The Leadership in Insurance Podcast - Insurtech & Innovation

In the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast, host Dan Briselden sits down with Stan Smith, CEO and founder of Gradient AI — one of the fastest-growing AI platforms in the insurance industry — for a wide-ranging conversation on data, decisioning, and what it actually takes to build something that sticks in this market.

Stan is a six-time startup veteran who came to insurance not from the industry itself, but from a deep belief that machine learning could solve problems most insurers didn't yet know how to articulate. His route in — through Milliman's franchise model and a patient, trust-first approach to data partnerships — is one of the most instructive origin stories in InsurTech.

In this episode, Stan and Dan explore:

🔹 How Stan leveraged Milliman's brand to unlock carrier data at a time when no one was handing it over — and why that decision became the foundation of Gradient's competitive moat
🔹 The real ROI numbers: from single-digit millions on smaller books to 10x returns confirmed by clients' own internal data science teams and why Stan measures success by value delivered, not just revenue earned
🔹 How Gradient navigated the journey from MGA-focused startup to large carrier partner, and why the warmest first carrier deals came through MGAs using their paper
🔹 Where AI is genuinely replacing human effort in insurance and where Stan believes human judgement will always be the differentiator, from complex claims to nuanced underwriting calls
🔹 The governance and bias challenge in AI-powered underwriting, and why Stan thinks regulators will increasingly focus on what data models are fed, not just how they work

Stan also shares his vision for where Gradient is heading next — from individual healthcare lines like Medicare Advantage and MedSupp through to disability and life — and why he believes there has never been a better time to be building AI in insurance.

If you work in underwriting, claims, or insurance technology — or if you're trying to understand what AI adoption actually looks like at scale across the carrier and MGA market — this episode is packed with hard-won insight from someone who has been building in this space for over a decade.

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Ty didn't set out to disrupt insurance. He built his career at Google and Amazon, launched a fintech company and then found himself staring at one of the most fragmented, manual-heavy industries in the world.

He saw an opportunity. So he built Nolana.

In the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast, host Alex Bond sits down with Ty, Co-Founder & CEO of Nolana, for an honest and wide-ranging conversation about what it really takes to bring AI into insurance operations.

Ty shares how Nolana's AI-powered platform is tackling the complexity of claims processing — across voice, email, and chatbots — with a product built in three layers: an operating system for AI agents, a suite of pre-built agents, and a customisable agent builder for insurers who want to go further.

They also get into:

✅ Why the Lloyd's market is ripe for AI and uniquely challenging
✅ How voice AI is changing the way FNOL is captured and understood
✅ The team's experience inside the Lloyd's Lab accelerator programme
✅ Their bold vision: same-day claims payouts, self-serve processes, and better loss ratios through smarter automation

With a small but mighty team of six and a growing list of mentors from AXA, Hartford, and Lloyd's itself, Nolana is one to watch.
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This week, host Alex Bond sits down with Tanner Hackett, CEO of Counterpart, a management liability and professional liability MGA that has written 35,000 policies for small businesses and raised $106 million to take on the inefficiencies baked into traditional insurance.

Tanner's background isn't in insurance — it's in technology. He built and sold companies in e-commerce and marketing tech before turning his attention to this industry. That outsider perspective shapes everything about how Counterpart operates.

In this episode, they cover:

→ Why the insurance industry now has collective awareness of AI's importance — but awareness and action are very different things
→ How being built AI-first from inception gives Counterpart a different starting point to legacy carriers
→ The case for flatter organisational structures and why giving people more information and autonomy leads to better outcomes than traditional hierarchy
→ What's driving rising claims severity and frequency and how business pressures on small companies are feeding through into losses
→ Counterpart's expansion into financial institutions coverage, and the product-launch infrastructure they've built to move faster

Tanner also reflects on the unique challenge facing small businesses as AI becomes unavoidable and why he believes insurers should be doing more than just providing coverage.

Well worth your time, wherever you sit in the industry.
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What if the broker channel — often written off as too traditional, too slow, too analogue — is actually where AI's impact on insurance will be felt most?

Alex sits down with Martin F., co-founder of Foliume, to explore exactly that question in this week's episode.

Founded in 2022, Foliume is on a mission to reinvent insurance distribution by putting AI at the centre of how brokers and agencies work — reducing the administrative burden that consumes their days and giving them back time to do what they do best: build relationships, understand risk, and serve customers.

Martin breaks down Foliume's dual AI approach — assisted tools that keep brokers in control, and autonomous systems capable of handling customer interactions end-to-end across channels like WhatsApp — and explains why getting that balance right is everything.

The conversation covers:

🌍 Why Spain was the proving ground and why the UK is next
💰 Foliume's recent funding round with PitchDrive and Telefónica
🤖 Why AI is creating a genuine opening to challenge the legacy software houses that have long dominated the broker market
📈 The $3 trillion opportunity Sequoia identified — and what it means for insurance distribution

"InsurTech 1.0 was about distribution. This wave is about relationships."

A fascinating episode for anyone thinking about where AI, brokers, and the future of insurance distribution intersect.
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This week, host Alex Bond sits down with Will Ross, co-founder and CEO of Federato — the AI-native core platform transforming the full insurance policy lifecycle, from underwriting to claims and billing.

Will and his Stanford AI research co-founder built Federato on a simple but bold premise: AI should support high-value human decision-making, not just cut costs. And they're putting that conviction to the test.

In this episode, Alex and Will discuss:

🏗️ Why legacy "old core" insurance systems can't be fixed by bolting AI on top and what a genuinely AI-native alternative looks like
📈 The results that speak for themselves: one client saw a 2.2x increase in quote volume, an 89% reduction in time to quote, and improved high-appetite risk selection from 1 in 10 to 6 in 10, all within 90 days
💰 Why Federato raised $100 million in Series D funding from Goldman Sachs even though they didn't need the capital
🔄 How the conversation around AI in insurance has evolved from cost-cutting to genuinely transforming outcomes
🤝 Why Will believes in being radically honest with clients about the scale of change required and why that's built trust rather than lost it
This is a conversation about what it really takes to modernise insurance from the inside out and why incremental change isn't going to cut it.

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