FEATURE
" THE AUTOMATION OF
SIMPLE TASKS MEANS
THAT RESOURCES CAN
BE MORE VALUABLY
SPENT WHERE THERE
IS MORE FRICTION
IN THE CUSTOMER
ENGAGEMENT
DOROTA ZIMNOCH
STRATEGY
A Top50 global Fintech & Insurtech
influencer and #WomeninTech, expert
with 20 years of international experience
in the financial sector, Dorota helps
organisations develop and deliver complex
digital transformations, reinvent and
relaunch traditional brands, to deliver
customer-centric strategies and insights
driven value propositions.
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PHOEBE HUGH
MACHINE LEARNING & AI
Phoebe is CEO and Co-founder of
Brolly, the UK's first artificially intelligent
insurance advisory app. Brolly enables
customers to have all their insurance in
one place, and facilitates easy access to and
management of their policy details and
documents. The app also claims to deliver
contextually relevant insights that will
empower customers to make informed
decisions about their insurance.
CIARA O'GRADY
REGULATION A Senior Manager on the Risk & Regulation team
at Deloitte, Ciara works on a range of projects within
the insurtech and wider market on topics such as
insurance mediation; business processes; Solvency II;
claims and complaints handling projects and event
organisation. An extremely professional, very techni-
cally knowledgeable individual, Ciara’s worked within
the corporate governance field for almost a decade.
HAVE YOU SEEN ANY SIGNIFICANT CHANGE IN
REGULATORY LANDSCAPE THAT COULD HELP
ACCELERATE THE GROWTH IN INSURTECH?
I don’t necessarily think that there has been
a significant regulatory change that would
trigger immediate accelerated growth in the
sector, however I do think there has been
more of an appetite by regulators to engage
with new entrants using new technologies to
promote new insurance service offerings and
existing players utilising technology advance-
ments to offer their services and enhanced
dialogue between regulatory authorities and
Fintech firms. While I don’t think that the
Irish regulator has taken a stance one way
or another on whether Fintech is good or
bad for the sector, what I have found helpful
in supporting my Fintech clients is that the
Central Bank of Ireland has stated what they
perceive the benefits and risks posed by the
Fintech industry generally to be. VALUE IN THE SHORT AND MEDIUM TERM?
For me the key point in this question is
the immediate and short term. In order to
generate meaningful value and market share,
the solution needs to be simple and customer
centric. The most adopted technology to date
has been robotics. Robotics has generated
value through the automation of processes
and digitalisation of customer sales. This is
likely to see enhancements in the quali-
ty of complaints and error management,
claims handling, record keeping and more
transparent and meaningful information
disclosure to customers. Not without its risks,
the automation of these simple tasks means
that resources can be more valuably spent
where there is more friction in the customer
engagement and to more smoothly iron out
issues that require, for the moment, human
intervention.
In addition to the above, a particular special
interest of mine is the appropriateness and
suitability of products being sold to customers.
WHAT AREAS DO YOU SEE THERE BEING IMMEDIATE
Issue 5 • March 2018 • The Insider
LEANNE KEMP
BLOCKCHAIN
BECKY DOWNING
ALTERNATIVE INSURANCE
DISTRIBUTION
After 20+ years in the tech sector, Leanne
turned her mind to expanding horizons
and focused on the insurance industry
(fintech) as the next deep blue. With the
industry undergoing what she describes as
a metamorphosis, with an unprecedented
scale of innovation taking place, Leanne
believes that new technologies represent
opportunities to re-think legacy systems.
She believe that Everledger, her latest
startup, can do just that. CEO and founder of buzzGroup,
Becky has a legal background and was
recognised in 2015 as ‘One of the 200
Most Influential People in Tech (UK)’ by
TechCity Insider. In 2016, she won the
WCIT Emerging Entrepreneur Award
and also won a silver Stevie Award for her
business in the women in small business
category.
PATRIZIA COZZOLI
IOT IRENE VAN DEN BRINK
COMMUNITY INSURANCE
With a breadth of experience in
Investment Banking and InsurTech,
Patrizia spent several years in
Investment Banking before co-founding
Domotz, an award-winning remote
network monitoring and management
solution. She is also Head of Business
Development for Fing, which develops
network scanning, network security and
Wi-Fi troubleshooting tools built for the
Internet of Things. Irene joined InShared after 15 years of
innovation and business development
for banking and insurance companies in
Europe and the Americas. As Director of
Business Development she is responsible
for the international expansion of
InShared and fintech entity OutShared,
which provide an insurance-in-a-box
SAAS solution to existing insurers or
greenfields within the insurance industry.
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It’s an area that firms continue to get wrong
and is, in my opinion, the backbone to con-
sumer-related financial services regulation.
WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES YOU SEE
THE INDUSTRY FACING WHEN IMPLEMENTING
INSURTECH SOLUTIONS APART FROM THEIR LEGACY
SYSTEMS AND CULTURE?
There is not, nor should there be, different
rule sets for technology driven financial
services businesses versus existing, more
traditional, financial services businesses.
While newer regulations and legislation take
account of technology developments and seek
to address risks posed by same, older legis-
lation and regulation is written on the basis
of the product or service that is provided. Its
application to InsurTech businesses may vary
but firms will need to work through its appli-
cation to their solution, conscious of what the
regulatory/ legislative objective actually is.
To read more of Ciara’s interview, visit the blog
Issue 5 • March 2018 • The Insider