Page 60 - Shaw Wall of Honor

INSURANCE AGENT APP:
STEPPING INTO THE FRAY OF INSURTECH
Given the size and number of players in the insurance vertical, and the explosion of “insurtech” 10 years ago, I wasn’t sure what I was getting into. I just knew that giving policyholders digital access to information was somethingtheindependentinsurancechannel needed, even if most players in the ecosystem couldn’t see it yet.
While ripe with opportunity, the insurance industry is densely populated with long- standing incumbents steeped in traditional practices. As an emerging influencer in the insurtech arena, I soon realized it was vital to understand and navigate how things had been done in this sector—including technical limitations—in order to build a product that could move the agent and IA channels forward. Additionally, because we were building something for the agent and the policyholder, we would need to educate agents on radically changing customer expectations for a vertical
that hadn’t materially enhanced the customer experience in the last 30 years. These challenges, and a whole lot of perseverance, served as a clarion call to the transformative potential insurtech holds, and the potential to revolutionize the insurance industry with innovative solutions.
I stepped into the fray with a wealth of traditional and entrepreneurial experiences with the assumption that transitioning into insurtech would be relatively straightforward. I couldn't have been more wrong. The vast expanse of the insurance industry with its intricately fragmented mesh of technology presented me with a steep learning curve, and I embraced the challenge head-on. I dedicated myself to understanding the nuances of insurtech, diving deep into the highly inefficient, complex transfer of policy data and decoding the idiosyncrasies of customer behavior in this digital age. My determination to learn and adapt allowed me to carve out a niche in this evolving landscape.
One aspect of the IA channel that fascinated
WRITTEN BY
KIKI JOHNSON
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