Magdalena is a Senior Director and Global InsurTech Innovation Leader at WTW’s Insurance Consulting and Technology (ICT). She leads ICT’s inorganic growth strategy as well as its interaction with the external insurtech ecosystem globally. She joined the firm as a Senior Economist at Watson Wyatt’s Research and Innovation Center in 2005. She has 20+ years of experience in R&D and international strategy consulting and was WTW’s Global Head of Research and Analytical Services. Magda holds a M.Sc. in math. Finance and a PhD in Quantitative Economics and Finance. She also holds a professional certificate on Innovation from the MIT Professional Education Program.

For the past 10 years she has been solely focused on innovation and strategic consulting for the Insurance Industry, especially around digital transformation, advanced analytics, blockchain, emerging risks and #insurtech.

She was among the first to publish and discuss blockchain in the context of insurance and has focused almost exclusively on helping the insurance industry to understand and deploy new technologies since 2014. She is a well-recognized thought leader in insurtech and the implications of new technologies for the risk transfer industry. She has been a prolific public speaker in the past 10 years and in the past couple of years alone, Magda has had over 100 public speaking engagements specific to insurtech and blockchain at various international conferences and summits. She has also published multiple articles, blogs, interviews and audio/visual media on the topic. She sees herself as a blockchain and technology governance crusader and devotes significant time to educational activities, ranging from workshops for executives to sessions at elementary schools and trainings to empower #womenintech.

Her main areas of expertise include blockchain, technology and innovation, advanced analytics, MNC internationalization and innovation strategies, emerging markets, global governance, macroeconomic and socio-political risks.

Further, Magdalena has 14 years of teaching experience at European (Germany, UK) and Latin American universities. She also led many research projects for multilateral organizations on microinsurance, financial inclusion and innovation, including pre-2009 projects on alternative currencies.

• Note

This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook.

Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes.

Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Highlights from the Show

• Wesley came on the show in Season 5 to share more of Sola's story, so be sure to listen to that for more background
• They recently launched a Wind & Hail product that like a hybrid Parametric/Indemnity proiduct in that it is data-triggered, but has validation of the loss through on-site inspection
• Their product speaks directly to an issue many insurers and homeowners are facing where providing traditional coverage is no longer financially viable yet homeowners are struggling to afford even high-deductible offerings that leave them excessively exposed – and mortgage lenders aren't comfortable with the coverage gap being created
• Sola's Wind & Hail product is cheaper than the money most homeowners would save by increasing their Wind & Hail deductible if they live in a hail-prone area, meaning they can get back to more complete coverage while saving money over what that coverage would have cost otherwise

This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook.

Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes.

Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Highlights from the Show

• Dennis joined Intuit Credit Karma through their acquisition of ZenDrive, where he was CEO
• With credit being such a huge part of Auto insurance, it makes sense for a business like Credit Karma to be focused on the space, and help consumers manage their auto insurance rates and coverage as their credit score changes
• Credit Karma is not exclusively set on Auto insurance, but thinks instead of areas where consumer education and support in navigating something complex can yield better outcomes for them, so there are other possibilities for the business in insurance down the road
• One key thing to manage will be the issue of Privacy, which has been especially fraught in telematics and IoT-based coverage; Credit Karma thinks transparency and clarity are critical to be sure consumers always know where they stand when it comes to their data

This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook.

Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes.

Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Highlights from the Show

• Coterie is a Small Business-focused MGA offering core P&C products via agents, founded by David McFarland, who was on the show earlier in their journey to share their story
• Bobbie Collies joined to lead up distribution, and her responsibilities expanded into her current position as Chief Insurance Officer
• She gave an update of Coterie's business, including:
  • Evolved distribution efforts that are more focused, scalable and effective, with them now having onboarded 40,000 agents
  • Success in deploying APIs throughout the process, with 50% of transactions happening over API today (and growing)
  • The continued use of AI and ML in their business, which has always been very data and analytics-focused, but they look at new and better ways to evaluate risk and operate the business
  • Growth in average premium from $800 to $1800 over the past couple of years
• ITC is a great chance for Coterie to meet with a lot of their agent partners to talk about planning for the year ago and to keep a pulse on new technologies and innovations that could move the market and support their business going forward.

This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook.

Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes.

Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Highlights from the Show

• Mylo is a digital broker that was built from within a big, national broker, and today uses technology to match small business and individual insurance customers with coverage
• They currently write about $4m in premium per month; 65% being small commercial, and the rest being personal lines, plus benefits for small businesses
• They use AI to keep up with changes in coverage and appetite in real-time rather than having to manually recode their algorithms through some regular review process

This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook.

Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes.

Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Highlights from the Show

• The winner for most-talked about buzzword? AI, obviously
• The focus, however, was on AI for efficiency
• An AI-enabled data company talked about the difficulty they have talking about improving UW results, so they only talk about efficiency when meeting with carriers, or they lose the audience (even though they have proof of positive L/R impact)
• As an industry, I challenge all of us to actually push on the core of the business and not just go for the "easy" sell of efficiency

This episode is brought to you by The Future of Insurance thought leadership series, available globally from Amazon in print, Kindle and Audible audiobook.

Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes.

Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

While the show is on a break for a few weeks, I wanted to be sure you knew two things about ITC Las Vegas 2024:

• You can save $200 on registration thanks to the deal I scored for my listeners! Just visit http://www.future-of-insurance.com/itc for the discount code and a link to register
• If you're an insurance company executive, drop me a DM on LinkedIn if you'd like to be a guest on the show while I record in-person episodes at ITC on October 16th

Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes.

Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.

Follow the podcast at future-of-insurance.com/podcast for more details and other episodes.

Music courtesy of Hyperbeat Music, available to stream or download on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music and more.