RHS 132 - The Power Brokers on the Future of Insurtech

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Speaker 6 In a crude laboratory in the basement of his home.

Speaker 7 Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show.

Speaker 3 Today, we have an absolute

Speaker 3 tremendous episode for you, and it is

Speaker 3 a multi-guest show. I don't do a lot of these because sometimes when you don't have a good flow, they can be a little distracting.
But today's episode is just... It's just wonderful.

Speaker 3 Two former guests, Steve Anderson, CEO of Catalit, and Peter McDonald, co-founder and CEO of Wonder Wright, as well as a first-timer, someone who we are going to have on for his own solo episode at some point.

Speaker 3 But this is the first time he's on the show. Andrew Wynne, co-founder of Ascend.

Speaker 3 And you've heard me talk a little bit about on the show about Ascend payments and how they've been a big part of our success here in the second half of 2021, moving into 2022.

Speaker 3 And really, these guys reached out to me and said, Hey, we really want to have this conversation. We'd love to do it on your show, and we want to talk about the future of InsureTech.

Speaker 3 And that was just music to my ears. Excited that they would think about this show, this, this, my audience, you guys, as a group of people that

Speaker 3 they would want to speak to and have this conversation in front of. Such an honor.
It's a wonderful conversation.

Speaker 3 You're going to learn a ton, get a bunch of really cool ideas, and hopefully get your brain spinning here as we continue to run into 2022 on our collective and individual paths to world domination.

Speaker 3 All right, before we get there, I want to give a quick shout out to the sponsors of this show, the people that make this show possible, pay the bills, and that is a podium.

Speaker 3 Podium, if you go, you want to see podium in action, go to rogris.com, check out the web chat. We use a couple different features of podium, but the one we use the most is the web chat.

Speaker 3 And the reason for that is we get like a 95 plus response rate to people who use that web chat because they fill out the web chat on their phone or or whatever online and then when we respond it hits their text message so you know texts text response is uh way way higher than any anything else phone you know whatever um

Speaker 3 and for that reason this allows us to get in front of people and and really what we're able to do is vet people quickly on the fly through a few questions in the chat the podium chat before we move them into our pipeline uh we're able to either send them to you know refer them out to where they need to go or put them into our process and start working them through Rogue.

Speaker 3 So love podium. Big fans, very happy that they've chosen to be a part of our show here.
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All right, with that, let's get on to this absolutely tremendous episode, the power brokers on the future of InsurTech.

Speaker 7 I'm so sick of COVID.

Speaker 8 I know, dude. I'm so done with it.

Speaker 7 At this point, like,

Speaker 7 even if I were ever actually scared of it, which I wasn't, I just can't take it anymore. I couldn't take anything.
I couldn't take anything this long.

Speaker 8 I was definitely a little scared in the beginning there in like March. It was like, I was like, think of that Matt Damon movie.
I was just like, oh my God, we're all going to die.

Speaker 7 I think you get to like,

Speaker 7 I think you get to like the end of June. If you were scared to like the end of June, like real scared, I think that's legit.

Speaker 7 But, you know, at this point it's just that was a year and a half ago yeah now it's just a business model i mean now we're like now there's going to be like nba classes on like hey want to set up an annuity here's a really cool business model

Speaker 8 what i'm scared about now is like just mutations it's like yeah you know we don't have vaccines going out and whatever i don't know but like just gonna keep mutating it's just weird i don't know yeah but i don't know i won't i won't get into all that i know i know i know i follow you on twitter so i'm between your football commentary and

Speaker 8 weightlifting and everything.

Speaker 7 I just can't help it. Like, I said to my wife the other day, I was like,

Speaker 7 I was like, I tried so hard for so long to not have an open opinion on this. And I just, I can't handle it anymore.
Like, I can't take it. Like, like, it's going to.

Speaker 7 I'm going to explode if I don't have one channel that I can voice my

Speaker 7 feelings on this particular topic. And

Speaker 7 so she's like,

Speaker 7 my wife is a badass. She's like, fuck it.
Let's do it. Who cares?

Speaker 7 What do you care?

Speaker 6 I'm like, all right.

Speaker 7 All right. Sorry, Steve.
You woke it. You walked into me

Speaker 7 pontificating about the vid.

Speaker 7 So what's up?

Speaker 7 What are we talking about here today? Again,

Speaker 7 this is like a this is like a powerhouse show that we got going on here.

Speaker 7 I can't hear you, Steve, by the way. Are you talking?

Speaker 7 Yeah, Steve, your mic's not working. Um,

Speaker 7 the uh,

Speaker 7 I love when I get emails. Who sent me the original email? Was it you, Andrew, that was like, hey, we want to do this show.
I got all these guys together. Can we use, can we go come on your podcast?

Speaker 7 I'm just like, this is my favorite. Yes, like, why would I say no to this? That would be crazy.

Speaker 7 So, what are we, what are we talking about here, fellas?

Speaker 8 Yeah. And and wanting to wait to see it we can hear steve oh see oh steve are you not

Speaker 7 steve this does not look good for catalyt this does not play well

Speaker 8 yeah exactly for first tool of catalyt is going to be uh ip phone system

Speaker 8 how about now yeah now there we go there we go

Speaker 9 there you go it's amazing when you actually turn the microphone on what happens yeah yeah I have to leave my, you know, and I figure I just got people snowed about Catalyt. So, you know, no big deal.

Speaker 9 So,

Speaker 7 yeah.

Speaker 9 You know, that's actually the advantage of being around so long. You know, it's just like, hey, you know,

Speaker 9 it is what it is.

Speaker 7 Yeah, I get this thing. I, well, I've been snowing people about my understanding of insurance for about 16 years now.
So I'm right with you. I feel it.

Speaker 7 I feel

Speaker 7 like on that one. Um, so all right, so, so, so, so, guys, what are we, uh, what are we talking about today? We got three complete power brokers on the show, and uh,

Speaker 7 and I have literally no idea what we're talking about, which is makes me very happy.

Speaker 8 I think Andrew had approached, you know, we were chatting about something we had connected about a year ago, um, and we were chatting recently with Steve and with each other, and we're like, you know, it'd be great to do a podcast, kind of discuss the future of InsurTech.

Speaker 8 I think there's been a lot of thinking and agents in the beginning about

Speaker 8 you know where's my place in all this there's all this sexy stuff happening

Speaker 8 all these companies like lemonades of the world are happening and what's happening with us and i think that we wanted to kind of set the record straight that or you know people are already on board obviously but um the future of insurtech is really about empowering independent agents that there's a future there and i think where you know steve's unique background and experience of knowing all the different tools that's out there comes into play is he can talk to that and also you know it's an interesting conversation point for um

Speaker 8 you know for the for for catalytic which is i think having a big year this year talking about how to help agencies you know simplify and understand yeah we are having a big year actually literally today we signed another state on board so congrats

Speaker 7 congrats they're dropping like flies that's awesome so let's do this for for those listening at home who who may, you know, let's do like, again, and no grandstanding here.

Speaker 7 I know we're all proud of the things that we do, but uh, let's do just quick, quick sound bite on whatever your thing is. We'll start with Steve, we'll go in reverse, so we'll go reverse for me.

Speaker 7 Steve, Andrew, finish with Peter. Um, just quick,

Speaker 7 you know, what's the thing? What is what is Catalyt? Where can people get more? And then, obviously, we'll do all that at the end and stuff, too.

Speaker 7 But for people listening right now, like hit them, hit them, hit them with your elevator pitch just so we can level set everybody.

Speaker 7 sure

Speaker 6 um

Speaker 9 i can probably do that so uh i'm steve anderson uh co-founder and ceo of catalyst a new uh for-profit entity formed by seven big eye state associations along with uh a growing number of other states that have partnered with us to provide technology resources and information to their members.

Speaker 9 The way I describe it is we help agents discover, evaluate, select, and implement the technology they need to continue to thrive.

Speaker 7 Gotcha. I love that.
It's like a trusted trusted source for all their tech concerns.

Speaker 9 Questions, problems, who's out there? Who should I pick? How do I do it? How do I not make a mistake?

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 7 Yeah, good.

Speaker 9 Well, good. That costs me,

Speaker 7 Ryan, costs you $500,000, 2 000 multiple thousands of dollars if you make the wrong choice and the time and the brain cycles that's the part that the time is the biggest yeah yeah the cost is like i mean i think the cost is the easiest thing to feel frustrated about but like

Speaker 7 it's the time and in the and you know i always think in terms of brain cycles like like how much energy do i have to give to this thing to do it and like when you change a big system man it takes a lot of focus and a lot of attention and if you know, if you end up making a mistake or get something you're not happy with or something that can't solve your need, man, that is a killer.

Speaker 7 I mean, you just want to, you know, that's when I popped the bottle of buffalo chase behind me and

Speaker 7 after a little bit.

Speaker 9 Exactly. Well, and the message, well, the message we'll have this year, frankly, is we are a fractional CIO for the normal independent agency.

Speaker 9 So large brokers have one or multiple positions that their full-time job is to do that.

Speaker 9 You know, the traditional normal, you know, agent doesn't have the resources to do that. We become that for them at a very reasonable monthly fee.

Speaker 7 That's great. I love that.
I love it. That's a great, okay, cool.
Well, good. So, Andrew, on to you.
What the hell do you think? Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 6 I'm Andrew.

Speaker 7 Is this your first time on the show, by the way? I don't think

Speaker 7 it is. Yeah.
Oh, that kind of acts. That's so funny.
These guys have both been on. Steve's been on a ton of times.
Talk to him too much. So,

Speaker 7 okay. Well, so that we got to do an individual show, too.
But okay.

Speaker 6 We'll do that later. Yeah.

Speaker 6 Well, thanks for having me for the first time. Looking forward to the others.

Speaker 6 I'm Andrew Wynne, one of the co-founders of Ascend.

Speaker 6 Ascend is the first modern insurance payments platform. We're an all-in-one payments platform for

Speaker 6 independent agents. So we allow you to do premium finance, digital payments, automating payables, things like that.
To Steve's point earlier, it's really about saving you time and helping you

Speaker 6 do what

Speaker 6 matters to you, which is sell insurance and help people find the right coverages and not worry about all this other paperwork and stuff associated or traditionally associated with selling insurance.

Speaker 7 Yeah. And guys at home, you've heard me talk about ascend a little bit.
Obviously, Andrea hasn't been on the show yet. So we'll do a solo episode coming up and do a deep dive.
But

Speaker 7 Rogue is

Speaker 7 ascend client um

Speaker 7 and

Speaker 7 uh we i processed a payment with him today it's to me there is no easier system on the market for capturing payments and the fact that you can do the payment like just a straight payments you know kind of standard payments or do the premium finance it that to me it and the ease of it right the the just send out a link and you guys kind of take care of the whole thing like i don't even have to send the email anymore there's like a button where once it's all set up i just click go and then you guys take care of the email and the reminders and um

Speaker 7 you know i i i have it's been a game changer for us and uh you know i i appreciate it and then you obviously pay the brunt of that in terms of all the slack messages that i send with

Speaker 6 different insights that i have we'll call them no no we appreciate it we appreciate it but yeah i mean that's that's really just want to take that that muscle memory away of deciding, hey, should I offer premium finance?

Speaker 6 If so, blah, blah, blah, let me get a quote. Let me go to the systems.
We push that to the customer so they can decide on the fly, hey, do I want to finance this or not?

Speaker 6 If so, you know, I'm going to choose. And you don't, you as the agent don't need to be in the loop of that.
And we handle the rest. So, really saving you a ton of time.

Speaker 7 Yeah, very cool. Very cool.
Okay, Peter, you're up.

Speaker 8 Yeah. So my name is Peter McDonald.
I'm one of the co-founders of WonderWrites. We've built what I think is the best experience to fill out applications with your customers.

Speaker 8 So quick background, I was an agent for seven years. I wish Steve that Catalyt existed

Speaker 8 five years ago. We were literally looking for a fractional CIO.

Speaker 8 And Andrew, I love the concept of ascend and knew I had a use for that in my own life as an agent, as I did for an easier way of filling out applications because I used to fill them out with pen and paper.

Speaker 8 It was literally the fastest way to do it. And it drove me crazy to think that I would work so hard to win deals and then fill out apps with paper or Adobe Acrobat or whatever.

Speaker 8 So best, easiest, fastest way to fill it out collaboratively, invite your customers, you know, click a button to send them an email, et cetera.

Speaker 7 Yeah. I will also give another disclosure that we are a paying client of Wonder Write.
Neither one of these guys or any of these guys are sponsors of the show.

Speaker 7 And this is a real story. And Peter's going to think I'm stroking his ego, but it's not.

Speaker 7 So, we hired a new account manager for our team. We call them Client Success Associates.
And she'd come from a standard agency and she needed to do something with the cord form.

Speaker 7 And she's she's like, can I get a login to Adobe Acrobat to

Speaker 7 manipulate this form or whatever, right?

Speaker 7 And I said, no, no, you don't need to do that. And she goes, what do you mean? I go, so we Zoom and I do a screen share and I go, we use this tool called Wonder Write to do that.

Speaker 7 So we get about two minutes in the thing. And she literally goes, ah, and she has like a

Speaker 7 reaction, like a physical and audible reaction. And she goes, holy shit, this is so easy.

Speaker 7 And I said, well, you you know, use the tool and, you know, make sure or whatever, but, but yeah, this is what we use now. And it's crazy how quickly people take to that, to that process.

Speaker 7 And we've, we've, we've enjoyed it. We use it every day, uh, pretty much.

Speaker 7 So, um, so I just, I just want to put that out there that when people hear me talk about it, I do, you know, none of these guys are sponsoring me. I use their tools.

Speaker 8 Um, so cool.

Speaker 7 All right. So love it.
Now that we've gotten all that nonsense out of the way, um, let's talk about the future of InsurTech.

Speaker 7 and i want to start with steve because um steve's the oldest has the most experience

Speaker 7 and um only by a couple years so yeah well and yeah

Speaker 7 um i also couple of digit years yeah steve's also probably the smartest out of all of us so let's start

Speaker 7 for sure um so steve you know you you have uh you know uniquely have this breadth of experience in our space really starting from when tech really first started to infiltrate into the into the industry to now where you've kind of lived through multiple iterations of everyone's going to go away and there's not going to be agents anymore and you know and then we cycle through that kind of phase and um and then come back and uh you know it does feel like we're in a fairly unique period uh in that uh technology is starting to be built like to the two guys that we have on the show it's starting to be built with agents in mind from the very start, not trying to disintermediate them, but strictly trying to take them to the next level outside of the standard kind of technology players that we all had to use for so long.

Speaker 7 So it's kind of a really interesting, innovative time. And I'm just interested in your take and kind of how would you kick this conversation off? What's going through your coconut?

Speaker 9 I think the phrase that's kind of hitting me right now is the democratization of technology.

Speaker 9 So when I started literally in the 80s, you know,

Speaker 9 there were few options. They were expensive and were not at all customizable.

Speaker 9 And again, like you said, Ryan, I mean, I even presentations I would do in the early 2000s, you know, really was

Speaker 9 agents, you need to get a website. You need, I mean, this is what's coming.

Speaker 9 There were a lot of people talking about, you know, not needing an agent anymore. And and i think perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of today

Speaker 9 is the fact that i i want to i this may not be accurate you can fact check me on this but i feel like every direct to consumer player all of a sudden has recognized that oh agents are there.

Speaker 9 And I actually think there's a very specific reason why that's happening, because I've been trying to figure out for a while, you know, a year, whatever, 18 months, kind of what was the change or why does that mindset, why is that mindset changing?

Speaker 9 And then I think also, and again, like, you know, Peter and Andrew, platforms, processes, procedures, you know, tools coming out specifically designed to help the agent, you know, move forward.

Speaker 9 And it's not about technology. It's about.

Speaker 9 It's about meeting the customer where they want to be.

Speaker 9 So I kind of stop there. I've got some stories and things like that I could talk about, but I feel like democratization of technology, meaning

Speaker 9 even some of the smallest agents today have tools available if they're willing to

Speaker 9 think differently.

Speaker 9 They can do amazing things today. And I think that's part of what's different.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 7 You are our fact checker. So the fact that you said it means that it must be true.
So just clear on that. And no, I think, I think you're right.

Speaker 7 I, I, uh, I have loved secretly, considering how much of a jerk he was to all of us when he first came in, watching Lemonade and their CEO start to placate to agents now, being that they can't crack 40, what is it, 43% retention or whatever, I think on their last quarterly.

Speaker 7 You know, to me, I find that.

Speaker 7 hopefully humbling to him, although he's probably on some yacht and some Caribbean island at this point.

Speaker 7 But, you know, that to me is interesting because

Speaker 7 they were really the case study for

Speaker 7 an app, a personified bit of, you know, what they called AI, which was really just, you know,

Speaker 7 CSS code

Speaker 7 that, you know, could this replace the interaction that someone has with a human? And they have proven the case that it just doesn't. And that to me.

Speaker 7 I'm not a behavioral psychologist, but to me, it's how how many of these case studies do we need before

Speaker 7 we all start to realize that it's some way, to differing degrees, humans have to be part of the process. And it just, there hasn't been a case study to the former.

Speaker 6 Other point.

Speaker 9 Yeah, and again, I always like to be careful, too, that agents can't just sit back and go, hey, you know, I've been successful. I don't need to make any changes either.

Speaker 9 So that's sort of the interesting kind of balance act there

Speaker 9 that I think we need to keep in mind.

Speaker 7 Yeah, Andrew.

Speaker 6 Yeah, I was just going to say that, you know, that point, the lemonade point was proven with arguably

Speaker 6 the simplest insurance product, right? So if you can't do that in renters, how are you going to do homeowners auto commercial, right?

Speaker 6 It just gets much, much more complicated and you definitely need a human in the loop.

Speaker 6 But I agree with you, Steve.

Speaker 6 I think we're actually in a really great

Speaker 6 time for technology inclined agents and customer experience or maybe even customer obsessed

Speaker 6 agents to

Speaker 6 come and capture a ton of business, right? Because people are going to be a lot more efficient and effective than they have been able to be historically using technology.

Speaker 6 And if they're willing to adapt, they're going to be able, you know, we're going to have these super agents, people like Ryan, right? Who are going to be able to come and clean up a ton of business.

Speaker 6 And I think it's going to be a really special time for folks moving forward.

Speaker 7 Yeah, i i i i'll tell you what in particular wonder right and ascend as tools have done for us is open up the ens market right for so i was told from the beginning don't go after small business there's too much ens there's too much ens you can't make money doing ens it's unprofitable but on and on i mean i must have heard from two dozen agents when i explained to about a year and a half ago uh about six months in a rogue i did a solo episode where i kind of said hey we got our butt kicked by covid we're pivoting this is what we're doing here's what we're doing going forward forward.

Speaker 7 And I just kind of shared that idea. And I get a ton, I got a ton of feedback.
And everyone said, that sounds great, except for ENS is going to destroy you.

Speaker 7 You're not going to be able to have a business.

Speaker 7 And what is exciting is that with, you know, we now have eight people, but for most of our history, you know, except for the last three months, we had only three people, right?

Speaker 7 We've added five in the last three months. But for most of our history, we've only had three people.

Speaker 7 And almost 50% of our business is ENS.

Speaker 7 And it's because of tools like Ascend and Wonder Write that are so accessible, even to a small agent, that now ENS, which has been this thing that no one wanted to touch, has, I mean, I'll take an ENS account just like I'll take any other account.

Speaker 7 It means nothing to me. I mean, literally, we don't go in our head, ah, ENS.
No, we're just like, oh, this is what we do. Bing, ding, ding.
We put it in here. We get the accords.

Speaker 7 We send them into this company. We use this for payment.
It means nothing to us.

Speaker 7 And I think those are the kind of opportunities that today have opened up for even small agents that were really only accessible to bigger agencies who had a workforce to handle all that stuff.

Speaker 7 And that's what to me is a game changer.

Speaker 8 Absolutely. I think you look at Ryan, some of the biggest companies that have really verticalized in the space and you're like, what is the best version of this company look like?

Speaker 8 And I don't know, I kind of think about it, it's like watching a football game, you know, the play, as you come to the playoffs. It's like,

Speaker 8 is there going to be a playoff game where you don't see an ad for like a big insurance company? Like, no, they're always going to have ads. These companies have always been around.

Speaker 8 They're always going to be around.

Speaker 8 In some ways, they're kind of the exception rather than the rule, because a lot of the business that independent agents are writing, to your point, it's not standardized.

Speaker 8 It's written, it's regulated at a state level, it's written regionally. There's these different niches and pockets.

Speaker 8 And I think insurance agents like yourself, you've always had a take on customer experience. It's always been a top priority for agencies, always.

Speaker 8 And I think, you know, a lot of agencies have always known it could be better. It could be way better.

Speaker 8 And I think you see this not just with WonderWrite, but with companies like Tarmica or Agency Zoom or Glovebox with literally founded by former agents who just knew there had to be a better way.

Speaker 8 And so I think back to Steve's point of democratization,

Speaker 8 we're at a point now where the tools that I think some of us agents wanted five, 10 years ago are finally coming out.

Speaker 8 And so now as an agent, you have those tools and the barrier to entry is not super high.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 7 Yeah. I mean, the,

Speaker 7 I know there's a lot of talk.

Speaker 7 I was talking with, uh, well, it's probably a couple of months now, but I saw Carrie Wallace down in North Carolina and she was talking about agency valuations and all this M ⁇ A activity and all this stuff is going on, right?

Speaker 7 And she's, she's, you know, she's doing these valuations and she's like, oh, we're going to crest a thousand. And I think we easily crested a thousand, right?

Speaker 7 We were pushing up towards like almost 1,200.

Speaker 7 Well, what's really interesting to me is, despite that, the number of agencies has stayed flat or even I've seen a couple of reports where it may have even increased because the barrier to entry for agents with these types of tools that you can be remote, work out of your house, right?

Speaker 7 Like we don't have an office, right?

Speaker 7 But we can still provide an incredibly professional experience.

Speaker 7 And that's exciting because now you have all these new people popping up and some of them will be success, some will fail just like anything else, but they get to take this shot that.

Speaker 7 Even five years ago, I don't know that they could have launched these types of agencies or going after some of these niche markets because the tools just weren't available or to Steve's point, they weren't democratized enough that they could customize them in a way that would work for them.

Speaker 7 They had to kind of play within the same rules that everyone had to play in.

Speaker 8 I've definitely felt that.

Speaker 6 Yeah, to follow on that.

Speaker 8 Go ahead, Peter. Yeah, I was just going to say, I've definitely felt that energy.
I was down at the IAOA in Florida and man, Ryan, the energy was awesome. It was just a ton of like new agents

Speaker 8 building from scratch, starting scratch agencies. And like, if you want to talk about entrepreneurship, like that is just exciting.

Speaker 8 You have people in every pocket of the country starting every niche type of agency imaginable,

Speaker 8 you know, first generation insurance agency. It was really a lot of fun and it was refreshing as like a, you know, a millennial insurance, former insurance agent.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 9 Well, my comment was the most recent Future One study identified approximately 36,500 independent agencies in the United States.

Speaker 9 And again, that number has fluctuated not by much over the last number of years. What was really interesting to me is 14% of those agencies are five years or younger.

Speaker 7 Wow.

Speaker 7 So,

Speaker 9 and I believe the MA is actually throwing off agents, you know,

Speaker 9 producers, staff who don't want to work for a large organization. They like the smaller feel.
It's whatever that looks like. And again, Marianne, I agree with you.

Speaker 9 The tools they can utilize today are cheaper, better,

Speaker 9 more useful, more customizable than they ever were before.

Speaker 7 All right. So, I have a question for, I'm going to throw this at Andrew because he hasn't had an episode on the show and it's just something I'm interested in.
Like, when you were evaluating,

Speaker 7 you know, starting, you know, starting ascend, right? And you're looking at the space and you're looking for opportunities and you see payments is a problem. And payments was a huge problem.

Speaker 7 I mean, the fact that premium finance companies got away with operating the way that they did for so long is absolutely bananas.

Speaker 7 And I'm glad that they can't operate that way anymore because you guys, and to be fair, there are a few who have, you know, who've put some improvements in.

Speaker 7 So it's not like you're the only game in town, but obviously I'm a big fan. So

Speaker 3 when what?

Speaker 7 What was it when you when you started evaluating, was it just you knew payments? Had you been thinking about payments for a while? Did you do like an analysis of the industry to find gaps?

Speaker 7 Like, like, what did that look like when you were trying to find a place where where you could add value or build a company? Was it, was it payments were already in your mind?

Speaker 7 Did you figure out payments? Like, how did that, how did that come to be?

Speaker 6 Yeah, so, you know, Praveena and I started from the place of,

Speaker 6 I would almost argue, like

Speaker 6 the opposite place of Peter,

Speaker 6 where we were working at a full stack carrier in Suretech, where we, you know, we'd sold our last business to, and we'd actually seen firsthand, like, gosh, like

Speaker 6 the agent channel continues to perform the best. We believe that there is a real opportunity to build, and

Speaker 6 the words we were using at that time was sort of in the infrastructure for insurance, as opposed to coming and trying to build everything end-to-end and replace, you know, from distribution through underwriting through, you know, the whole stack, as a lot of full stack

Speaker 6 insurance insurtechs are doing. And we said, gosh, there's a huge opportunity to specialize.
So, what are areas where there is

Speaker 6 a very industry-specific problem? And payments and insurance are hugely industry-specific. It's not e-commerce, right? It's not let me collect my money and then it's my money, and I do whatever.

Speaker 6 It's I have commissions, I have endorsements, I have payables, I have premium finance, right? Premium finance doesn't exist in other industries.

Speaker 6 So, we knew it was very complicated at the industry level and industry-specific, but it wasn't we were also looking for something that wasn't brokerage or carrier or MGA specific.

Speaker 6 So, you know, pretty much everyone has the same problems with payments and insurance. It's not like everyone does it very differently.

Speaker 6 And so that's how we kind of arrived on payments as an opportunity.

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Speaker 7 Did you see and thank you for that? That was kind of a setup question to what I really wanted to ask you, which is in that analysis, did you see any other places? Like, was there, was there other

Speaker 7 segments, other little dark holes

Speaker 7 that may exist that you're like, you know, hey, here's some other things or, you know, that evaluation, I'm always interested in that evaluation process because,

Speaker 7 you know, I'm not necessarily one of those people who would just

Speaker 7 come up with an idea for

Speaker 7 forms or come up with an idea for payments. Like, so I'm always interested in, and when you do find it, like, what does that evaluation process look like?

Speaker 7 Because, you know, I'm sure for Steve, and then, you know, I'll pass over to Steve too.

Speaker 7 You know, you're looking for all these ideas, Steve. Like, you're trying to

Speaker 7 be that aggregator of all this information.

Speaker 7 So was there anything, Andrew, else, that you saw that you're like, yeah, that'd be interesting, but maybe that's the next business or we'll start that once a send is kind of matured?

Speaker 7 Or is there any other opportunities that you saw? Or maybe, or, you know, and if you don't have any, maybe just throw that out to the whole group.

Speaker 6 Yeah, we, I mean, we looked at a bunch of stuff, and obviously, nothing we thought was as compelling as payments, which is obviously where we ended up.

Speaker 6 Um, we looked at, you know, I think the TPA space has a huge amount of opportunity, but the lens by which we look through it is kind of on the business model and monetization, right? Like,

Speaker 6 there's a lot of problems to be solved in insurance and uh not all of them will

Speaker 6 be able to sustain a meaningful large business um

Speaker 6 and that's kind of a i think you know a consideration as people are thinking about starting in you know agency tooling or info insurance infrastructure type type businesses um

Speaker 7 so we looked at a bunch of stuff that we didn't think would have a be a sustainable enough business yeah peter but curious what other people think yeah yeah yeah you guys have have you guys, you know, and I don't, you don't need to give away like your pocket business that you're, it's going to be your next big rocket ship, but are there any other sectors or spaces that you've just evaluated or come across where you're like, geez, I'm really excited for someone to solve this problem or this area?

Speaker 9 Well, I will say as I'm kind of, you said, continuing to evaluate kind of where things are, where things are going,

Speaker 9 I think there is a very interesting opportunity, again, for the smaller agent in machine learning.

Speaker 9 And I do not very specifically use the phrase artificial intelligence because we don't have it right now. That is a term I'm on a campaign to eradicate.

Speaker 9 And we won't have it for probably 30 years. So, but machine learning, pattern matching,

Speaker 9 and there's some really interesting, again, I have a, I'm thinking of a slide I have in a presentation I do. Again, democratization of machine learning between Google Cloud, AWS,

Speaker 9 maybe

Speaker 9 Microsoft, you know, Azure. There are so many tools that, again, are accessible.
It takes a bit more technical something.

Speaker 9 But just as a simple example, on my website, I have a Amazon tool called Amazon Poly that whenever I post an article, the tool automatically

Speaker 9 converts my text into voice. And I get to choose the voice and I get to choose the country and the language and et cetera,

Speaker 9 and puts a bar on the top of my article that says click here to listen automatically.

Speaker 7 It also automatically

Speaker 9 kind of process can do a couple things. One, it can actually convert that to a podcast.
So again, text to podcast, podcast, which I didn't do because, you know, that's not the experience I want.

Speaker 9 But it also then can be a skill in Alexa. So you could ask Alexa to listen to Steve Anderson's tech tips.

Speaker 9 Now, are those, you know,

Speaker 9 are those

Speaker 9 gee whiz shiny object things, or are they

Speaker 9 worth experimenting with to find out where the right sweet spot is.

Speaker 9 And so some of those things, and I think machine learning and automated account reviews, I'm working with a vendor right now and developing some stuff for Catalyt.

Speaker 9 There's just some interesting opportunities. And again,

Speaker 9 staying within the insurance industry for me is key because

Speaker 9 There's, you know, I always jokingly say to people, you know, insurance is a great industry to be in because they're five to seven years behind everybody else.

Speaker 9 So when I talk about something, everybody thinks it's a wow, you know, and the rest of the world goes, oh, yeah, we did that, you know, X years ago.

Speaker 9 So I probably sound smarter than I actually am just because everybody else is farther behind.

Speaker 7 Come on, Steve. Steve, final question to that is, what accent did you, what did you, what did you choose?

Speaker 9 I did a male

Speaker 9 US, but you could do British, you could do Australian, you could do.

Speaker 9 And by the way, the other thing I do is I actually translate that article into four different languages.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 9 Now, I mean, think about that. Depending on where you are in the country,

Speaker 9 you know, it could be Spanish, could be Vietnamese, could be Polish, could be, I'm thinking the different areas of the country that have larger populations that speak a different language.

Speaker 9 And you're in Alabama.

Speaker 9 Could be, yeah, could be Southern Drawl.

Speaker 7 Steve, I saw something like this in practice actually recently.

Speaker 8 We changed our health insurance for our company this year. And I went onto the portal.

Speaker 8 They give you a free Fitbit because they want to track your data or something, make you healthy, make sure you're getting your steps in. But there was a video review of your insurance policy.

Speaker 8 And it was like, hello, Peter. Here are your family members.
And it put their names on the screen. And then it's like, here's your coverage.
And here's the terms.

Speaker 8 And it was like a whole video customized to me. And it was definitely cool.
You know, I've heard about this. I've thought about it in our own sales demonstrations.

Speaker 8 But it was really cool to see like an insurance company actually implementing that, you know, for the first time. So I definitely interesting.

Speaker 7 You know, what's funny is, so we use Neoteric Agent, which I love Grant Botma, but that's the worst name of any tool that exists in the industry.

Speaker 7 And Grant, I love you, but your tool has a terrible name. But I love the tool and I use it almost every day.
So it's a video proposal tool. There's a couple of these out here.

Speaker 7 It's just, it's the one we use and I like it.

Speaker 7 And we do a simple thing, right? We set an expectation before we sell.

Speaker 7 We say, hey, the next after I gather, next thing that's going to to happen is i'm going to figure out what company program coverages i recommend i'm going to send you an email the email's got three parts it's got a high level overview it's got you're going to get to download the pdf right from the company so you can see exactly what i see i'm going to do a quick video right just breaking down why i chose this company and the coverages whatever

Speaker 7 people lose their minds they i'm and and and and they're like i've never seen anything like this before this is amazing i can't believe you took the time to do this took the time it was like five minutes i mean literally that's it imagine a normal sales process is 45 minutes across the table and you're pushing paper and you got like a uh easel chart that you're doing graphs on and stuff and like this is five minutes of me just in front of a camera half the time i'm in a hoodie and people lose their mind so when you talk about like technology that in our industry is mind-blowing that in other industries is like running the mill video proposals which is it just to me seems so remedial, absolutely people lose their minds.

Speaker 7 They lose. I mean, I get people that are just like, I don't even care what the price is.
I'm in. This is amazing.
I'm in. The emails that we've gotten back, and it just is, it's bewildering to me.

Speaker 7 But I mean, I guess that's why there's opportunity.

Speaker 9 Well, I think that's right, Ryan. It's that that is why there's opportunities.

Speaker 9 And I was going to say, when I was putting Catalyt together and we were doing, you know, estimates of, you know, what penetration would we have with independent agents, part of of what

Speaker 9 I did was I actually took about 20 or 25% of our universe off

Speaker 9 because I figure that's about the right number of agencies that don't care about technology, never will. They're not going to invest.
They know they're going to sell. That's not my audience.

Speaker 9 And so,

Speaker 9 you know, again, I like to try and convert them, but I've decided, you know what? I don't have time anymore to try and do that.

Speaker 9 If they don't buy into, that's not a Cadillate ideal agency. It is the agency who's willing to go, gosh, that sounds interesting.

Speaker 9 I'm willing to test that, or I'm willing to try it, or I want help in figuring this out, or how do I do this? So,

Speaker 9 you know, I think that's,

Speaker 9 and I think, I'm hoping that percentage will shrink. Again, M ⁇ A, right, all this, all the changes going on in the agency world

Speaker 9 with that.

Speaker 9 But frankly, even some of the bigger organizations that, you know, everybody thinks they have the resources, but they don't have the mindset to actually be willing to experiment and fail and experiment and fail and experiment and get a big hit.

Speaker 7 So

Speaker 7 no, I agree.

Speaker 7 Andrew, when, so

Speaker 7 in launching a send into the marketplace, and Pierre, I'm going to ask you a similar question too, if your answer is different, and you can say if it's not.

Speaker 7 What has been

Speaker 7 like, so you're giving people this piece of technology. It is, you know,

Speaker 7 someone can say they don't want to use a send or maybe it's not right for them, but there's no denying that you are saving people time and it's an efficiency tool and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 7 So, you know what I mean? Like,

Speaker 7 what is the, what has been one of the most interesting pieces of feedback you got, either adoption or, you know, like, has there been anything that you've been like, geez, I didn't see anyone saying that about this or, or man, I wouldn't have expected people to go this path or that path.

Speaker 7 Has there been anything been unexpected about the process of rolling technology out to independent agents?

Speaker 6 I mean, that's part of the fun of doing this work, right? And like you were just saying, Steve, it's about the experimentation and learning and readapting.

Speaker 6 So we've learned a ton as we've gone to market. And again, not coming from the insurance, the independent insurance agent background, we've learned just a huge amount about the process of how,

Speaker 6 you know, typically client interactions are working and payments are collected and what that generally looks like. And I think

Speaker 6 we get to bring a pretty unique perspective because we don't have the

Speaker 6 sort of fixed mindset or that this is how it has been done. And so we're able to sort of mix in the feedback of, hey, this is how we have been doing things with a sort of first principles look.

Speaker 6 And so I think that's part of the reason Ascend has come to this or is able to save folks time.

Speaker 6 In terms of specific surprising things,

Speaker 6 I mean, I think, you know, the thing that surprised us most is

Speaker 6 the highest level, I guess, part of Ascend, which is just the feedback we got on the

Speaker 6 novelty, if you will, of putting pay in full or rate plan digital payment collections alongside premium finance in a single tool.

Speaker 6 You know, that was pretty foreign to folks in the market who were working with multiple providers, whether it's someone who is just for digital payments or someone who is just for premium finance and putting those two things together.

Speaker 6 We had to explain that a few times to people before they were like, wait, so it's one thing? We're like, yeah, it's one thing.

Speaker 6 And that was, that was pretty fun at the beginning.

Speaker 7 How many people get into, you guys asked, so we're, I don't know if, I don't know if we're in a Slack channel with the team from Ascend and we give them a lot of feedback.

Speaker 7 And we've been on the tool since I think August now, right? I think we've been using you guys since August. And, you know, and,

Speaker 7 you know, we're like, hey,

Speaker 7 we'd love to have a button here or something, you know, and whether they do it or not, we're just giving them feedback. And one of the questions they asked was like,

Speaker 7 how does our interest rate line up against others? I was like,

Speaker 7 I was like, I couldn't imagine. And I'm sure there are agencies that do this.

Speaker 7 I just could not imagine.

Speaker 7 And frankly, since you asked me that question, I have now pinged some of my like little networks that I'm in to get feedback on this.

Speaker 7 And there are literally people people who on like a week to week basis will compare the premium finance interest rates from different companies as to like whose is the best and like where they place the premium finance and i'm like

Speaker 7 you do what you spend how much time on what what are we talking about like i i'd said to them i was like it's so easy i i don't even i couldn't even tell you what your interest rate is i just create the link and I send it off.

Speaker 7 And if someone has a problem, you know, we'll figure it out. I mean, they got to pay the premium.

Speaker 7 I don't know like it's just it's funny where we as an industry to me it's funny the places that we're like willing to invest time versus like some you know the things that you guys have created and what steve's been talking about for for how many years all these little efficiency finders and tools but someone at an agency who makes real money who owns that agency will be like you know what i'm going to do today i'm going to figure out which one of my premium finance companies has the best interest rate that that seems like that seems like a useful, that seems like a useful use of my time.

Speaker 7 I just, it just blows me away.

Speaker 3 I mean,

Speaker 6 yeah, no, I mean, I like, I get it, right? Because

Speaker 6 it

Speaker 6 impacts your customer experience, right? If your customer, you want to be able to provide your customer the best possible

Speaker 6 experience and rate of premium finance is certainly one of those vectors.

Speaker 6 And that's part of the reason. you know we

Speaker 6 we wanted to build a product that was much more than just premium finance and provided a much better customer experience we for two reasons. One, we didn't want to just compete on rate.

Speaker 6 You know, that's what premium finance, incumbent premium finance companies do today. And that's where their focus goes, as opposed to building better customer and product experiences that actually

Speaker 6 differentiate. And so we wanted to build a product that delivers that better customer experience while staying competitive on rate.

Speaker 6 And I think, you know, we're happy for people to compare our rate to other folks. Like,

Speaker 6 we're good there too, right? And it's not that we just don't want that to be the only reason that people would choose to use a cent.

Speaker 7 I just couldn't imagine. And I, I'm, I, you know, I'm aware that maybe I just think differently about some of these things, but like, I just couldn't imagine going through

Speaker 7 like the traditional premium finding for like, like someone's, someone said to me the other day, we're going to be a quarter point lower than whoever you use, no matter what.

Speaker 7 You tell us who you use and we'll be at least a quarter point lower, right? That That was their pitch to me, a random cold email.

Speaker 7 And I just was like, you couldn't have pressed a button that I care about less than what you just said to me because I know that it's not as easy as that. And my time is worth that quarter point.

Speaker 7 And if that business owner cared so much about the rate on the premium that they're paying, they'd pay the thing in full and not be a cheapskate. So.

Speaker 7 You know, I don't, you know, I don't know. It just, to me, it's just crazy where we spend our time.

Speaker 7 Like, if people had just listened to steve for the last however many years how much freaking further along would he be but they don't they think about stupid like finding a premium finance company with a quarter point less than the one they currently have like i don't know peter what um what about you man i mean you're doing the same thing you're you're uh

Speaker 7 you know people go well why do you use one right i had someone ask me the other day why do you use one drive i was like accord forms they go well yeah my agency management i did go yeah but one it's easy two it has all the supplementals which you don't have that that's a game changer for me.

Speaker 7 And three, your customer can fill it out alongside you, right? Those three things, that's kind of how I pitch Wonder Write and people ask me.

Speaker 7 None of those things really at face value seem like game changer ideas, but put together saving a lot, a tremendous amount of time for people. How, like, what have you gotten for feedback?

Speaker 7 What has been the most interesting thing you've heard from someone who maybe did or didn't, you know, decide to use Wonder Write?

Speaker 8 Yeah, I think the top thing is make it easy.

Speaker 8 And the reason I arrived at this is, you know, I think where Andrew was very thoughtful probably about how he created a send, I think I was an agent and I was like, there has to be an easier way.

Speaker 8 I was banging my head against the, against the desk, or I was handed my account manager yell at me or be angry at me for not filling out applications.

Speaker 8 And that's how I started about to create Wonder Auto, like sheer brute force. Like, I'm going to do this.
I'm going to teach myself to code to build this thing.

Speaker 8 And so I had very opinionated ways about the way that I like to work. And that's built into the software.
You know, I have a lot of insurance designations.

Speaker 8 I've made cold calls, I've sold policies, and so I'm opinionated.

Speaker 8 And I think we get great feedback from our users. Sometimes they say nice things to us.
Most of the time, they say nice things to us. And they don't always tell us the bad things.

Speaker 8 And so we actually, Ryan,

Speaker 8 we kind of track how people use the software. We anonymize like their mouse movements and what they're typing, but we can kind of play back.
randomly videos of like when things don't go well for them.

Speaker 7 Like a user experience software.

Speaker 8 exactly yeah yeah and i i didn't even know this thing existed until our product person was like we need to use this to make the software better we're we're super tuned into both the feedback we get whether it's written or recorded video or a slack message or intercom

Speaker 8 but even more so it's like how about when people actually use it and maybe they're not like filtering their opinions and um seeing people get stuck is really painful.

Speaker 8 Like you think it's pretty simple. There's like, there's two buttons on the screen and they're like,

Speaker 8 which button do i click um and so the message is like there has to be you know one button and it has to be right in the middle of the screen and flashing red i mean not really but you know basically that's what it has to look like because to your point like you like one right because it's easy it's fast um i think in the old days to Steve's earlier point, people would put up with these softwares where you'd have to onboard.

Speaker 8 You'd have to take classes. There are even coaches you could hire to like, you know, walk you through how to do XYZ.

Speaker 8 and today my own patients included i have about 30 seconds to a minute of attention span when i'm using a new thing and if i can't figure it out in a minute i'm like dude i can order a tesla in a minute yeah like why can't i get an insurance policy why can't i fill out a form and so we just want one right to be so easy there there doesn't there shouldn't have to be a user manual it should be like hit you on the head obvious but at the same time

Speaker 8 like really powerful because insurance gets to be kind of complex and there has to be a lot of complexity behind, like, that easy interface. So, that's been, I think, one of the

Speaker 8 hardest lessons has just been

Speaker 8 seeing people use the software, seeing them get stuck on something that I thought was obvious. My own dad included, who has an agency and, you know, he's a big fan of ours, and he uses it.
And

Speaker 8 it's painful when I see him use it and he gets stuck. And I'm like, yeah, you got stuck there.
You know, I probably would have got stuck too. I don't know how we release this, but we got to fix it.

Speaker 7 I think the important thing to, um or i shouldn't say the important thing one of the things that i think is the most promising and one of the um trends from like the 2015 2016 like uh disintermediation or whatever uh words all the words people are using um to today is the openness and transparency of the evolution of products right like like today you know i get to give Andrew direct fee or his team, you know, his team direct feedback on like, like the other day, there was a screen and it didn't have the name of the account on, right?

Speaker 7 It's just a super simple thing. And I can see if you're building this software, you just, and I just said, hey, guys, like, it would be super cool if like the name of the account was on this screen.

Speaker 7 I sent them a screenshot. I said, like, like right here, you know, whatever.

Speaker 7 And,

Speaker 7 you know, whether they do it, don't put it someplace else doesn't matter. But the fact that I can, and I know I'm not the only one.

Speaker 7 I'm sure there's a collection of agencies that are giving feedback, can now,

Speaker 7 you know, write to the source, say, hey, this would help us do our job better if we could.

Speaker 7 That was never the case, never ever the case with these other, you know, like I'm trying, it took me two weeks to get Vertifor to add a user to my PL Raider account. I mean, I

Speaker 7 just add, I'm like, I want to pay you more money. And it took two weeks and two phone calls to get that done.
And like, you're just like, what is everyone doing?

Speaker 3 I'm trying to pay you more money and you won't, you know, and.

Speaker 7 And it's like that, that mentality of the openness and the iterative changes.

Speaker 7 And like, I love how better agency every two weeks was putting out this list of updates and you know you're just it was almost hard to like keep up but it was cool to see both they had a list of like here's what we launched and here's what we're working on in the next sprint and like that kind of transparency really

Speaker 7 you like feel like you own you know you own the development of this platform like you become emotionally invested in its success and that has been an enormous change in our industry that i think is very very positive

Speaker 8 yeah absolutely i i remember being the agent sending out lots of emails to different technology vendors to fix xyz thing and i get it you know it's it's tough it's um there's been some learnings along the way it's it's tough when you're on the other side of the table and you're trying to manage all the demands um but i think and steve could probably speak to this more but with the proliferation of new companies and new startups the most important thing for us is that our users are having a great experience in most cases and and they're coming back and they're telling their friends about it because it's making their lives easier.

Speaker 7 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Yeah. Yeah.
One point on that, which is really, I think, interesting and important to remember is,

Speaker 6 you know, Ryan, you're our customer, agents are our customers, but what, and we obviously hugely value and care about what you think.

Speaker 6 But the question behind the question is, what are, what are the purchases, the buyers of insurance? What do they want? Right. And you guys are the conduit for that.

Speaker 6 And ultimately, we're all working toward you and us, right, to better serving those customers, because that's how we win business, right? That's how you, that's how you succeed.

Speaker 6 And then that's as a result, how we succeed. And so we can't lose

Speaker 6 focus on that, that end customer. And I think a lot of,

Speaker 6 you know,

Speaker 6 even some agents, right, some of the, I would argue some of the folks Steve was talking about earlier and that 25% he cut off, but also a lot of technology providers have lost that focus.

Speaker 6 And once you've done that, I think it's kind of game over. And we all all need to really maintain that obsessive focus on that end uh customer.

Speaker 7 Yeah,

Speaker 7 Steve, have you seen, um, and I know we're we're talking about a very, uh, there's a, there's a very big gap between, say, those 25% that you said just are never going to be Catalit customers or or whatever, um, versus maybe some of the people at the bleeding edge, right?

Speaker 7 Maybe more than most industries, we have a very broad spectrum. But have you seen, um,

Speaker 7 and this is probably pushing more towards the more technologically advanced, have you seen people almost demanding more out of their providers? Has that been a general trend that you've seen?

Speaker 7 Is where before we would just be like, well, this is what it is. You know, this is what we got to do.
Now it's almost like,

Speaker 7 like there's actual demand, there's pushback coming from the agent marketplace as to what they'll accept from it. Have you seen that at all?

Speaker 9 Yeah, very definitely.

Speaker 9 And I actually think first of applied

Speaker 9 and API and,

Speaker 9 open access and

Speaker 9 that historically have been very resistant to allowing third-party connections. I think a couple of things changed there.

Speaker 9 One, I do think customers in it, because I talked to them and some of the big ones, right, push back on what they're trying to develop and

Speaker 9 wanting more openness. So I think that's one thing that helped them.
I think the second thing that helped them is their new CEO. Taylor Rhodes came from outside the industry.
And I remember

Speaker 9 actually my first conversation with him was before he took the position. He was researching it and I didn't know it.

Speaker 9 And when he actually became CEO, I was, I talked to him and I said, like, okay,

Speaker 9 did I say anything really bad?

Speaker 9 But, you know, he said from that very first conversation when he took over, it was that

Speaker 9 he came from

Speaker 9 APIs were a no-brainer, you had to have them mindset, not a, we have to protect our walled garden mindset. And it's taken some time, but that's mindset is starting to change.

Speaker 9 We'll see how fast, right? That's always the question. But I think Verti42 with their Orange Partner Program, again, is feeling pressure.

Speaker 9 And that's trickling down, you know, certainly for other management system vendors. So

Speaker 9 I think there's no question that the more agents voice their frustration and

Speaker 9 the more I think they demonstrate that they are willing and have the capability of doing things on their own, which was always assumed they wouldn't.

Speaker 9 And I think that, again, goes back to my first comment on the democratization of technology.

Speaker 9 It's, you know, there are a whole lot of people that can do things today that never would have considered themselves, you know, technology focused or friendly or capable that

Speaker 9 definitely are doing things today.

Speaker 7 It definitely seems like the

Speaker 7 Taylor Rhodes applied is not the applied of the past.

Speaker 7 No question.

Speaker 7 I haven't had a conversation with Taylor yet. I've heard some interviews that he've been on.
I've heard some stupid things about him. I do not know him,

Speaker 7 but

Speaker 7 not sure I'm ready to trust them yet. Um, but totally appropriate, right? But uh, I do think it's a good thing.

Speaker 7 I mean, there's so many agents that are on them and you know, people, I get asked the question a lot, um, about agency management systems. And I'm not an expert, but I certainly have opinions.

Speaker 7 And, um, and I'm on now certs, which

Speaker 7 I don't want to talk bad about them, but it does seem like they don't understand what they're what they've built,

Speaker 7 an agency management system that people actually pay them for. Um, so that all being said, you know, there is no better agency management system than Epic.

Speaker 7 If you want an agency management system that works, that is going to do what it's meant to do, that's not going to break and blow up and throw all kinds of crazy stuff at you.

Speaker 7 The downloads are going to work, that's going to be accessible and scale. There is no better, in my opinion, agency management system.
That being said,

Speaker 7 the unfortunate part is until they change the perception outside of their culture, digital agencies, and which I believe are going to be predominantly the agencies of the future are not going to use their system because you look at it and you go, man, I'd love to plug HubSpot into that.

Speaker 7 Nope. Or, or yeah, sure, for a hundred grand.

Speaker 7 And you're like, if I have to pay you to integrate with you when I'm paying you for the system, like, you know, that was one of the things that, you know, I said to, because I was looking at AMS 360 pretty hard and I couldn't get past the 1987

Speaker 7 font and the way the system is set up. I just couldn't get past that.

Speaker 7 But, you know, the whole like paying for integrations thing, I'm like, I'm paying you to use your system and I want to send data into your system.

Speaker 7 And you're telling me I have to pay you, like, I don't, I don't know. It just, to me,

Speaker 7 it's just completely the wrong mentality. It's still that, you know,

Speaker 7 we know best, you do what we say kind of mentality. And I don't think the next generation of entrepreneurs in our industry are going to abide that.

Speaker 7 I think that's why you see platforms like Better Agency. And, you know, you have,

Speaker 7 there's this woman in Virginia Beach who builds custom Salesforce installations and she's like book solid for like a year because everyone just wants, they don't want to have the rug pulled from them.

Speaker 7 And, you know, that's the part that I think is really interesting. You know, I think I know for a fact everyone's scared about your two companies.
They're like.

Speaker 7 they great today, but what happens when applied or verti four by them? What are they going to turn into? I mean, that is literally, you guys have probably heard that from people already, right?

Speaker 7 Like every platform that's exciting and young and fun and is growing and adapting and listening to agents gets to a certain size. And then Vertifor Applied come in with a big check or Zywave, right?

Speaker 7 And then

Speaker 7 it becomes garbage. And that,

Speaker 7 like, when does that cycle get broken? And who breaks it? And how do we break it? Because

Speaker 7 Those three options,

Speaker 7 I struggle to believe those three options are the future of our industry. I think they're part of our industry forever.
And I'm not saying they shouldn't be, but like,

Speaker 7 how do we keep independent technology independent?

Speaker 7 I know the founders got to get paid. I completely believe that.
I completely believe that the risk that they took and all that, I completely understand.

Speaker 7 But like, how do we keep independent insurtechs independent in a way that allows them to still be customer focused without the only exit strategy being one of the big three?

Speaker 7 And then the tool that they built and their legacy turns to crap, which has just happened over and over and over and over and over over again.

Speaker 7 That's what concerns me.

Speaker 8 Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. And we've heard this from the beginning.
We've thought about it.

Speaker 8 You know, Nick from Better Agencies posted about it with Agency Zoom acquisition recently. I mean, it's out there, right? And

Speaker 8 it's no secret.

Speaker 8 I think that with the amount of funding right now going into InsurTech. and the amount of new solutions, I just think

Speaker 8 there's a better opportunity now than there's ever been to have real new options.

Speaker 8 I think with the creation of broker tech ventures, which we were a part of, it's actual agencies investing in tech because they're like, we want to,

Speaker 8 you know, in the best possible way, which is, you know, financial-based returns on the investment, but it's, you know, they want to have a say in a control of what's happening.

Speaker 8 And I think that's been helpful for us. And I think that as an industry, we need to have that ecosystem to support the tools that we want as agents.
And so we're excited about the future. And

Speaker 6 yeah.

Speaker 3 Yeah, that's good. I think you're right.
What about you, Andrew?

Speaker 7 You're like, give me that paper. I can't wait.
Send me that term sheet, baby. No, no, I'm kidding.
I'm kidding. Not at all.
Andrew's not like that, guys. I'm just busting his chats.

Speaker 6 No, we're in this one. And I think,

Speaker 6 yeah, like it's a

Speaker 6 there's a lot, a lot, a lot of value to be created. And that's obviously a huge reason why some of these big companies snap up in SureTechs.

Speaker 6 But I think as more and more folks continue to adopt technology in a faster way, thanks to things like Catalid and Steve, I think some of those teams building InsurTech will actually start realizing, like, gosh,

Speaker 6 it is worth being in this for the long haul as the adoption increases. And we don't need to just tack our product onto Applied's existing customer base, for example.
We can go and do that ourselves.

Speaker 6 And I'm really, really hopeful for that.

Speaker 6 And that's certainly the approach we're taking.

Speaker 7 Yeah, that's cool.

Speaker 7 I think it's a great, I mean, look, when you build a great product, it is a great problem to have as to, you know, you have all these people interested in big platforms.

Speaker 7 And I think that that's tremendous. I

Speaker 7 guess my, you know, when I think about independent agents and I think about where we're going as an industry, I know everybody says the same thing about every new tool, right?

Speaker 7 They say it about better agency and Nick and Nick's, you know, Nick puts all that out there.

Speaker 7 They say, hey, eventually someone's going to come in with a big enough number, buy them up, destroy the tech, and we'll have to wait for the next iteration of the startup agency management system.

Speaker 7 And that,

Speaker 7 you know, I think that's sad. I would love, I don't know how you do it.

Speaker 7 You know,

Speaker 7 I love that I do, I've seen agents investing more and trying to be more involved in the investor cycle for startups and different insurtechs for that reason.

Speaker 7 But it's just,

Speaker 7 it's a good problem to have that we have so many companies doing amazing things and building.

Speaker 7 And hopefully, there becomes a path for founders to reap the benefit of the risk that they took, which I absolutely positively believe that they should be able to do while staying independent from these large conglomerates.

Speaker 7 And whether it's just a better ecosystem, a more connected ecosystem where you don't have to be bought, maybe it's platforms like Steve's who are able to get everyone in the same room and

Speaker 7 allow for that.

Speaker 7 But I think it's a very exciting time.

Speaker 9 Yeah, one other kind of comment, too, and it really is a result of my work with Catalit and getting that going. But it's interesting to me how many

Speaker 9 bigger than I realize, state associations are actually investing in some startups, helping them get going, having, you know, again, part of it is financial return, part of it is service and benefit to their members, part of it.

Speaker 9 And, you know, I've always seen potentially Cadillac Cadillac having some kind of role in that. I don't know what that looks like at this point.
We got to get going.

Speaker 9 But

Speaker 9 again,

Speaker 9 it's interesting. And I think some of those are

Speaker 9 kind of investments are not as focused on

Speaker 9 what's the right phrase? I can't think of it. Buyouts and

Speaker 9 cashing out as much as are we serving our members and are they getting the help that they need? And so I think that's another interesting aspect of

Speaker 9 not just the you know the big boys playing and and and taking it over but again investment from agents themselves but also i see it associations too and there are a handful quite a few actually who are able to and are making some of those strategic investments yeah i think uh so i want to be respectful of your guys time and of everyone listening um i'll just give everyone a a final thought here to just comment on.

Speaker 7 And,

Speaker 7 you know, if I were to kind of surmise this conversation and the concept of the future of InsureTech, it's

Speaker 7 that

Speaker 7 highly valuable products are now becoming downstream available at cost for agencies of any size to really build the type of agency that they want, which makes this one of the most exciting times to be in our industry that have ever existed.

Speaker 7 that's kind of my take. And, and, and, you know, knowing, knowing individuals like yourselves and, and many others who are playing similar games, um, this is, it's a lot of fun.

Speaker 7 I mean, this is, you get to build whatever you want, you know, and that wasn't the case not too long ago. And that's, that's really, really fun.
So I just want to say thank you to you guys.

Speaker 7 Um, for everyone listening, I'm going to have links to LinkedIn's and websites and any other contact or resources that these guys send to me,

Speaker 7 you know, on my website, but also just Google these guys, you'll find them, LinkedIn them, connect with them if you're not already. And uh, I just couldn't recommend

Speaker 7 the insights, thoughts, and the tools you guys are building anymore. And I just want to say thank you to three of you for choosing the show to come on and have this conversation with.

Speaker 7 It's been such a pleasure,

Speaker 9 Ryan. It's been fun.

Speaker 6 Yeah, very fun. Thanks, Ryan.
Appreciate it. Thanks for having us.

Speaker 8 It's been a great time. Thanks for it.
And looking forward to the next one.

Speaker 7 Absolutely.

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