The Leadership in Insurance Podcast - Insurtech & Innovation

In the latest episode, host Alex Bond sits down with Gráinne Murphy from Swiss Re's Risk Data Solutions to explore how behavioural science is reshaping insurance — from underwriting to claims to AI adoption.

A few highlights:

🔹 Why under-insurance persists — people consistently undervalue future risk against present-day cost
🔹 How behavioural science helps debias expert judgment in underwriting, especially for novel or high-volatility risks where data alone isn't enough
🔹 Why loss aversion is a far more powerful lever than statistics for getting people to buy insurance
🔹 Inside Swiss Re's AI transformation — how an "AI champions network" is driving real adoption and trust in AI tools

If you work in underwriting, pricing, or product — or you're just curious about the psychology behind why people buy (or don't buy) insurance — this one’s a must-listen.

#LeadershipInInsurance #InsurancePodcast #BehavioralScience #SwissRe #InsurTech #RiskManagement
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In this episode, Alex Bond talks to Henri Kasurinen, CEO and co-founder of Nomain, about modernizing mainframe systems in insurance.

Henri explains the problem Nomain was built to solve: organizations often depend on one long-serving employee — the "Jorgen" of the business — who holds deep, irreplaceable knowledge of legacy systems. Nomain's AI-powered knowledge platform aims to capture and scale that expertise before it walks out the door.

Key themes from the conversation:
🔹 Insurance vs banking — insurers rely more heavily on batch processing, which has slowed modernization compared to banking's real-time demands
🔹 The real barrier is cultural, not technical — approval processes, lack of incentives, and fear of losing relevance often block progress more than the technology itself
🔹 Finding the right pace — Henri makes the case for incremental, targeted rollouts (team-by-team) over ambitious org-wide overhauls
🔹 What's next for Nomain — expansion into Germany first, then the UK, alongside growing excitement about open-source LLMs offering better data sovereignty for European insurers

A candid look at what it really takes to modernize legacy infrastructure in a highly regulated industry.
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Ron Gura didn't build Empathy because he saw a market gap. He built it because he'd lived through loss — including the death of his brother — and knew the industry was getting it wrong.

Not on purpose. But wrong nonetheless.

In the latest episode of The Leadership in Insurance Podcast, host Alex Bond sits down with Ron, Co-Founder & CEO of Empathy, for one of the most human conversations the show has had. Because at the heart of it, that's exactly what this is about.

Ron explains how Empathy provides continuity of care through technology and services for life's hardest moments — bereavement, legacy planning, disability — partnering with insurers and employers to transform what has historically been a transactional process into something genuinely supportive.

They also get into:

✅ Why 91% of beneficiaries are satisfied with claims — but fewer than 1 in 10 repurchase from the same carrier
✅ The "orphan claim" problem — 70% of US life insurance claims have no assigned advisor
✅ How AI should make humans more human, not replace them
✅ What the $100 trillion generational wealth transfer means for life insurers right now
✅ Empathy's expansion into Canada and Europe — and what's coming next

With 200 employees across multiple offices and a live partnership with Zurich serving over 3 million people, this is a company that's moved well beyond vision into execution.
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Finn didn't come from insurance. He came from startups — real estate, entertainment, a TPA. But when he looked at the Canadian Insurtech landscape and saw how much was being left on the table, he decided to do something about it.

He took over InsurTech Canada. And then he started rebuilding it from the ground up.

In the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast, host Alex Bond sits down with Finn for a wide-ranging conversation about what it really takes to build an insurtech ecosystem — not just talk about one.

Finn shares how he transformed InsurTech Canada from a non-profit meetup organisation into a for-profit, deal-flow-focused platform with a curated membership of 27 companies. And he opens up about his next move: launching an InsurTech investment fund, focused primarily on Canadian companies but with eyes on the US and UK markets too.

They also get into:

✅ Why Canada lags 2–3 years behind other markets — and what needs to change
✅ The talent drain pulling founders and operators south of the border
✅ How to evaluate founders (and why people skills matter as much as product)
✅ His vision for Canada to become a genuine global hub for InsurTech innovation
✅ What it means to have "skin in the game" when you're championing an ecosystem

With a clear commercial mindset, a growing network across carriers, brokers, MGAs, and capital providers — and a fund on the horizon — Finn is one to watch.

#LeadershipInInsurance #Podcast #Insurtech #InsurtechCanada #VC #Innovation #Insurance #Canada

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In the latest episode of the Leadership in Insurance Podcast, host Dan Briselden sits down with James Rendell, CEO and founder of BirdsEyeView — a UK-based insurance technology company backed by the European Space Agency — for a conversation that spans the journey from Lloyds broker to InsurTech entrepreneur.
James brings a rare blend of market knowledge and technological curiosity to the world of natural catastrophe modelling. His path didn't start with a lightbulb moment: it started with a genuine obsession with emerging technology, a willingness to show up alone to InsurTech events, and a growing conviction that satellite data could meaningfully improve how the insurance market models and manages catastrophe risk.

In this episode, James and Dan explore:

🔹 How BirdsEyeView secured backing from the European Space Agency and why that rigorous, year-long process turned out to be the best thing the business ever did
🔹 Why building customer-first — really understanding the day-to-day problems underwriters face — has been the key driver of early traction across Lloyds, Australia and the US
🔹 The challenge of selling into a market that's historically slow to adopt new technology, and how to shorten the sales cycle by starting niche and expanding from there
🔹 Why secondary perils like wildfire and severe convective storm represent the biggest product opportunity and where BirdsEyeView is investing to stay ahead of the incumbents
🔹 How AI has already transformed output at BirdsEyeView — and why James believes the science-heavy, domain-specific nature of catastrophe modelling keeps them well ahead of any AI-generated challengers

James also shares his vision for where BirdsEyeView is heading: to become the go-to tool for at-desk hazard modelling and exposure management — bridging the long-standing gap between the lightweight tools underwriters use daily and the sophisticated outputs of the traditional vendor models.

If you work in underwriting, exposure management, or catastrophe risk — or if you're building a business in the Lloyds or cover holder market — this episode is full of honest, hard-won insight from a founder who's done it the right way.
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