Dear Insurtech, It's Not You, It's Me

Dear Insurtech, It was nice getting to know you in 2016. You served your purpose, but now it's time for RiskGenius to move on. It’s time for me to move on. There were a series of events that helped me realize that you, insurtech, and me, well, we can’t really be friends anymore. I can’t be conference guy  Recently, I was in San Francisco meeting with some insurance professionals who are plugged into the insurtech scene. One of them brought up a recent insurtech conference and commented, “You are everywhere, Chris!” I shuddered. I have never wanted to be “conference guy,” but I got sucked into being just that this year, and there are way too many insurtech conferences. Little comes out of insurtech events  I often attended insurtech events this year and wondered at the end, “What will come out of that?” And very little developed. As the year progressed, it started to dawn on me what was going on. And then, finally, everything crystalized after one phone call on Dec. 13. A wonderful insurance professional called to let me know he was leaving his firm at the end of the year because he was frustrated by the lack of engagement by his firm with insurtech companies. See also: The Future of Insurance Is Insurtech    It hit me: Insurance companies are simply trying to understand what the heck it is we insurtech companies are doing. Often, there are no real plans for insurance companies to actually engage with insurtech companies. I need to focus on the doing, not the talking  This year, we have found a tremendous partner in an insurance carrier that I hope to tell you about soon. There are also pockets of people focused on insurance technology innovation -- but I need to find these people because they often aren’t at the conferences, or aren't on Twitter or LinkedIn. Some of the best events I attended were intimate gatherings. Insurance Thought Leadership invited me to a cyber insurance conference I loved. Marsh invited me to an executive retreat that was incredibly insightful. And an insurance carrier allowed us to participate in an innovation challenge with internal employees that changed the trajectory of our company. But none of these three events focused solely on “insurtech.” RiskGenius is ready As I look toward 2017, I am going to remove both myself and RiskGenius from the insurtech scene. Instead, we are going to be actively seeking out those partners that can use our software right now. It’s no longer about tinkering and building algorithms; RiskGenius is weaponized and ready to go. Two areas have emerged where RiskGenius fits perfectly. First, RiskGenius is primed for policy automation. We can take an entire library of policies, show you similarities and differences and then serve up the correct policy based on what the user needs. See also: 4 Marketing Lessons for Insurtechs   Second, RiskGenius analytics has people really excited. We are now able to take an insurance policy that a user provides us and compare it with all the policies we have previously collected and stored. Soon, I will write about how we have evaluated more than 400 cyber insurance policies. This is awkward, insurtech. But we can’t be a “thing” anymore. I’m sorry — it’s not you, it’s me (and RiskGenius). We want more for our future. Thanks for the memories, Chris Cheatham CEO, RiskGenius