Creating a Digital-First Insurance Ecosystem
Connecting members in the insurance value chain to bring products closer to customers — that’s the goal of a digital-first insurance ecosystem. Once developed with best-in-class insurtech, robust APIs, and smart data, it can enhance connectivity and track consumer behavior for greater sales and repeat business. Listen as host, Janet Sachs, Sapiens Senior Marketing Writer, North America and Mark Stender, CEO for Intellagents, discuss how to create a digital-first insurance ecosystem and where the industry is in its greater ecosystem journey.
Janet Sachs|Mark Stender
Janet Sachs: Hello, welcome to the Sapiens Insurance 360 podcast. I’m your host, Janet Sachs, Senior Marketing Writer, and I’m so excited that you’re out there listening. This is where we discuss the latest news, trends, and issues from across the insurance solutions and technology spectrum. Today, we have a very special guest, Mark Stender. Mark is CEO of Intellagents, a Fatbrain AI company, that connects insurance systems with best-in-class insurtech solutions. Mark has over 25 years of digital transformation, IT architecture services, and technology strategy experience. He also has held executive and senior-level positions at Prudential Financial and Travelers, where he was Chief Digital Officer and VP of Enterprise Architecture, respectively, with responsibilities such as enterprise technology selection, enablement, and system design in governments. He’s also the author of three insurance patents. On today’s program, we’ll be discussing creating a digital-first insurance ecosystem, and Mark, welcome to the show.
Mark Stender: Janet, thank you for having me. And thank you for allowing me to participate in this Sapiens podcast. Looking forward to it.
Janet Sachs: So I’m certain that many of you listening know what constitutes an insurance ecosystem. McKinsey & Company describes it as an interconnected set of services and a single integrated experience that enables insurers to embed their products into seamless customer journeys. And we’re of course, all familiar with the digital concept in today’s 24/7 online universe. But developing a digital-first insurance ecosystem is the more immediate and pressing question and subject for today. Mark, to start us off, what is a digital ecosystem?
Mark Stender: You know, ecosystem is a big word. What I really like, what you mentioned with regards to McKinsey and their focus on products and customer journeys, because at the end of the day, I think the goal of an insurance ecosystem is to bring insurance products closer to the customers, you know, and they really need three things to do that, right? You need connectivity, you need AI, and you need, you need data. And that’s really, what’s happening within it, within an ecosystem, right? So, we’re connecting all of the, all of the parties within the insurance value chain. Brokers, agents, wholesalers, carriers. So that’s mandatory, step one. Step two is you need to connect all of the great, best-in-class insurtech capabilities and core systems providers, that’s step two. And then third, you need to make it smart, right? In this, in this day and age, you have to talk about AI and, the ecosystem, in my opinion, should be learning from all the behaviors from all the participants in the ecosystem. So at the end of, really the power’s in the network of the ecosystem versus any one software vendor insurance company changing things.
Janet Sachs: Thanks for that, Mark. Now, can you tell us what types of digital insurance ecosystems exist?
Mark Stender: Yeah, I think they fall into two categories. You know, one is really more about business ecosystem, right? You could publish a piece of business and the ecosystem will know automatically who’s interested in that piece of business and get viable quotes from that particular set of insurers. Kind of like a Priceline type of model. I think that’s ultimately where we’re heading. But right now, insurance ecosystems are more about capabilities. They either come in in the form of more, more closed ecosystems that are built around core systems providers or are agency systems, or they come in the form of open ecosystems that are that are more use-case agnostic and connect, you know, any generation of technology and any type data into new and innovative use cases. And that’s really where I think, you know, that’s where I think we are in the overall journey here.
Janet Sachs: Interesting. So my next question is what value should carriers and agents expect to get from ecosystems?
Mark Stender: Yeah, I think speed to innovate and speed to differentiate ought to be at the top of the list. So you connect once you get access to a lot of different things. Some might work, some might not work. So you need the flexibility and agility to move, move on from those things that might not work. And at the end of the day, you know, you want to test some things out. There’s thousands of new capabilities out there to learn and discover. But, you know, insurers should expect that if they implement ecosystems properly, that they’re going to get access to new distribution channels. They’re going to have better capabilities for risk selection and underwriting and efficiencies, straight-through processing, etc.
Janet Sachs: That’s great, Mark. So where is the industry in their current journey toward ecosystems?
Mark Stender: I think most of the industry is in what I’ll call digital 1.0 in the journey. Think about it as digitizing within their own brand, you know, their own agent portal, their own servicing portals, leveraging AI, leveraging third party to get insights out of their own data. So it’s very internal focused for the most part. But the real journey towards ecosystems is what’s happening outside the firewall company. So how do you connect to new partners, new channels, bring your products closer to the, to the point of sale? You know, leverage AI, leverage data. That’s really where the journey is going, and I think only a small number of carriers are ready for that. But I might also add that the brokers are becoming more and more ready for that as well. So the days of PDFs and email paper being the primary way a business is going to be here for a while, but folks need to think beyond that.
Janet Sachs: That’s helpful. Thank you. Now, what does it take to build a digital–first insurance ecosystem? Is it a build versus buy situation?
Mark Stender: Well, first, it takes awareness of the thousand-plus new software providers and capabilities that are out there. It takes contracting with them. It takes building relationships, even before you even think about technology. From the technology side, it really is about having a very robust API management capability that can monitor and meter the traffic, a very robust mapping capability to map products and different types of data definitions together. It needs to be Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) compliant. It needs to be secure. So lots to think about if you’re going to endeavor on one, your own venture to build an ecosystem, which is really going to be a multi-year journey. But it’s about being open and being able to be applying the right security and the right compliance that will satisfy the insurance industry at the end of the day.
Janet Sachs: Well, this is a lot to think about and a topic that I’m sure will be on the minds of many in the insurance industry for weeks and months to come. Thank you, Mark, for joining us today to unpack and discuss such a timely and important subject. I learned a lot and I’m sure our listeners have as well. We love hearing from you, so if you have comments or would like to follow us on social media, please reach out to us on our channels. And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast and thank you everyone for listening! We’ve got more coming, so be sure to tune in next time to Sapiens Insurance 360.
