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The Leadership in Insurance Podcast - Insurtech & Innovation
The insurtech industry gets better through sharing innovation. On the Leadership in Insurance Podcast we speak to insurance thought leaders that are changing the game. #insurtech
Latest episode

Dax Craig on Building an AI-Native MGA — With a Team of Five
39:32|This week, host Alex Bond is joined by Dax Craig, co-founder and CEO of Comeryx — a serial insurance entrepreneur.In this conversation, Dax shares:✅ His journey from a wireless start-up in grad school to founding two prior insurance ventures and why he came back for a third✅ Comeryx's AI-native approach to small commercial insurance, targeting hard-to-place ENS risks through wholesale brokers with no-touch processing from submission to renewal✅ How a five-person team is aiming to deliver the output of 50-75 employees and why profitability matters more to him than growth for growth's sake✅ Why MGA structures beat traditional carriers on speed and innovation and his warning against MGAs drifting into becoming carriers✅ What's really overlooked in small commercial insurance, and where investors are repeating mistakes from the mid-2010sIt's a conversation about building lean, staying disciplined on profitability, and why real distribution expertise still beats hype in Insurtech.
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Balaji Devarasetty on Building the "Agentic Agency" at Vertafore
30:47|🎙️ NEW EPISODE: Leadership in Insurance PodcastThis week, host Alex Bond is joined by Balaji Devarasetty, CTO of Vertafore, to talk about bringing AI and outside-industry thinking to insurance technology.In this conversation, Balaji shares:✅ His path from banking to payments to crypto — and how that cross-industry experience shapes how he approaches insurtech✅ Vertafore's vision for the "Agentic Agency," using AI to modernize the tech stack without ripping out legacy systems✅ How the Orange Partner Program's 40+ partners and hundreds of APIs let agencies of every size extend their platform, rather than building everything in-house✅ How AI is closing the gap with other industries — cutting regulatory updates from days to hours and commission reconciliation from hours to minutes✅ Why attracting the next generation of insurance talent means rethinking user experience, not just technology It's a conversation about modernizing legacy systems without ripping them up, why the best insurtech ideas often come from outside insurance, and what it takes to build technology the next generation really wants to use.
Peter Colis: How Ethos Turned a 10-Week Process Into 10 Minutes
31:05|🎙️ NEW EPISODE: The Leadership in Insurance PodcastThis week, host Alex Bond is joined by Peter Colis, co-founder and CEO of Ethos — the vertically integrated platform that's rebuilding how life insurance gets underwritten, sold and serviced in the US.In this conversation, Peter shares:✅ How Ethos went from a Stanford dorm-room idea in 2016 to the largest direct life insurance marketer in the US✅ The three pivotal decisions behind Ethos's growth — from vertical integration to automating 95% of underwriting decisions instantly (vs. a 20-30% industry average)✅ Why building a real competitor to Ethos is harder than it looks, and what makes their culture different from traditional carriers✅ His view on where LLMs will (and won't) fit into life insurance distribution✅ How Ethos's agent platform is democratizing access to life insurance for the mass and middle marketsIt's a conversation about innovation, execution, and building a category-defining company — as told by someone who's done it twice over: through years of private growth and now as a newly public company.#LeadershipInInsurance #InsurTech #LifeInsurance #Leadership #Ethos #Innovation
Bill Harris on 10 Years of InsurTech and What's Next at ITC Vegas
28:01|🎙️ NEW EPISODE: The Leadership in Insurance PodcastThis week, host Alex Bond sits down with Bill Harris, co-founder and Chief Customer Officer of ITC (InsureTechConnect), ahead of ITC Vegas 2026 (Sept 29 – Oct 1).In this conversation, Bill shares:✅ How InsurTech has evolved over 10 years — from disrupting legacy carriers to helping them adopt technology at scale✅ The AI investment numbers reshaping the sector, and why he's excited (with eyes open) about where it's heading✅ What's new at ITC Vegas this year, including dedicated Cyber and AI summits✅ Why 80-85 of the top 100 global carriers now show up — and what keeps 9,000+ attendees coming back✅ His take on why the best opportunities at ITC happen outside the formal agenda — in the hallway conversations and serendipitous meetingsIt's a conversation about scale, connection, and why ITC has become the industry's annual homecoming.
TigerLab's Blueprint: Building Insurance Technology for the AI Era
37:01|In the latest episode, host Dan Briselden sits down with Tobias Bergmann CEO & Founder, and Bassel Hamadeh, Head of Innovation at TigerLab — a company that has been building insurance technology from Southeast Asia to global markets for nearly two decades.What makes TigerLab's perspective different:🔧 Founded before the InsurTech boom — they've lived through 2.0 and are now helping carriers, MGAs and brokers navigate 3.0🌍 Global reach with deep domain expertise — from Malaysia to Europe to an expanding US presence⚙️ A product-led approach that combines a core platform with bespoke builds so clients get exactly what they need, fastWhat else they cover:🤖 Where AI is actually delivering ROI right now and where it isn't ready yet (spoiler: confidently wrong is worse than no decision at all)📧 Why email triage, document ingestion and multilingual support are the unglamorous AI wins that are transforming underwriting workflows💡 The build vs. buy debate and why domain expertise will separate the long-term survivors from the white-labelled newcomers🧑💼 Why human relationships in insurance will remain irreplaceable even as automation reshapes the size and shape of teamsWhether you're an MGA scaling fast, a carrier weighing your AI strategy, or simply curious about what two decades of insurance tech experience looks like in practice, this is a grounded and honest conversation from people who've seen the industry evolve from the inside.🔔 Follow Leadership in Insurance so you never miss an episode#LeadershipInInsurance #InsurTech #AI #CoreSystems #MGA #Insurance #Podcast #TigerLab
The Psychology of Risk: Gráinne Murphy on Behavioural Science for Insurance
33:43|In the latest episode, host Alex Bond sits down with Gráinne Murphy from Swiss Re's Risk Data Solutions to explore how behavioural science is reshaping insurance — from underwriting to claims to AI adoption.A few highlights:🔹 Why under-insurance persists — people consistently undervalue future risk against present-day cost🔹 How behavioural science helps debias expert judgment in underwriting, especially for novel or high-volatility risks where data alone isn't enough🔹 Why loss aversion is a far more powerful lever than statistics for getting people to buy insurance🔹 Inside Swiss Re's AI transformation — how an "AI champions network" is driving real adoption and trust in AI toolsIf you work in underwriting, pricing, or product — or you're just curious about the psychology behind why people buy (or don't buy) insurance — this one’s a must-listen.#LeadershipInInsurance #InsurancePodcast #BehavioralScience #SwissRe #InsurTech #RiskManagement
Replacing Jorgen: Henri Kasurinen (Nomain) on AI and Legacy Knowledge Transfer
32:52|In this episode, Alex Bond talks to Henri Kasurinen, CEO and co-founder of Nomain, about modernizing mainframe systems in insurance.Henri explains the problem Nomain was built to solve: organizations often depend on one long-serving employee — the "Jorgen" of the business — who holds deep, irreplaceable knowledge of legacy systems. Nomain's AI-powered knowledge platform aims to capture and scale that expertise before it walks out the door.Key themes from the conversation:🔹 Insurance vs banking — insurers rely more heavily on batch processing, which has slowed modernization compared to banking's real-time demands🔹 The real barrier is cultural, not technical — approval processes, lack of incentives, and fear of losing relevance often block progress more than the technology itself🔹 Finding the right pace — Henri makes the case for incremental, targeted rollouts (team-by-team) over ambitious org-wide overhauls🔹 What's next for Nomain — expansion into Germany first, then the UK, alongside growing excitement about open-source LLMs offering better data sovereignty for European insurersA candid look at what it really takes to modernize legacy infrastructure in a highly regulated industry.