaker 1 (12:33): And Greg says that no one really has a a corner on this market yet. But let's talk about what's happening at Global Atlantic when it comes to our tech.

Speaker 2 (12:40): The big thing for us is trying to identify, you know, where the market's going. So we're listening to our distribution firms, our financial partners to say what are you guys using? How do you want to interact? And then what technologies are you using? We're also talking with a lot of different technologies and vendors to say Hey, what do you guys have to offer? And we wanna make sure that we pick the winners. We don't think they're all gonna win, but we do think there's some clear cut winners that have emerged and so we're making sure that we're aligned with those because that's again where our financial professionals are at. And so if we don't connect there we will be at a significant disadvantage. And so that's our focus right now identifying those and then really pushing them and leverage them to partner together. And I think they've done that. They realize their solution in and of itself is nice but it doesn't move the needle. But if you collectively bring all these groups together, that's what moves the needle. And so they've been very willing to partner together and leverage their technologies.

Speaker 1 (13:31): And Greg, you're seeing that across the spectrum here. Big picture, are these plans coming together as we speak?

Speaker 3 (13:38): To Brock's point, at least on on the carrier side, I definitely see them willing to work with various participants in the space. I've also noticed over the last couple of years, and I think this is probably the norm for any emerging industry or sector of an industry is a lot of these technology companies are still pivoting themselves. So they started out and say well we have an app and we have an API and we can plug in and our technology's great, but we also wanna sell policies. And they realize very quickly or maybe not so quickly that their technology's great but they're really bad at selling insurance. And so you've watched that part of their business fade away and now they're more of a SaaS platform, they're more just a technology play and that's only the evolution over the last couple years. So I see a lot of that.

Speaker 3 (14:26): They come in, they sometimes are swimming in one direction and then through their own experience like working with a Global Atlantic or another large partner realize, you know, we do this part of business really well, not so much this part or global Lenox seems to value this more than that. And so the Insurtech themselves, particularly the technology startup companies are continuing to evolve because they came into this, this industry almost knowing nothing about insurance, but they thought they had certain fixes that the insurance industry might want. And I think sometimes the insurance industry needs 'em, sometimes they don't. And I think it's been a learning experience for a lot of the new players that have entered the Inure tech space.

Speaker 2 (15:06): Yeah, Dan, if I could add onto that a hundred percent agree. Again, what we've seen is they're very quickly shifting their strategies and they're smaller technology companies and they can do that. And I think what they've done is they've narrowed their focus. A couple partners we work with were really broad and they wanted to bring distribution, they wanted to bring technology, they wanna do this and then over here and they realize we're not necessarily good at that and we didn't maybe quite understand it as well as we thought we did. And so let's get back to what we're good at, which is providing a technology solution. And that has really helped move us forward.

Speaker 3 (15:35): Yeah, no I've definitely seen that. For example, I had a number of companies that were selling products, had a technology platform and one of the things they did was also had fraud detection and it turned out they were just really good at fraud detection. And so now they're just a fraud detection company that works with large carriers and that's solely what they do. And so I think we're gonna continue to see that in the market as it

Speaker 1 (15:55): Evolves. Everything keeps evolving. Change can be hard, but let's talk about the benefits of that change. How can Insurtech actually benefit producers? How's it gonna affect the way they do their work, their processes and provide a better experience for them and eventually their clients?

Speaker 3 (16:11): I think you know, some of the producers, especially more of the smaller ones, didn't really have any technology or it wasn't technology focused. And so I think this allows them efficiency, it allows them to grow their customer base, save money on what they're doing. And so I think for certain producers this is a bit of a godsend, you know, if they get the right technology, they never really use technology before for some of the larger, you know, again insurance is wide ranging. I think where Insurtech or the technology has less of an impact is on the larger like Fortune 500 companies. The way they buy insureds through the brokers like Willis or Aon, that's still less tech focused and they still do the renewals every year where you fill out applications because it's just a little different. And so I think it depends on the size of the broker or producer, who their customers are. And I definitely think the smaller to mid-size producers have been impacted tremendously in a good way. And I do think eventually it will climb to the Aons of the marshals of the world. But I think the way the clients they serve, it's just a little bit different at

Speaker 2 (17:16): This point. Yeah and to give a business case, we looked at structured notes and and the products around structured notes, which we aren't in but went through a similar evolution about five years ago. And as part of what they've done is they, they've taken their minimums where you had to have a million dollars to purchase a structured note maybe five years ago. Now it's all the way down to a thousand dollars. And their quote time went from hours to real time and their purchase time went from days to hours. If you're a financial professional, that's money in your pocket. If you can churn like that and get business in the door, that makes a meaningful difference to them and the consumer obviously The other thing, you know, I mentioned this a little bit earlier, but all the disparate system and having to re-log, sign into each one, keying the information every time with all that customer information.

Speaker 2 (17:58): Now with Insurtech, it's allowed those technologies to talk. So it's usually a single sign on a single user interface just kinda looks like they're toggling, and one screen as opposed to swiveling their chair and going to a different screen and then they're able to share that more readily with their clients. And the analogy I use is they might sit in front of their clients, bring out their iPad and have a really sophisticated digital presentation walking through all their asset stocks, bonds, alternatives, whatever they have changing variables in real time and then they would pull out a paper copy of their annuity annual statement and that just loses the consumer right there. And it's like, well why? Why the why am I even in this then? And so that's a real benefit for those professionals moving forward.

Speaker 1 (18:36): So how can Insurtech actually change annuity sales for producers?

Speaker 2 (18:40): One of the things we think will happen, it'll make them a little more commoditized and transactional and nature, which is both a challenge in and opportunity for carriers and we just need to make sure that we navigate that appropriately. But it'll make it easier to do business again given the example. They can get them issued much more quickly than they do now and have more information when they do feeds back into their systems in terms of data values and things like that. So it'll make them more commoditized and we think it will alter products as we move forward. We think technology will enable new products to occur, whether that's bringing alternatives into annuities, you know there's some issues around liquidity with that, but some point somebody's gonna crack that code and that's gonna really provide those professionals more arrows in their quiver if you will, to be able to really target consumers and grow their business. 

Speaker 3 (19:24): Yeah and and I see that across the overall insurance landscape. These technologies make it much easier, and these are the terms that come up a lot either to bundle products easier at this point or embed products where you actually are now bringing insurance to where consumers buy things, and it might not actually be insurance that they're buying but it might actually need insurance or insurance might go part in parcel with that. And so the technology I think really allows you again to sell more products to the customer at one point, and it also allows you to sell insurance products when they're otherwise buying things. And so it becomes just much more of a consumer friendly experience where insurance normally is, you buy insurance because you just went to buy a car and then you have to go get it or you buy a home, and you have to go get it. Now you're buying things and the opportunity to buy insurance is also right there with it.

Speaker 1 (20:17): So for the technologies that are already out there, the consumers are already using What's been the response so far?

Speaker 3 (20:24): Yeah, it's mixed. You know one of the things we were talking about is, you know, this makes the consumer experience better. That's if the technology is good and that's if the technology is working in the way it should, the last thing you wanna do is provide technology that seems as clunky as the prior experience. You know, and there is kind of, it's a tough road to walk because a lot of this is new technology and you're trying to figure out what makes sense to the consumer. You can only test it so much on a small sampling but then when you launch it in a pilot in several states, you can learn pretty quickly and the internet will speak up pretty quickly of did you just try this app? It's terrible . And you was like, well we spent a lot of money on that app and this was like our big new idea. And so that's also what we're seeing now too is companies are testing different technologies and different user experiences I think to mix results.

Speaker 1 (21:20): You can create the technology, but it doesn't mean the customer's gonna like it. Right? Yeah,

Speaker 2 (21:24): Absolutely. And the adoption has, has been slower than we would like put to Greg's point. The technology isn't all the way where it needs to be to really make it a more efficient and better experience. We're getting really close to that and we're starting to get more traction in it. This is an industry again that's still kind of analog stage of its evolution relative to other financial institutions which are already heavily using apps and other more relevant technologies. So our financial professionals aren't gonna be any different, it's gonna take them a little longer. And so it's been slower, we're getting there. I don't think it happens overnight where we see a tsunami of adoption overnight. It's gonna take some time but we'll get there.

Speaker 3 (21:59): One thing I do see from being from the outside, I'm at a law firm, I don't work at an insurance carrier, is I do see or sense a real commitment from the carriers and the brokers to get this right. Where again, a couple of years ago it could have been, well this, this, all this technology, all these new players in this space. I think there was a little bit of skepticism and I see a real like full on embrace from the insurance industry of there's a lot of technology out there, we have to figure out what's right for us, we need to figure out what's right for our producers, we need to figure out what's right for our customers. But I definitely feel there's 110% commitment from the industry to embrace technology and make the experience of its customers better.

Speaker 2 (22:39): Yeah and and one quick thing to add to that is any change is tough to get adoption. You know, it's just human nature in some ways, but to Greg's point, not all the carriers had bought in early on and I think that has definitely changed and, and again if it's just global Atlantic out there and it's not, but if it was just Global Atlantic out there trying to do this, these financial professionals don't just sell our products, they'll sell the products of 7, 8, 9, 10 different carriers. And so yeah, it's nice for Global Atlantic but that's, you know, a relatively smaller piece of my business and so it doesn't move the needle for me from an experience standpoint. And so until all carriers buy in, which I think we're really there, that's when we can move forward.

Speaker 1 (23:14): Let's talk big picture here. How might Insurtech, FinTech and WealthTech all work together to enhance each other's capabilities and ultimately help financial professionals and their clients too? Because that's what's so important here is make sure it gets down to that customer level.

Speaker 2 (23:30): I think what's happening now is each, you know, WealthTech, FinTech, Insurtech, they're all moving forward but almost in a little bit of a silo. And at some point those silos have to integrate together. I wanna go to one app and do everything. I don't wanna go to this app here and this app for that. And things that we are starting to look at and we're starting to see if, or vendors or technologies come to us say, hey, we've got this health app, we think it's really cool and can really integrate well into a life annuity product. Oh and somebody else may say, hey we've got this payment system but we think really integrates well. So I think that's what needs to happen next. Those technologies from those kind of three buckets we just mentioned integrating themselves together.

Speaker 3 (24:06): Yeah, I, I totally agree and from a client perspective of startups, a lot of my Insurtech clients are actually FinTech or HealthTech clients where their core offering is more of a financial product or more of a a healthcare product, but they're want to sell more products to their customers products that their customers need. And so they're trying to figure out how do we on one platform sell insurance products or financial products or health products and I definitely see a movement towards that. Me being the attorney, I would be remiss to not point out though that they all have different regulatory regimes and so that also is gonna make it a little bit harder to execute and I think we'll slow it down a little bit because you know with each, whether you're selling financial products, insurance products, there's certain regs that govern what you can say about the product, who you can sell it to, what you can charge, any sort of rebate you could get back for them. There's a number of issues that come up for each and as we tend to, I use the term earlier bundle products on the same platform, there are gonna be regulatory legal issues that people are gonna need to grapple

Speaker 2 (25:11): With and that's a really important point we're gonna have to have that regulatory environment come together as well and make that change a little easier moving forward. Because Greg's spot on, they're all so different and all the requirements are so different. It may seem like this product's really similar to this one but there's two different governing bodies and they have distinctly different rules for those. And so we're gonna need that regulatory environment to kind of come together a little bit and make this easier to move forward.

Speaker 1 (25:33): Now Insurtech is having a powerful impact on the industry but it's still clearly in its early stages of its evolution. So what do you think we could expect to see tomorrow five years from now? Or is it too early to say,

Speaker 3 (25:47): Yeah, I'll take a shot at that. I mean, probably too early to say, but that's never stopped me from venturing a guess. I think you're gonna see, you're gonna see winners and losers. You're gonna see like any industry, the technology that was better or uh, more accurately executed are going to be the ones that thrive and grow. I think there's gonna be a lot of ones that you hear about a lot now and have clever names and clever marketing campaigns that are probably just not gonna exist. And so I think we're just gonna be weeding out the better technologies and the better applications. And I always wanna underline the better ideas because I still think Insurtech is, although it's predominantly tech driven, I think it's also innovative ideas and so the ones that have the better ideas I think will be here and the ones that had mediocre ones probably won't.

Speaker 1 (26:34): Won't. And Brock, where do you see Insurtech taking us?

Speaker 2 (26:36): I think Greg's right with that assessment. The only thing I would add to that is I, I think maybe not in the next 12 months, but maybe 36 months to five years out is product enhancements. I think we'll see new products, he talked a little bit about bundling products earlier. It's really gonna allow us to do those type of things moving forward. At the end of the day that may end up being the single biggest benefit to the Insurtech space.

Speaker 3 (26:58): Yeah, I completely agree. We're talking, we're covering the wide range variant, we're using Insurtech, but the innovative idea is the product. So what you're actually getting, that's where I think the market is still gonna go. So we figured out ways to sell it faster. We figured out ways to sell it more cleverly and make it more enticing to customers. But in a lot of ways they're still buying the same old products and, and I don't mean that in a negative way, but they're just the same products and I think where the innovative and the technology as they start to enhance them, they're like, well we can actually sell a different product or we can sell kind of a hybrid product. Again, those come with some of the regulatory issues I was talking about earlier, but I think the product offering would be the real innovation. Absolutely. So I think that's what the customers want. I mean, again, if they can buy something faster and cheaper, that's great. If they can buy something that's better, that's ultimately what they're buying. They're buying insurance and they want the best product that fits the best for their use.

Speaker 1 (27:52): For financial professionals that are hearing this right now and saying, I wanna incorporate this into my practice, I want this to be part of my business. What are the first steps that they need to take to actually start making that happen? Is it a conversation they need to have with a certain entity? Is it actually learning the technology research? What do you say?

Speaker 2 (28:10): I think first and foremost, most of those financial professionals are connected with an organization, start having conversations there if they haven't already in terms of what's their strategy with InsureTech, how do they see this space and how are they trying to leverage this going forward? The good thing is almost all these distribution partners are starting to have those conversations or well into those conversations. And again, I'll say it, a lot of those, they're ahead of us from the carrier standpoint in terms of what they're doing and the technologies they're using. We just haven't incorporated our products yet. But I would start there, start having conversations internally with their leadership teams in terms of how they are leveraging this and what they're doing to move this forward.

Speaker 3 (28:46): Yeah, and I agree with that. I think one of the things that's nice about Insurtech or the ecosystem, it just doesn't have applications to the large carriers of the large producers. I think the smaller producers or even smaller carriers have the ability to partner with a tech company or other third-party vendors for what they need. I mentioned fraud detection earlier or if they need an online platform and that's not their thing. There's a number of players out there that is pretty easy to partner with once you identify your need and there's a lot of service providers. I mean that's really what a lot of the insured tech industry is. As Brock was alluding to earlier. There's a number of parts in the ecosystem and there's a number of companies out there that are willing to just fill that niche. So if you say I need this, they're like, we can provide this and in fact that's all we do. And so then you, you get like a third party vendor agreement with them and it's not that hard to implement once you identify your needs and the companies that you think could best help you.

Speaker 2 (29:43): And Greg's comment there sparked another thought is in terms of, you know, Dan, you asked, you know, what happens in the next five years. I think another thing this enables is disruptors to more easily get into this space and we're already starting to see some new technologies, new companies coming in because they don't have some of the legacy problems carriers do today that have been in business for a long time and have this analog experience so they can more quickly jump in. Not that it's easy to get into it yet, but some of those barriers are definitely knocked down and as the technology and these ecosystems grow and get more efficient, it's gonna be even easier for them to do that in the coming years.

Speaker 3 (30:16): Yeah, it's funny you mentioned that, again, being an outsider and not being an insurance company, but one of the advantages, so we were talking about Insurtech is a lot of technology providers, producers, but there are also a number of new insurance companies that have come into this space based on a real tech driven focus. But one of the things that you always hear is they're gonna struggle a little bit because they're new to the insurance industry, but what they don't have is all the legacy systems that the other carriers have. And that's a major thing. I mean you can name a carrier and they may be operating on seven different, you know, internal software systems and none of them talk to each other. And so that's a lot of, also, Insurtech is trying to help with that, trying to build technology that helps those legacy software systems that are already in the carriers talk to each other to figure out the data and what they know and how to service their customers. So there's a lot of fixing that can go on in the industry. That's

Speaker 1 (31:07): A great point. Final thoughts from either of you today? This obviously is a changing world, these technologies are being developed and hitting the market already. What do you want people to walk away with from this conversation? Big picture. Yeah,

Speaker 3 (31:19): Big picture is we're still, you know, on the front nine, there's still a lot of play going on here and there's a real opportunity for people to improve customer experience for carriers to make more money. Ultimately they wanna look out for their clients, but in the same sense they are business. And so I think stay tuned in the sense of follow where it's going. And I still think there's a lot of exciting things to come, particularly as we mentioned earlier on the product side of the insurance base.

Speaker 2 (31:48): Yeah, I love the sports analogy. Early endings, I could throw, you know, you could throw him out bit, but he's exactly right. We are early days, this is gonna get better, but it, it's the future and we think it's a tsunami coming and whether you want to embrace it or not, it doesn't matter. So you can either embrace it and try and ride the wave or you'll get, you know, run over by the wave. And so it is coming, it is exciting, it is gonna make the experience better, the products better, the end value will be much, much better for everyone involved. And this is critical for the insurance industry to move forward with this, just to remain relevant, at least the existing players today to remain relevant.

Speaker 1 (32:22): And we'll be getting hopefully a progress report of some kind in the next six months, one year, two years to see how all of this is going. Brock Scheck, Greg Hoffnagle, thank you both for helping us better understand this today.

Speaker 2 (32:33): Thanks Dan, appreciate it for having us.

Speaker 1 (32:34): I'm Dan Corcoran, thanks so much for being with us and we'll see you next time.

Speaker 4 (32:40): Global Atlantic, Your Thriving Practice podcasts are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts as well as by visiting global atlantic.com/professionals.

Speaker 5 (32:55): The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the guests on this podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints of Global Atlantic Financial Group. Global Atlantic Financial Group, Global Atlantic is the marketing name for the Global Atlantic Financial Group LLC and its subsidiaries including Forethought Life Insurance Company and Accordia Life and Annuity Company. Each subsidiary is responsible for its own financial and contractual obligations. These subsidiaries are not authorized to do business in New York.