Kelsie Bicking, vice president of agent experience at Chubb, leads efforts for small business insurance and lower-middle market insurance sales on Marketplace, the insurer's online digital platform for agents.
"I work across different teams to help them decide what their roadmaps are for how we're going to improve our agent facing platform, what we're going to put on it, and develop new products and architecture to make that all happen," she said.
Bicking joined Chubb in November 2024 after previous roles at GBLI, commercial insurance startup insurtech LIO, and USLI, where she worked from 2014 to 2022. She began her career in insurance on the agency side and later migrated to underwriting. In her past roles, Bicking built an insurance product background that she brought to Chubb.
"I look at things from that product lens. Technology is newer to me," she said. "Our agents are really looking for a product. That's why they're coming to our website. Understanding the product gives me a good foundation for how we can build our technology to make it work for our agents."
Joining Chubb, Bicking became part of the Marketplace team that launched the platform in 2018. "I came into a very well established team. We have many people who have been there since its inception," she said. "Coming into a very experienced team can be somewhat challenging, somewhat daunting, if you're coming in and trying to get acclimated and build trust with people who know a lot more about the subject matter than you do. But that's been a really great experience for me. The team has really welcomed me with open arms."
Leading that team is all about support, Bicking said. "They are telling me what is needed and what we need to do, and I'm supporting getting us to the next level from there," she said.
For Bicking's team, the next level was adding lower middle-market businesses to Marketplace's small business end client base. "We had to rethink the way that our structure and our architecture is designed on our platform to account for that," she said.
More recently, Bicking has been getting more input from agents who work with the platform – and turning their ideas into new features and capabilities in a matter of months.
Being in the insurance industry wasn't a career Bicking planned on, but she has grown into the field, she said. "The thing that I love about insurance and having a career in insurance is that it's been really dynamic, and that there are so many opportunities within insurance that aren't just being an agent, being an underwriter," Bicking said. "I'm learning something new every single day, and that is really cool for me."
Bicking recommends the opportunities for continuous learning to anyone who would consider a career in insurance. "Insurance isn't the flashiest thing or shiniest thing, but having that continuous learning makes it really exciting," she said.
As a WIL honoree, Bicking attended Digital Insurance's December 2 event in New York for
