7 Breakthroughs for Digital Insurers
May 4, 2016 12:36 PM
Insurance Networking News' first Dig In: The Digital Future of Insurance conference brought visionaries and practitioners from across the insurance ecosystem to Austin for two days of thought-provoking discussion. Following are some of the most incisive quotes from the event.
Michael Merwarth, USAA
On the importance of taking risks: It was easy to think, 'Gosh, why go and change strategy when it has proven to work? But all the things we did to achieve our current success are different from what will help us survive.
Mariel Devesa, Farmers
On driving change at established companies: "Change is a lot easier at startups because its all new. It becomes more of a challenge at older companies. Its that initial moment of reflection when you realize what you have been doing all along will not change results. How can we adapt to the new economy and create product?"
Haden Kirkpatrick, Esurance
A wake-up call for less digitally focused carriers: Esurance is in the process of taking your customers right now. We are taking the icing off the top with better analytics and handling your customers small claims.
John McNeill, Tesla Motors
Reminding us that the future is almost here: I drive 90% of the time on autopilot. We have tested our cars in highway traffic going 65 miles per hour with problems.
Gary Sullivan, Erie Insurance
Revealing the drone equipment the company is testing for claims: "We use a DJI Phantom 2, very reliable and very safe. The data quality is great and we are able to upload images onto our software without a problem. We find, however, video files are large and take longer.
Pawan Divakarla, Progressive
On efforts to process big data quickly: We turned to distributive computing in 2013 so that we could process data in shorter amounts of time. What used to take us a month to process started taking nine hours to do, increasing speed to insight.
Caribou Honig, Founding Partner, QED Investors (center)
On why the insurance startup space is so fertile: "Insurance companies make banks look good by comparison. Theres a mandate to figure out innovation.