I recently joined some of the most innovative insurtech pros at the first-ever Big “I” InsurTech Summit in Savannah, Georgia. I sat on a panel about the future of insurtech with three awesome guys in the industry – Gallagher President of Small Business, Personal Lines & Affinity Jay Eshelman, Travelers SVP Bill Devine, and Zywave CEO Jason Liu.

Here are three takeaways from our panel chat that focused on “looking into the crystal ball” and the future of insurtech.

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  Your tech stack is only as good as what you make it.

  A lot of people go out and buy all these shiny objects that they see as “insurtech” tools when a better strategy would be to optimize the functionality of the systems they already have. If agencies truly adopt and dig in on the technology they have and use it to the fullest to solve problems, they can hone in on areas that still require adding additional tech to their stack. When companies use tech to solve problems, and the staff understands the value of adding new technology, you get adoption. You see transformation within the organization. It's very powerful on many levels to select and use technology by first asking how it will improve the business.

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  AI is making early waves.

  Our panel discussed technology in the news that is automating knowledge sharing, including ChatGPT. AI tools are awesome, but returning to what we discussed at the event, it’s all about how you use them. It’s great water-cooler conversation, but we’re still communicating with forms, emails, and even faxes. If we’re not addressing the outdated processes that our industry still uses first, AI being truly revolutionary is still far out, but it’s fun to think about how it could be used in the future of insurtech.

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  The pipes need to be connected.

  Innovation is all about connectivity. So, when you think about the agency management system or a carrier’s policy administration system, it’s the same world but just a different customer. There are a lot of similarities. When you think about those systems, they have core features like accounting, policy management, and claims management. It’s carriers, agency management system vendors, and insurtechs creating and opening up their APIs. It’s connecting all the dots. When we look to the future, the agency management and policy administrative systems will get bigger and better. But their customers – agents, MGAs and carriers – should have the choice to connect all the solutions they prefer to use into one single platform that works for their organization and not tied to one vendor’s opinion of what is the right technology.

These are just a few of my thoughts from the Big “I” InsurTech Summit. You can view the whole event on YouTube.

More Insurtech Trends

While I was at the event, I also had the chance to sit down and get to know some of the other panelists and hear their stories on site during interviews for the Insurance Technology Podcast. Check it out, and I hope to see you at a future industry event (including Insurtech Boston May 24 at House of Blues).