April 23, 2025 • 46 mins
Joel Palathinkal welcomes David Gritz from Insurtech NYC to discuss the intersection of AI and auto insurance. David shares his journey from real estate investing to founding Insurtech New York, highlighting the importance of community learning. They explore insurance applications across various sectors and Insurtech's impact on the global economy and risk management. The conversation delves into breakthroughs in life and healthcare insurance, including innovations in fertility and niche markets. They also discuss new concepts like income and career protection, and the development of unique products through the MGA lab. The episode concludes with David's closing thoughts and a preview of upcoming events.
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(00:00):
The more that you know about what's happeningand the drivers and use technology to
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understand what the cars are actually doing,you can prevent that.
So I think that's definitely a clear use ofcombination of embedded within transaction type
of stuff or employing telematics, or even justAI to understand what's happening beyond just
like the transactional data.
So that's kind of auto example.
(00:25):
Another example is, you know, use of machinevision.
So you think about what's happening in LA rightnow with the fires, what is gonna happen over
the next five years after people rebuild isinsurers are not going to just accept that your
home is safe.
Welcome to The Investor, a podcast where I,Joel Palafinkel, your host, dives deep into the
(00:50):
minds of the world's most influentialinstitutional investors.
In each episode, we sit down with an investorto hear about their journeys and how global
markets are driving capital allocation.
So join us on this journey as we explore theseinsights.
Great.
So I'm excited today.
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I'm here with a friend of mine, David Gritz.
He is one of the cofounders of the InsurtechFund.
You know, he's got an amazing organizationcalled Insurtech NYC.
So really excited to go deep, David.
Thank you for giving up some time today to, youknow, share some wisdom on all that you're
building and also excited to go a little deeperon the insurance tech ecosystem.
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Great.
Well, thanks for having me and hopefully I canpart a little bit of insights to your audience.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, why don't we kick things off?
So David, tell me a little more about just yourearly career, maybe what you studied and, you
know, kind of some of those inflection pointsin your career that helped you maybe become a
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better investor, maybe break into investing,and then now kind of reach where you've been in
the insurance tech space and then also justkind of now becoming an investor off of that
community and unique deal flow access that youguys have.
Yeah.
So you want to start early.
So we'll do that and maybe I can pull out somefun stories along the way.
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So, you know, in undergrad, I went to auniversity in Pennsylvania called Lehigh, which
is mainly an engineering school.
I was an industrial engineer and did a dualdegree in business, but frankly, I did not like
my college experience.
So I think it was like a five year dual degreeprogram and I figured out how to get it all
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done in three years.
But while I was there, I did one of my firststartups, which was actually with one of my
roommates in college, a company called GoodSemester.
And our vision was ultimately to create acompetitive platform to the course announcement
systems the university uses.
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So like the big one at the time was Blackboard,they had more than 80% market share.
And, you know, famously, I met their CEO,Michael Chasen, who was proud that, you know,
he had a similar story to Bill Gates, where hedidn't build it himself.
He bought, you know, the equivalent ofBlackboard version one, you know, or early, you
know, Microsoft Windows from somebody else andjust, you know, improved upon it.
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And you could tell that from the technologythat they had and, you know, our approach was
to really change that.
It was definitely a great experience, you know,doing my first startup in college, but it was
also a great experience in learning the type ofco founder that you don't want.
So we ultimately decided, you know, to partways when I graduated and, you know, kind of
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sold my shares to him.
And unfortunately, or fortunately, I mean,Canvas was started around the same time and now
they're a pretty successful unicorn company.
So, you know, maybe if I would've stuck at it,we could have been Canvas, but, you know, I
just personality wise, we did not mesh.
And I realized that early on and wouldn't wannahave, you know, a decade with him.
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So this is something that's really helpful forme as an investor to know, you know, suss out,
is there a true partnership across thefounders?
Can they work together for a decade?
And what are some of those cues that, you know,things are not necessarily working out?
And, you know, we had a lot of time togetherand that we were roommates.
So where I ended up going after school is Ijust looked for the best entrepreneur in the
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area that I lived in.
So that was basically this Lehigh Valley regionor Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton, Pennsylvania
area.
And there was this founder, he started acompany called Computer Aid, which essentially
went from zero in revenue when he started, hewas an IBM sales guy to you know, a little bit
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after I left the company, billion dollars inrevenue.
And, you know, he grew the business from theearly 80s without any private equity, without
any venture capital.
I think he maybe had like a 15 or $50,000 loanfrom his CTO.
So he owned 98% of the company at the time thatI worked for him.
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And, you know, I was fortunate enough toconvince him to bring me on as his chief of
staff, I learned a ton about how to sell thefortune 500 companies, how a legacy IT worked
and ultimately, you know, how to build a greatorganization.
They were, you know, thousand people, they'reprobably more than that at this point.
And global company customers all over theworld.
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And it was great.
I had basically the opportunity to learn from,his name's Tony Salvaggio, kind of have a front
seat at what they were doing, but you'll alsolearn that, you know, that's very boring.
And even though they were a veryentrepreneurial company, there's a difference
between being an entrepreneur and working in anentrepreneurial company.
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And I think one thing that entrepreneurs I havein common is that, you know, they don't
necessarily like working for somebody else andthey don't necessarily like not having control.
So even though I had control over a lot ofthings that I did in that organization, it's
different than, you know, calling the shots, soto speak.
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So, you know, I left and one of the thingsthat, I mean, I learned a ton of lessons from
Tony Salvaggio, and that could even be a wholepart that we discuss, But, you know, first year
review, he sat me down and he said, you know,have you thought about investing in real
estate?
He was a very successful real estate investorhimself.
And he said, you know, you'll make more moneyinvesting in real estate than working for me.
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And he didn't know like behind the scenes, hadalready joined a ton of real estate investing
groups and had been shopping for properties.
And shortly after that, you know, first yearreview, I bought my first multi unit and that
kind of led to some of my next paths, but, youknow, I did spend time running a construction
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or house flipping business in Philadelphia.
So really on the ground, getting dirty inoperations, managing contractors, literally in
dirt.
And, you know, it was a great experience.
And then, you know, from there I started an edtech company, which took some of the lessons
learned from, you know, my first ed techcompany.
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This one was focused as a community managementplatform to connect university entrepreneurs to
people that are actually starting businesses incollege like myself.
So I had, you know, firsthand experience.
We also had a couple three different incubatorsthat we ran at three different universities.
And for one of our customers, we ran theirentrepreneurship program.
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So it was very kind of steeped in in thatworld, That business ultimately didn't work
out, but it was a great experience all around.
So that kind of leads me to the point where Igot into Insurtech.
So during the tail end of that business, afriend of mine reached out to me and he was
running an insurance company based in EasternPennsylvania.
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You know, they work with a small number oflarge manufacturing, distribution and
transportation companies to provide them withworkers' comp insurance and commercial auto.
And he said, Hey, we're not doing wellfinancially.
Can you help me turn around the business withtechnology?
And I said, Hey, Todd, I don't know anythingabout insurance, but I know a lot about how to
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build software.
So why don't we team up?
So we co founded a company called Xero, theidea of zero lost days of work.
You know, if you don't get injured on the job,you won't miss any work.
And we took, you know, a lot of the principlesfrom a former treasury secretary and also, you
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know, CEO of Alcoa, this guy named PaulO'Neill, who was kind of world regarded by
safety managers and became an advisor for ourbusiness and kind of implemented his ideas,
what he did at Alcoa and before thatinternational paper into the customers of you
know, Todd's insurance company, and then, youknow, sold to external customers.
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We grew that to the point where we sold it to areinsurer.
And then, you know, I was kind of looking forthe next thing.
So I took a couple of paths, you know, Ifigured I needed to learn some new things.
So I went to law school.
I spent some time working out with a group inSilicon Valley, helping them.
They're called the Silicon Valley InsuranceAccelerator.
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They did events, they did research and alsoworking through, you know, advising some
startups.
And, you know, from there, it was great goingback and forth to Silicon Valley being on the
East Coast, but it was also grueling.
So that kind of helped inspire Insurtech NewYork, which is our startup ecosystem.
So, you we have events, we run a corporateinnovation program and accelerator, we run a
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lab to incubate new insurance products and allof those things ultimately created the
environment that allowed us to create our fundwhere we invest in essentially the top one to
2% of all the startups that we see in thatecosystem.
So that's a little bit of a whirlwind tour.
No, that's really helpful.
And, you know, I had a couple of comments onjust the EdTech platforms, right?
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So they had Teachable, you know, we useThinkific for a lot of our educational, you
know, platforms and, you know, learningportals.
So some of them are pretty flexible.
Some of them also, are really great on mobiledevices as well.
And, you know, I've used Canvas as well, andI've used Blackboard back in the day.
But, you know, one thing I'll say is, you know,education is changing to become more community
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based to your point.
So I think there's a lot of innovation, thatcan be done with, which is community tools.
You know, a lot of people now are using Slack,but you can kind of integrate all that in to,
to one platform, that's helpful.
Then there's a couple of there's anothercompany called Maven.
What they do is they do cohort based educationbecause I think when you have a cohort,
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obviously, there's a little more urgency tomake sure that you show up and, you know, it
starts and ends at a certain time.
So those are some things that I think are gonnabe differentiators.
You know, as you as you look at kinda like thelegacy incumbents, you know, they're gonna have
to kinda continue pushing out community andcontent and platform and education.
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And and it's not just maybe one course or alecture, but maybe it's a series of kind of
experiential educational things that maybe arepartially offline and online.
So wanted to hear your thoughts on that.
You know, before we go deeper into insurancetech and and and kinda your thesis around that.
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But you know, there an educational communitycomponent to your insurance tech platform that
you built as well.
So, you know, just wanted to hear any kind ofreactions or comments to kind of where you
think education is heading.
Yeah, so I think education is heading from likethe old stodgy 1600 style where people show up
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in a lecture hall and the only thing thatmatters is the transfer of knowledge one
directional you know, from the professor tostudent, right?
And, you know, the new generation is almost onthe go creator led, not necessarily organized
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around prestige and really focused on gettingpeople to learn exactly what they need when
they need to learn it.
And that's very different than, you know, we'llcall it the 1600s learning where you were
essentially learning for learning sake and youwere learning because you needed that for a
trade or business, or because your family waspart of the aristocracy and it was, you know,
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part of the expectation that if you were partof the noble class, you would have to be
educated at a certain level.
And, you know, some universities are very muchstill stuck in their ways there.
And the challenge that we're gonna see ineducation is like, as the cost of traditional,
you know, Ivy League university gets to thepoint where a middle class family can't even
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get loans to be able to, you know, mortgagetheir life away on it.
There has to be other solutions and by andlarge there are, and, you know, a lot of, I
would say Gen Z and Gen Alpha are seeing, wait,I don't necessarily have to go to college.
You know, if Google is gonna hire me and I justneed to know coding, then, you know, why don't
I go on Coursera or edX and learn what I needto learn and then just do what I need to do.
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And there's
a lot And I feel like even people like you,David, that have done a lot of house flipping
and done construction, you could essentiallycreate a eight week cohort on and there
probably is people out there to do that, butyou could create an eight week cohort on how to
do house flipping specifically in Philadelphia.
But what you're teaching is, hey, this is whatworked for me.
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It's not, hey, this is how, you know, how itshould be done.
Right?
And when you go to colleges or, you know,incumbents, they're kind of teaching you the
theory of, like, you know, based on maybe acase study or maybe historically, there was
this one deal that happened.
You know, that's what they did.
But you're speaking with more authority becauseit's something that you did.
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And, you know, what you do almost may notalways work for somebody else, but what you're
sharing is still what you did.
And I think that's much more, you know,meaningful and it has authority, especially if
you're managing, you know, $20,000,000 worth ofproperties or, you know, 50 to a hundred
million.
It's like, look, here's how I'm managing.
Here's how I started, And then here's how I gotto 50 to 100,000,000 in assets of properties.
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Then here's chapter seven, which is, hey, howto handle contractors.
So I feel like somebody would be more prone tolearn from you versus kind of learn from
someone else who's just kind of teaching thetheory or like a tenured professor that's kind
of teaching it out of a textbook.
Yeah, no, totally agree with that.
I think, hopefully if I ever do create a courseor a book on real estate, you know, people
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would see it as, you know, a useful guide fromdoing it firsthand.
Because I could tell you, you know, I thinkabout some of the property classes I had in law
school, although, the theory is great aboutlien order and title and all of those things.
When you actually have a real title insuranceclaim because the title company missed water
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bills, it's very different of an experience.
And, you know, understanding theoretically thelaw doesn't necessarily answer how do you
handle the social part of what to do and how doyou convince the title company to pay that
claim?
So yeah, there's definitely a huge value tothis kind of experiential learning or
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apprentice based learning opposed to just thetraditional textbook model.
Yeah, no, I totally agree.
So switching gears, know, there's insuranceapplications to real estate, right?
There's property and casualty insurance.
There is obviously, there's going to be a lotof stuff going on in LA and, you know, people
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are still, you know, dealing with the recovery.
People are still dealing with insurance claims.
There's, you know, I did a stint in insurancetech, you know, in venture at a role that I was
at, you know, a few years ago.
So I learned a lot and really went deep oninsurance.
And, you know, back then too, I mean, AI wasnot the buzzword, but there were still people
building in AI when nobody really knew aboutit.
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And, you know, what I thought was interestingin AI in insurance is just being able to
collect data offline, being able to use yourdevice to run models versus kind of trying to
process it in the cloud, when latency is anissue.
And then, you know, being able to use that datato kinda have some type of real type, real time
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claims data.
And then also, think what's interesting is Ithink you can use synthetic data.
So you can use models, to kind of to trainmodels much faster if you don't have enough
images or if you don't have, human workforce totake a bunch of images and tag them, you know,
I think there's a lot of simulations that couldbe used now.
But, again, that's kind of my limited knowledgefrom, you know, three, maybe four, five years
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ago.
So I'm sure you have a lot of updates.
So tell me a little more about the InsurTechcommunity that you built.
And then tell me a little more about kind ofwhat some of the startups are building and what
you're excited about.
Yeah, so, you know, the reason why we built ourInsurTech community and specifically put it in
New York, even though we do serve insurtechsglobally, is if we looked around the world and
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saw what other places in the world hadinsurtech communities, London has several of
them.
They probably had the earliest one in 2014,Instech London.
There's Insurtech Munich Hub in Germany,there's Insurlab Berlin.
There's essentially, I would say in most majorcities that have at least 20 insurers, some
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type of community.
And, you know, there were things going on inHartford, Connecticut, in Des Moines, Iowa, in
the Bay Area, but there was no dedicatedInsurTech community in New York.
And, you know, my business partner and I, youknow, we happened to be living here or in New
York at the time.
And we kind of asked this question, it's like,why is there nothing in New York, even though
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there's the most number of insurance companiesin New York, almost every insurance broker
that's significant has an office, There's moreInsurtechs in New York than any other city in
the world.
And in terms of investors that invest inInsurtech, there's more in New York than any
other city.
And I think the reason why is because theInsurTech space is very much overshadowed by
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FinTech.
So when we first started our business,everyone's like, well, there's this FinTech
organization or that FinTech organization.
And we went to a ton of those events.
And frankly, you show up at a FinTech event,pre COVID and you were an Insurtech person, you
were an ugly duckling.
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If you weren't in lending credit or wealthmanagement and you're saying, well, I'm in
property and casualty insurance, or I'm in termlife, you know, wanna kind of set you aside in
your own little corner.
And we didn't think that's right, you know,because ultimately insurance is 8% of the
global GDP.
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In some countries like Japan and Germany, it'sactually more than that.
And ultimately when reinsurers make a decisionon something, it can affect the entire economy.
So if you think about Florida, right?
If reinsurers decided they don't wanna reinsurecitizens insurance, which is, you know, the
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state's insurer of last resort, many homes, ifnot the majority of the market will not be able
to get insurance.
And a lot of people don't necessarilyunderstand the significance, but ultimately
insurance is what allows a lot of the piping ofthe economy to work.
So if you think about global shipping routes,the reason why, when there were problems in
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Ukraine or problems in The Middle East with theHouthis, firing rockets that ships could not
sail is because insurers out of Lloyd's ofLondon were like, we're not going to insure
these ships in a war zone.
That's just a bad use of our capital.
In the same sense, you know, if you think aboutjust developing economies and in developing
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economy, if you can't get home insurance orbusiness insurance, a lender probably doesn't
wanna lend because there's a much higher chanceof a total loss if there's something outside of
their control, that's not a default risk or thecost of lending will be substantially higher.
So in markets where insurance exists, itessentially buffers out a lot of the larger
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unpredictable events and creates a way for freemovement of ideas, free trade, and ultimately,
you know, exchange of capital because thecapital providers don't have to worry about
things that are outside of their control.
They just worry about the credit risk or thebusiness risk.
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Yeah.
And what are some ways that you can managerisk?
I guess what are some of the, you know,innovations that you're seeing right now?
What are you so what are you excited about?
You know, some of the things that I'm excitedabout is just more I mean, it's not as sexy.
Right?
But it's like just automation.
Right?
So just kind of the boring back office tasks ofmaybe claims management.
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I feel like if you could two x the efficiencyof that, I feel like that's that's probably a
trillion dollars over time of just, you know,revenue that's back in the pockets of of a lot
of these carriers, but, you know, yeah, any anykinda Yeah.
Granular things that you're excited about?
So I'll just give you a bunch of randomsmattering because I think a lot of people
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don't necessarily think about the scope ofInsurtech and everything it So there's a
startup we're looking at right now and they'rein the car rental insurance space.
So imagine you're a Toro company, you have afleet of 10 vehicles and you want to get off
Toro, which Toro has their own insurance, butnow you want to offer your renters like, you
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know, the collision damage waiver or aliability insurance.
So they partner with them to offer it.
They also work with other independent carrental agencies.
And one of the biggest challenges that theyhave or any car rental insurance company has is
because of how the insurance works, it's reallygreat that if you could just like get in a
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wreck and then purchase the insurance after thefact, opposed to making the decision beforehand
that you want to pay the $30 a day upfront.
So naturally, like if you did it the first waythat I said, that's fraud, and that's not what
they want to cover.
So they've been thinking about how can theyuse, you know, embedded technology.
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So they're embedded in the car rental software.
So they know exactly when the coverage waspurchased, whether it was paid for and all of
the different details to ultimately eliminateor prevent fraud.
And you could imagine all the different typesof things that could happen with bad actors,
not just in car rental insurance, buttraditional car insurance.
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And the more that you know about what'shappening and the drivers and use technology to
understand what the cars are actually doing,you can prevent that.
So I think that's definitely a clear use ofcombination of embedded within transaction type
of stuff, or employing telematics, or even justAI to understand what's happening beyond just
(24:28):
like the transactional data.
So that's kind of auto example.
Another example is, you know, use of machinevision.
So you think about what's happening in LA rightnow with the fires, what is gonna happen over
the next five years after people rebuild isinsurers are not going to just accept that your
home is safe.
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They're going to expect that you plant treesand shrubs that are not flammable, you create
space around your house.
So it minimizes the debris that could come froma wildfire onto your building and that all the
structures are as safe as they can be.
If you have asphalt shingles, they're up todate, or maybe they're more fire resistant than
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they used to be.
And most insurers do not know what the makeupof every property is and everything around the
buildings.
But simply you could just have a policyholderuse an app that has machine vision, it detects
all of the things and then makes a quickassessment.
So there's a startup that we're looking at thatdoes just that, and there's several of them.
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So that's kind of on the home side.
On the life side, I think is one of the placesthat people don't really think about, but to me
is one of the most interesting things, which islife insurers are in the business of predicting
how long you live, which a lot of people wouldlike to know that for themselves, but life
insurance, at least at a population level aresome of the best organizations in the world of
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figuring that out.
And the more data that they have, so think likequantified self movement, people that use
Fitbits or the Apple watches to keep track oftheir health, they should get prioritized if
they're doing things that lead to betterlongevity.
But people that are making terrible lifestylechoices should ultimately get penalized.
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And life insurers are just starting to be ableto use that data in order to their overall
understanding of their current book of businessand then change the way that they price new
people that want to get insurance.
What about health care?
So health care insurance, I feel, is still, notas accessible, and there isn't like a lemonade
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for health care.
Right?
I mean, now, if you wanna get propertyinsurance, can go to lemonade.
You pay, like, you know, 15 or I don't knowwhat the price is now, but it's probably under
a hundred dollars a month.
I mean, I would say almost probably 15 to $20 amonth.
I mean, last time I checked, but, is there apathway for maybe solo entrepreneurs to just
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get full medical coverage or like even so a lotof a lot of entrepreneurs start businesses when
they're in their 40s.
Know, in New York, have the they have the NewYork network that you can kind of tap in and
you can kind of shop around the marketplace.
But was curious, I mean, because I'm not awareof one.
I'm trying to think what else there is.
(27:30):
There's life insurance.
I think there was a company called Fabric whereyou can just kind of buy life insurance
literally with an app.
And it's a low cost monthly premium that yougot to pay, but can you go a little deeper on
healthcare and maybe some of the challenges andwho's innovating in that space to kind of let
people just get that coverage?
Yeah, so in healthcare there's a few differentsegments of it.
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Broadly speaking, there haven't been a lot ofentrepreneurs to talk and tackle, know,
solopreneur or an individual person, because,you know, the healthcare exchanges, whether
it's the New York one or the different states,have kind of filled in that role.
The government has basically said it, so thecommissions that you get are so low, it's like
(28:17):
5 to $10 per person.
Oh It's not quite economical yet.
So I think because of the mechanics of how youcan make money in that space, there's not a ton
of opportunity.
That being said, if you have a group of, youknow, maybe three people in your company, five
people or 10 people, there's definitely anumber of solutions.
(28:37):
So one space is called ICHRA, I C H R A, andbasically it's a tax or legal mechanism that
allows you to send your employees to theexchange, but the company pays for it.
So there's startups that like venture that areessentially handling the legal and accounting
(28:59):
components of that, so small businesses can doit.
There are also, you know, some new small groupplans, like Sana Benefits is one startup.
I think you can have a plan as small as likethree or five people.
And then there's companies that are kind ofdigital brokers that help you work with a
traditional health and get quoted, even if youhave a small group.
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So there's a company in New York called MonarchHQ and another one in Texas called Perfect
Quote.
Both of them were in our accelerator and, youknow, they're trying to help in that small
group space.
But by and large, I think you're right.
There is no breakout success there.
I
mean, I think also, I mentioned, sometimes whathappens is my conversations from a previous
(29:44):
podcast carry on to the next one.
So in my past podcast, I talked about DanaWhite.
Right?
And Dana White, you know, who's the CEO of theUFC, he's gone on to say, look.
You know what?
I don't go to doctors for for anything usually,you know, unless it's something serious or I
messed up my back or I I got seriously injured.
(30:04):
I can go you know, I think he goes to somebodyand gets his blood work done and gets all the
information in terms of how his levels aredoing.
And then he gets he has somebody that kindaguides him through things he needs to do to
kind of adjust those levels.
But I think I think there's a company.
I forgot the name of it.
I saw them in my feed, but that's essentiallywhat they do.
So they you go out independently.
(30:26):
Go get go get your blood work done, and thenthere's a report.
I think if you can kind of get that digitizedin your own private database, obviously HIPAA
compliant through the company's infrastructure,that is half the battle for healthy people.
But I think there's also opportunities fordoctors to be fractional advisors, right?
(30:49):
Like, I mean, I found somebody for my son tocome into our home and do math tutoring.
I found him on, I forgot the website, butthere's one of those websites where you can
kinda search for contractors.
So I feel like there's gotta be a place whereyou can find a doctor.
Right now you can use ZocDoc to book anappointment with a doctor.
You gotta go to their clinic.
But I feel like there's there's off hours wherea doctor would probably be happy if you pay
(31:13):
them a billable rate to come in once every sixmonths.
Right?
You pay a doctor a couple hundred dollars.
I mean, how long does that consultation usuallytake?
Right?
When you see a doctor, it's ten, fifteenminutes.
Right?
So you pay a doctor a couple hundred bucks.
The the doctor pockets everything.
I'm not sure what the rules are around that.
But, like, there could be freelance work fordifferent types of doctors.
And then if you wanna do your blood work, youknow, you partner with, some type of company
(31:38):
where you go to Quest, you get your blood workdone, and then all that data goes to the
dashboard of the doctor.
You know, so I feel like that's kind of healthcare, but there's gotta be some type of way to
innovate on that.
Right?
Kind of get some type of, you know, subsidizedhealth care to be able to just get that because
that's essentially what you need.
Right?
If you're moderately healthy, or if you havesome type of condition, you know, you probably
(32:02):
need to see a specialist.
So, you know, I know there's a lot ofincumbents and and dinosaurs that are there to
kinda make sure that the hospital systems areprotected.
But I know I spoke a lot, so I wanna hear yourreaction to everything I said.
Yeah, no, so I think definitely it's a strongidea.
(32:24):
There's a couple startups that we've diligencethat kind of touch on that.
There was one in DC, I'm forgetting their nameat the moment where it's basically offered as a
group benefit And, you know, it's a little bitoutside of the medical space.
So they had, you know, behavioral health,nutritionists, you know, psychologists, those
types of things.
(32:45):
And, you know, you basically subscribe and getaccess to all of that.
And there's also companies that do kind ofconcierge medicine.
So it's like helping you find the right doctorfor what you need.
Is there somebody that's digitizing that?
Because I mean, I know like when you go to likethe Hamptons, right?
People have these concierge doctors or thosedoctors come to your house, especially when you
(33:05):
get older.
But, you know, is there, like, an app or sometype of startup that's kinda, like, on demand?
It's like, look.
I need to see a doctor.
Because normally, if you're you're moderatelyhealthy, you're only seeing a doctor every, you
know, ideally every six months, right?
I mean, it'd be really great if you can kind oftrack your levels and obviously look at a lot
of other data, which is like, hey, you knowwhat, this is my ethnicity.
(33:28):
And statistically, look, I'm from India, mostof the people in our culture have heart
disease.
Right?
So I feel like there's so much data out therethat can kinda be plugged in to kinda give you
some, recommendations or even some predictionsto be preventative versus just kinda getting
your blood work once a year and, hey, now Ihave this condition that I didn't know about,
(33:50):
which I could have known about earlier.
Yeah.
So on the mental health side, there'sdefinitely a few, you know, Spring Health is
like one of them.
On, you know, the traditional care side ofthings, you know, it hasn't been a place that
we focused a ton of effort because, you know,most of our energy has been to kind of all the
(34:11):
other lines of business than, you know,individual medical.
So I can't cite a company off the top of myhead.
That being said, there are some structuralchallenges to it, which is, a lot of doctors
that are part of a specific network, theyoftentimes have to sign pretty onerous
contracts.
Like a non compete?
(34:33):
Either something like that, or essentially thatallocates their time in a certain way or
allocates how they charge.
And if that platform charges a differentpricing than they're charging the health
insurer, then they run into challenges.
So basically the establishment health insurershave put it in a way that they're kind of
(34:56):
handcuffing some of the doctors and how theywork.
That being said, you know, it's definitelysomething that, you know, I can be on the
lookout and definitely let you know Joel, if wecome across that.
Yeah, no, I'm just curious.
I mean, I figured there would be someone that'sbuilding it, But tell me what else?
So what are some other sectors that you're kindof excited about?
(35:16):
Yeah, so I mean, some of the sectors that we'rereally excited about is some of these specialty
areas.
So like one big theme, you know, playing off ofthe whole medical space is this idea of, you
know, fertility cover, fertility benefits.
So, you know, if you're a lady in her 20s orearly 30s, and, you know, you're not sure when
(35:38):
you want to have kids, but you're sure that youwant to have kids.
There's companies like, there was one in ourMGA lab called Flora, and you basically pay a
monthly fee.
And then if you have trouble conceiving, thenthere's an amount of money, I think up to
50,000 in their current policy to help you getthrough some of the treatments or care that you
(35:58):
need to be successful in conceiving.
There's also a couple startups I talked to thatare doing things like, if you know you have to
get IVF, but IVF is one of those things whereit sometimes takes more than one shot.
You know, it's great if it works the firsttime, but you kind of only want to pay for it
the first time, where, you know, they'll coverthe risk of it not working the first time to
(36:19):
kind of cover the second or third try.
So they've kind of figured that outactuarially.
So I think fertility benefits, just given thefact that our overall global population is
getting close to the point where we're lessthan the replacement, and I think, you know,
data is showing by somewhere around 02/1950,global population will decrease, which could be
(36:43):
a good thing or could be a bad thing, but Ithink it brings to top of mind the importance
of fertility for people that do wanna havekids.
There's not a ton of solutions out there bytraditional incumbents.
Startups are one of the only ones to do that.
Other areas that we've seen that we're kind ofexcited about is there's kind of specialty
(37:05):
areas either in property space.
So for example, we had a company that was inour MGA lab called five by five.
They offer insurance for pilots that own theirown planes.
So typically, like if you trained in flightschool or you're in the Air Force, you might
have another career path, or you might be anaccountant, but if you are successful enough
(37:29):
and have your own plane, you usually have tohire a pilot because your insurance won't let
you fly it, even though you might've been greatat flying in the Air Force.
So essentially what 5x5 does is they installtelematics in your plane, and then they allow
you to get coverage, you know, based off ofyour actual performance as a pilot and the risk
(37:51):
management steps that you take when you fly.
So That's interesting.
Yeah.
That's an interesting concept.
So, I mean, I think you can think aboutinsurance for when you kinda change your
mindset of thinking, you know, in the theutility of insurance is essentially just having
peace of mind and managing your downside.
In exchange for that peace of mind, you'repaying some premium up front, you know, in in
(38:14):
the case that it might happen.
Right?
So two additional things.
I mean, was told this was shared with me bysomebody else, but, you know, there's look.
I've got two kids.
We pay for day care and and all that other goodstuff, but there's some people that might wanna
have kids and they you know, there's a lot ofcosts in day care and day care is rising.
(38:38):
So we do have a prepaid program for college.
We don't know what college is gonna cost, butwe're paying for college right now.
Right?
Like, you have a two year old, your child mightbe in college, what, like, sixteen, seventeen
years from now, but you can pay for collegenow.
You might be a brand new couple, and youalready know the rising cost of childcare.
So I wonder if there's some type of, like,prepaid program for daycare.
(39:02):
Right?
And I modeled it out.
I actually, like, went deep on this.
And, you know, if you do the math, I mean, inNew York, it's like what?
4,000 close to 4,000, maybe even 5,000 a monthin some places.
But if you kinda front loaded some of that at alow cost and you kinda did it early, maybe
three, four years early.
Right?
Well, maybe you just got married and you maythink you're gonna conceive at some point.
(39:25):
You know, that that was just kind of aninteresting, topic, but, you know, that you
don't know if someone is going to have a child,but it's the same thing as you don't actually
know if your child is gonna go to college.
You know, you could do the prepaid college andmaybe your child doesn't go.
And then, you know, you just right now, what Iwas thinking about is you talked about kind of
(39:46):
this person, you know, being a pilot and maybehaving another path.
You know?
I wonder if this would be kinda crazy to thinkabout, but, like, you know, they do have some
funds.
I know two, three funds that have gone throughmy fund accelerator that have invested in
people.
So they're essentially doing income, incomeshare agreements.
(40:07):
So it's like, look, I'm gonna write you know,kinda like you'd invest in a startup.
It's like, look, I'm gonna I'm gonna write youa check.
I'm gonna give you 200,000, and then whateveryou do, depending on what you do to earn income
in the next three, four years.
I'm betting on you, though.
I'm gonna I'm betting that you're gonna bemaking $800,000 a year as a data scientist
because you're already studying engineering, soI'm betting on your future.
(40:30):
Or or you're gonna launch a startup.
No matter what that check goes into, almostlike a pre seed check into a person, that
person, you know, no matter what they earn, youknow, you get a percentage back.
And, you know, hopefully, the math makes sense.
But I wonder if there's if it's crazy to thinkabout, like, you know, what if you have
insurance for your future career path, which islike, look.
(40:53):
You know what?
I'm gonna pay $200 a month just in case if Idon't get a job at the end of college because
of the rising cost of MBA programs.
I'm already dropping $200,000 a year.
That'd be cool if there was this insurance planwhere I can pay 203 hundred dollars a month
where, like, if I don't get a job, god forbid,it's almost kinda like unemployment.
I get, like, $3,000 a month.
(41:14):
Now these numbers, I'm just kinda making up,but I'm just thinking in, like, different
planes of, like, what you could essentiallyinsure.
So wanted to hear you know, we got five minutesleft.
Wanna hear your reactions to those two twoexamples and then just other crazy things that
you have seen or thought about to, have anInsureTech application to.
Yeah, so a lot to comment on, I'll kind of do aquick whirlwind.
(41:36):
So the idea of actually covering someone'sfuture income.
So there's a couple startups we ran across inthis space and very specific area.
So name, image and likeness is kind of thecoverage.
So you're a college athlete, maybe you have anoffer at the NBA.
What happens if you get injured in practice andyou lose out on that twenty year career?
(42:00):
There is coverage for that.
There's a couple startups that are doing it.
And I think that's like a specific derivativeof kind of the career cover.
In terms of the daycare stuff, it candefinitely relate.
Fortunately, where I live in New Jersey, weonly pay about 2,000 a month, but, you know, I
definitely feel bad for the people.
(42:21):
Yeah, I know in DC and New York that pay 4,000and- Oh yeah, agree.
Yeah, it could definitely work like some typeof long term care insurance that people could
buy.
So I think that product is possible.
Do I know anyone doing it?
Not right now, but certainly worth pursuing.
But I think all these general concepts inInsurTech of essentially creating new products
(42:46):
is the reason why we created our lab called theMGA lab.
So MGA stands for managing general agency.
And it's kind of like, you don't have as muchcapital as an insurance carrier, but you have
more responsibility than an insurance broker,which is to do underwriting.
And for that, your partner insurer or reinsurergives you a larger piece of the ultimate total
(43:11):
revenue or gross written premium.
So we've had 33 companies go through theprogram so far.
Some ended up launching, some didn't, butthat's like one of the most fun things that we
do.
And it's actually one of the best ways for usto find deal flow for our fund because we're
working with the companies for a year beforethey actually launch.
(43:33):
And then when they're kind of a seed stage,we've already gotten to know them for a while.
So some examples
So do they already have they're already seedstage, right?
So they already have the product and theyalready have some traction?
No.
So with the MGA lab, we'll work with companiesthat are pre seed or even idea stage.
Yeah.
Our fund only invests in seed stage, so oncethey get traction.
(43:54):
But just to run through some of the ideas orsome of the companies have gone through, there
was a tornado coverage product, there was onefor excess rainfall.
So let's say you had an apartment on the FirstFloor, it's not covered in your renter's
insurance, but you probably wanna have somecoverage if it gets flooded.
(44:16):
We had a company that was focused on swimmingpool safety.
So they use machine vision to ultimately,whether it's a gym, a hotel, a community pool,
to help alert the lifeguards if it looks likesomeone's going to drown, and then they give
them additional liability cover because ifsomeone drowns in the pool, especially if they
(44:36):
don't die, it's pretty expensive insuranceclaim.
You're talking like 3 or $4,000,000
Yeah.
So, you know, that's kind of a traditionalproduct, but a new application.
We had a company that did shipping delayinsurance.
So if you're shipping things like parts for anF1 race, vaccines or organs, if it gets there
(44:58):
late, it's just as bad as being damaged.
So they actually cover delay of thoseshipments.
We had a startup that was focused on providingsurety for equipment in Mexico because banks
don't want a loan against equipment in Mexico,unless there's some type of insurance behind
(45:20):
it, they provide that insurance layer.
So even though it's U.
S.
Companies, they're doing manufacturing inMexico.
So that's like, you know, basic fundamentaleconomic development with that type of
coverage.
Yeah.
Well, hey.
David really enjoyed the time and, you know,learned a lot, and I know we covered a lot of
topics.
So, hopefully, some of the founders arelistening and they build some some great
(45:44):
things.
Maybe some of the things we talked about, butmaybe just other new innovative things and
excited to to learn more about youraccelerator.
So when do you guys do you guys have a demoday?
Yeah.
So we have a demo day.
It's usually November depending on, what thatday falls in the month.
Sure.
Okay.
Well, excited.
You know, we'll we'll share your information,your website, and, thank you again for all that
(46:10):
you do with Founders and and, for sharing your,wisdom with the community.
Thanks for having me.
Yep.
Take care.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye, everybody.
The more that you know about what's happeningand the drivers and use technology to
(00:04):
understand what the cars are actually doing,you can prevent that.
So I think that's definitely a clear use ofcombination of embedded within transaction type
of stuff or employing telematics, or even justAI to understand what's happening beyond just
like the transactional data.
So that's kind of auto example.
(00:25):
Another example is, you know, use of machinevision.
So you think about what's happening in LA rightnow with the fires, what is gonna happen over
the next five years after people rebuild isinsurers are not going to just accept that your
home is safe.
Welcome to The Investor, a podcast where I,Joel Palafinkel, your host, dives deep into the
(00:50):
minds of the world's most influentialinstitutional investors.
In each episode, we sit down with an investorto hear about their journeys and how global
markets are driving capital allocation.
So join us on this journey as we explore theseinsights.
Great.
So I'm excited today.
(01:11):
I'm here with a friend of mine, David Gritz.
He is one of the cofounders of the InsurtechFund.
You know, he's got an amazing organizationcalled Insurtech NYC.
So really excited to go deep, David.
Thank you for giving up some time today to, youknow, share some wisdom on all that you're
building and also excited to go a little deeperon the insurance tech ecosystem.
(01:36):
Great.
Well, thanks for having me and hopefully I canpart a little bit of insights to your audience.
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, why don't we kick things off?
So David, tell me a little more about just yourearly career, maybe what you studied and, you
know, kind of some of those inflection pointsin your career that helped you maybe become a
(01:56):
better investor, maybe break into investing,and then now kind of reach where you've been in
the insurance tech space and then also justkind of now becoming an investor off of that
community and unique deal flow access that youguys have.
Yeah.
So you want to start early.
So we'll do that and maybe I can pull out somefun stories along the way.
(02:21):
So, you know, in undergrad, I went to auniversity in Pennsylvania called Lehigh, which
is mainly an engineering school.
I was an industrial engineer and did a dualdegree in business, but frankly, I did not like
my college experience.
So I think it was like a five year dual degreeprogram and I figured out how to get it all
(02:44):
done in three years.
But while I was there, I did one of my firststartups, which was actually with one of my
roommates in college, a company called GoodSemester.
And our vision was ultimately to create acompetitive platform to the course announcement
systems the university uses.
(03:04):
So like the big one at the time was Blackboard,they had more than 80% market share.
And, you know, famously, I met their CEO,Michael Chasen, who was proud that, you know,
he had a similar story to Bill Gates, where hedidn't build it himself.
He bought, you know, the equivalent ofBlackboard version one, you know, or early, you
know, Microsoft Windows from somebody else andjust, you know, improved upon it.
(03:29):
And you could tell that from the technologythat they had and, you know, our approach was
to really change that.
It was definitely a great experience, you know,doing my first startup in college, but it was
also a great experience in learning the type ofco founder that you don't want.
So we ultimately decided, you know, to partways when I graduated and, you know, kind of
(03:53):
sold my shares to him.
And unfortunately, or fortunately, I mean,Canvas was started around the same time and now
they're a pretty successful unicorn company.
So, you know, maybe if I would've stuck at it,we could have been Canvas, but, you know, I
just personality wise, we did not mesh.
And I realized that early on and wouldn't wannahave, you know, a decade with him.
(04:17):
So this is something that's really helpful forme as an investor to know, you know, suss out,
is there a true partnership across thefounders?
Can they work together for a decade?
And what are some of those cues that, you know,things are not necessarily working out?
And, you know, we had a lot of time togetherand that we were roommates.
So where I ended up going after school is Ijust looked for the best entrepreneur in the
(04:41):
area that I lived in.
So that was basically this Lehigh Valley regionor Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton, Pennsylvania
area.
And there was this founder, he started acompany called Computer Aid, which essentially
went from zero in revenue when he started, hewas an IBM sales guy to you know, a little bit
(05:04):
after I left the company, billion dollars inrevenue.
And, you know, he grew the business from theearly 80s without any private equity, without
any venture capital.
I think he maybe had like a 15 or $50,000 loanfrom his CTO.
So he owned 98% of the company at the time thatI worked for him.
(05:25):
And, you know, I was fortunate enough toconvince him to bring me on as his chief of
staff, I learned a ton about how to sell thefortune 500 companies, how a legacy IT worked
and ultimately, you know, how to build a greatorganization.
They were, you know, thousand people, they'reprobably more than that at this point.
And global company customers all over theworld.
(05:49):
And it was great.
I had basically the opportunity to learn from,his name's Tony Salvaggio, kind of have a front
seat at what they were doing, but you'll alsolearn that, you know, that's very boring.
And even though they were a veryentrepreneurial company, there's a difference
between being an entrepreneur and working in anentrepreneurial company.
(06:10):
And I think one thing that entrepreneurs I havein common is that, you know, they don't
necessarily like working for somebody else andthey don't necessarily like not having control.
So even though I had control over a lot ofthings that I did in that organization, it's
different than, you know, calling the shots, soto speak.
(06:31):
So, you know, I left and one of the thingsthat, I mean, I learned a ton of lessons from
Tony Salvaggio, and that could even be a wholepart that we discuss, But, you know, first year
review, he sat me down and he said, you know,have you thought about investing in real
estate?
He was a very successful real estate investorhimself.
And he said, you know, you'll make more moneyinvesting in real estate than working for me.
(06:54):
And he didn't know like behind the scenes, hadalready joined a ton of real estate investing
groups and had been shopping for properties.
And shortly after that, you know, first yearreview, I bought my first multi unit and that
kind of led to some of my next paths, but, youknow, I did spend time running a construction
(07:15):
or house flipping business in Philadelphia.
So really on the ground, getting dirty inoperations, managing contractors, literally in
dirt.
And, you know, it was a great experience.
And then, you know, from there I started an edtech company, which took some of the lessons
learned from, you know, my first ed techcompany.
(07:37):
This one was focused as a community managementplatform to connect university entrepreneurs to
people that are actually starting businesses incollege like myself.
So I had, you know, firsthand experience.
We also had a couple three different incubatorsthat we ran at three different universities.
And for one of our customers, we ran theirentrepreneurship program.
(07:59):
So it was very kind of steeped in in thatworld, That business ultimately didn't work
out, but it was a great experience all around.
So that kind of leads me to the point where Igot into Insurtech.
So during the tail end of that business, afriend of mine reached out to me and he was
running an insurance company based in EasternPennsylvania.
(08:21):
You know, they work with a small number oflarge manufacturing, distribution and
transportation companies to provide them withworkers' comp insurance and commercial auto.
And he said, Hey, we're not doing wellfinancially.
Can you help me turn around the business withtechnology?
And I said, Hey, Todd, I don't know anythingabout insurance, but I know a lot about how to
(08:43):
build software.
So why don't we team up?
So we co founded a company called Xero, theidea of zero lost days of work.
You know, if you don't get injured on the job,you won't miss any work.
And we took, you know, a lot of the principlesfrom a former treasury secretary and also, you
(09:04):
know, CEO of Alcoa, this guy named PaulO'Neill, who was kind of world regarded by
safety managers and became an advisor for ourbusiness and kind of implemented his ideas,
what he did at Alcoa and before thatinternational paper into the customers of you
know, Todd's insurance company, and then, youknow, sold to external customers.
(09:26):
We grew that to the point where we sold it to areinsurer.
And then, you know, I was kind of looking forthe next thing.
So I took a couple of paths, you know, Ifigured I needed to learn some new things.
So I went to law school.
I spent some time working out with a group inSilicon Valley, helping them.
They're called the Silicon Valley InsuranceAccelerator.
(09:46):
They did events, they did research and alsoworking through, you know, advising some
startups.
And, you know, from there, it was great goingback and forth to Silicon Valley being on the
East Coast, but it was also grueling.
So that kind of helped inspire Insurtech NewYork, which is our startup ecosystem.
So, you we have events, we run a corporateinnovation program and accelerator, we run a
(10:12):
lab to incubate new insurance products and allof those things ultimately created the
environment that allowed us to create our fundwhere we invest in essentially the top one to
2% of all the startups that we see in thatecosystem.
So that's a little bit of a whirlwind tour.
No, that's really helpful.
And, you know, I had a couple of comments onjust the EdTech platforms, right?
(10:32):
So they had Teachable, you know, we useThinkific for a lot of our educational, you
know, platforms and, you know, learningportals.
So some of them are pretty flexible.
Some of them also, are really great on mobiledevices as well.
And, you know, I've used Canvas as well, andI've used Blackboard back in the day.
But, you know, one thing I'll say is, you know,education is changing to become more community
(10:56):
based to your point.
So I think there's a lot of innovation, thatcan be done with, which is community tools.
You know, a lot of people now are using Slack,but you can kind of integrate all that in to,
to one platform, that's helpful.
Then there's a couple of there's anothercompany called Maven.
What they do is they do cohort based educationbecause I think when you have a cohort,
(11:18):
obviously, there's a little more urgency tomake sure that you show up and, you know, it
starts and ends at a certain time.
So those are some things that I think are gonnabe differentiators.
You know, as you as you look at kinda like thelegacy incumbents, you know, they're gonna have
to kinda continue pushing out community andcontent and platform and education.
(11:39):
And and it's not just maybe one course or alecture, but maybe it's a series of kind of
experiential educational things that maybe arepartially offline and online.
So wanted to hear your thoughts on that.
You know, before we go deeper into insurancetech and and and kinda your thesis around that.
(12:00):
But you know, there an educational communitycomponent to your insurance tech platform that
you built as well.
So, you know, just wanted to hear any kind ofreactions or comments to kind of where you
think education is heading.
Yeah, so I think education is heading from likethe old stodgy 1600 style where people show up
(12:23):
in a lecture hall and the only thing thatmatters is the transfer of knowledge one
directional you know, from the professor tostudent, right?
And, you know, the new generation is almost onthe go creator led, not necessarily organized
(12:44):
around prestige and really focused on gettingpeople to learn exactly what they need when
they need to learn it.
And that's very different than, you know, we'llcall it the 1600s learning where you were
essentially learning for learning sake and youwere learning because you needed that for a
trade or business, or because your family waspart of the aristocracy and it was, you know,
(13:07):
part of the expectation that if you were partof the noble class, you would have to be
educated at a certain level.
And, you know, some universities are very muchstill stuck in their ways there.
And the challenge that we're gonna see ineducation is like, as the cost of traditional,
you know, Ivy League university gets to thepoint where a middle class family can't even
(13:31):
get loans to be able to, you know, mortgagetheir life away on it.
There has to be other solutions and by andlarge there are, and, you know, a lot of, I
would say Gen Z and Gen Alpha are seeing, wait,I don't necessarily have to go to college.
You know, if Google is gonna hire me and I justneed to know coding, then, you know, why don't
I go on Coursera or edX and learn what I needto learn and then just do what I need to do.
(13:57):
And there's
a lot And I feel like even people like you,David, that have done a lot of house flipping
and done construction, you could essentiallycreate a eight week cohort on and there
probably is people out there to do that, butyou could create an eight week cohort on how to
do house flipping specifically in Philadelphia.
But what you're teaching is, hey, this is whatworked for me.
(14:19):
It's not, hey, this is how, you know, how itshould be done.
Right?
And when you go to colleges or, you know,incumbents, they're kind of teaching you the
theory of, like, you know, based on maybe acase study or maybe historically, there was
this one deal that happened.
You know, that's what they did.
But you're speaking with more authority becauseit's something that you did.
(14:40):
And, you know, what you do almost may notalways work for somebody else, but what you're
sharing is still what you did.
And I think that's much more, you know,meaningful and it has authority, especially if
you're managing, you know, $20,000,000 worth ofproperties or, you know, 50 to a hundred
million.
It's like, look, here's how I'm managing.
Here's how I started, And then here's how I gotto 50 to 100,000,000 in assets of properties.
(15:07):
Then here's chapter seven, which is, hey, howto handle contractors.
So I feel like somebody would be more prone tolearn from you versus kind of learn from
someone else who's just kind of teaching thetheory or like a tenured professor that's kind
of teaching it out of a textbook.
Yeah, no, totally agree with that.
I think, hopefully if I ever do create a courseor a book on real estate, you know, people
(15:33):
would see it as, you know, a useful guide fromdoing it firsthand.
Because I could tell you, you know, I thinkabout some of the property classes I had in law
school, although, the theory is great aboutlien order and title and all of those things.
When you actually have a real title insuranceclaim because the title company missed water
(15:55):
bills, it's very different of an experience.
And, you know, understanding theoretically thelaw doesn't necessarily answer how do you
handle the social part of what to do and how doyou convince the title company to pay that
claim?
So yeah, there's definitely a huge value tothis kind of experiential learning or
(16:17):
apprentice based learning opposed to just thetraditional textbook model.
Yeah, no, I totally agree.
So switching gears, know, there's insuranceapplications to real estate, right?
There's property and casualty insurance.
There is obviously, there's going to be a lotof stuff going on in LA and, you know, people
(16:38):
are still, you know, dealing with the recovery.
People are still dealing with insurance claims.
There's, you know, I did a stint in insurancetech, you know, in venture at a role that I was
at, you know, a few years ago.
So I learned a lot and really went deep oninsurance.
And, you know, back then too, I mean, AI wasnot the buzzword, but there were still people
building in AI when nobody really knew aboutit.
(17:00):
And, you know, what I thought was interestingin AI in insurance is just being able to
collect data offline, being able to use yourdevice to run models versus kind of trying to
process it in the cloud, when latency is anissue.
And then, you know, being able to use that datato kinda have some type of real type, real time
(17:21):
claims data.
And then also, think what's interesting is Ithink you can use synthetic data.
So you can use models, to kind of to trainmodels much faster if you don't have enough
images or if you don't have, human workforce totake a bunch of images and tag them, you know,
I think there's a lot of simulations that couldbe used now.
But, again, that's kind of my limited knowledgefrom, you know, three, maybe four, five years
(17:45):
ago.
So I'm sure you have a lot of updates.
So tell me a little more about the InsurTechcommunity that you built.
And then tell me a little more about kind ofwhat some of the startups are building and what
you're excited about.
Yeah, so, you know, the reason why we built ourInsurTech community and specifically put it in
New York, even though we do serve insurtechsglobally, is if we looked around the world and
(18:11):
saw what other places in the world hadinsurtech communities, London has several of
them.
They probably had the earliest one in 2014,Instech London.
There's Insurtech Munich Hub in Germany,there's Insurlab Berlin.
There's essentially, I would say in most majorcities that have at least 20 insurers, some
(18:35):
type of community.
And, you know, there were things going on inHartford, Connecticut, in Des Moines, Iowa, in
the Bay Area, but there was no dedicatedInsurTech community in New York.
And, you know, my business partner and I, youknow, we happened to be living here or in New
York at the time.
And we kind of asked this question, it's like,why is there nothing in New York, even though
(18:58):
there's the most number of insurance companiesin New York, almost every insurance broker
that's significant has an office, There's moreInsurtechs in New York than any other city in
the world.
And in terms of investors that invest inInsurtech, there's more in New York than any
other city.
And I think the reason why is because theInsurTech space is very much overshadowed by
(19:24):
FinTech.
So when we first started our business,everyone's like, well, there's this FinTech
organization or that FinTech organization.
And we went to a ton of those events.
And frankly, you show up at a FinTech event,pre COVID and you were an Insurtech person, you
were an ugly duckling.
(19:44):
If you weren't in lending credit or wealthmanagement and you're saying, well, I'm in
property and casualty insurance, or I'm in termlife, you know, wanna kind of set you aside in
your own little corner.
And we didn't think that's right, you know,because ultimately insurance is 8% of the
global GDP.
(20:04):
In some countries like Japan and Germany, it'sactually more than that.
And ultimately when reinsurers make a decisionon something, it can affect the entire economy.
So if you think about Florida, right?
If reinsurers decided they don't wanna reinsurecitizens insurance, which is, you know, the
(20:25):
state's insurer of last resort, many homes, ifnot the majority of the market will not be able
to get insurance.
And a lot of people don't necessarilyunderstand the significance, but ultimately
insurance is what allows a lot of the piping ofthe economy to work.
So if you think about global shipping routes,the reason why, when there were problems in
(20:47):
Ukraine or problems in The Middle East with theHouthis, firing rockets that ships could not
sail is because insurers out of Lloyd's ofLondon were like, we're not going to insure
these ships in a war zone.
That's just a bad use of our capital.
In the same sense, you know, if you think aboutjust developing economies and in developing
(21:13):
economy, if you can't get home insurance orbusiness insurance, a lender probably doesn't
wanna lend because there's a much higher chanceof a total loss if there's something outside of
their control, that's not a default risk or thecost of lending will be substantially higher.
So in markets where insurance exists, itessentially buffers out a lot of the larger
(21:36):
unpredictable events and creates a way for freemovement of ideas, free trade, and ultimately,
you know, exchange of capital because thecapital providers don't have to worry about
things that are outside of their control.
They just worry about the credit risk or thebusiness risk.
(21:56):
Yeah.
And what are some ways that you can managerisk?
I guess what are some of the, you know,innovations that you're seeing right now?
What are you so what are you excited about?
You know, some of the things that I'm excitedabout is just more I mean, it's not as sexy.
Right?
But it's like just automation.
Right?
So just kind of the boring back office tasks ofmaybe claims management.
(22:17):
I feel like if you could two x the efficiencyof that, I feel like that's that's probably a
trillion dollars over time of just, you know,revenue that's back in the pockets of of a lot
of these carriers, but, you know, yeah, any anykinda Yeah.
Granular things that you're excited about?
So I'll just give you a bunch of randomsmattering because I think a lot of people
(22:39):
don't necessarily think about the scope ofInsurtech and everything it So there's a
startup we're looking at right now and they'rein the car rental insurance space.
So imagine you're a Toro company, you have afleet of 10 vehicles and you want to get off
Toro, which Toro has their own insurance, butnow you want to offer your renters like, you
(23:00):
know, the collision damage waiver or aliability insurance.
So they partner with them to offer it.
They also work with other independent carrental agencies.
And one of the biggest challenges that theyhave or any car rental insurance company has is
because of how the insurance works, it's reallygreat that if you could just like get in a
(23:22):
wreck and then purchase the insurance after thefact, opposed to making the decision beforehand
that you want to pay the $30 a day upfront.
So naturally, like if you did it the first waythat I said, that's fraud, and that's not what
they want to cover.
So they've been thinking about how can theyuse, you know, embedded technology.
(23:43):
So they're embedded in the car rental software.
So they know exactly when the coverage waspurchased, whether it was paid for and all of
the different details to ultimately eliminateor prevent fraud.
And you could imagine all the different typesof things that could happen with bad actors,
not just in car rental insurance, buttraditional car insurance.
(24:07):
And the more that you know about what'shappening and the drivers and use technology to
understand what the cars are actually doing,you can prevent that.
So I think that's definitely a clear use ofcombination of embedded within transaction type
of stuff, or employing telematics, or even justAI to understand what's happening beyond just
(24:28):
like the transactional data.
So that's kind of auto example.
Another example is, you know, use of machinevision.
So you think about what's happening in LA rightnow with the fires, what is gonna happen over
the next five years after people rebuild isinsurers are not going to just accept that your
home is safe.
(24:49):
They're going to expect that you plant treesand shrubs that are not flammable, you create
space around your house.
So it minimizes the debris that could come froma wildfire onto your building and that all the
structures are as safe as they can be.
If you have asphalt shingles, they're up todate, or maybe they're more fire resistant than
(25:14):
they used to be.
And most insurers do not know what the makeupof every property is and everything around the
buildings.
But simply you could just have a policyholderuse an app that has machine vision, it detects
all of the things and then makes a quickassessment.
So there's a startup that we're looking at thatdoes just that, and there's several of them.
(25:36):
So that's kind of on the home side.
On the life side, I think is one of the placesthat people don't really think about, but to me
is one of the most interesting things, which islife insurers are in the business of predicting
how long you live, which a lot of people wouldlike to know that for themselves, but life
insurance, at least at a population level aresome of the best organizations in the world of
(25:58):
figuring that out.
And the more data that they have, so think likequantified self movement, people that use
Fitbits or the Apple watches to keep track oftheir health, they should get prioritized if
they're doing things that lead to betterlongevity.
But people that are making terrible lifestylechoices should ultimately get penalized.
(26:24):
And life insurers are just starting to be ableto use that data in order to their overall
understanding of their current book of businessand then change the way that they price new
people that want to get insurance.
What about health care?
So health care insurance, I feel, is still, notas accessible, and there isn't like a lemonade
(26:49):
for health care.
Right?
I mean, now, if you wanna get propertyinsurance, can go to lemonade.
You pay, like, you know, 15 or I don't knowwhat the price is now, but it's probably under
a hundred dollars a month.
I mean, I would say almost probably 15 to $20 amonth.
I mean, last time I checked, but, is there apathway for maybe solo entrepreneurs to just
(27:09):
get full medical coverage or like even so a lotof a lot of entrepreneurs start businesses when
they're in their 40s.
Know, in New York, have the they have the NewYork network that you can kind of tap in and
you can kind of shop around the marketplace.
But was curious, I mean, because I'm not awareof one.
I'm trying to think what else there is.
(27:30):
There's life insurance.
I think there was a company called Fabric whereyou can just kind of buy life insurance
literally with an app.
And it's a low cost monthly premium that yougot to pay, but can you go a little deeper on
healthcare and maybe some of the challenges andwho's innovating in that space to kind of let
people just get that coverage?
Yeah, so in healthcare there's a few differentsegments of it.
(27:54):
Broadly speaking, there haven't been a lot ofentrepreneurs to talk and tackle, know,
solopreneur or an individual person, because,you know, the healthcare exchanges, whether
it's the New York one or the different states,have kind of filled in that role.
The government has basically said it, so thecommissions that you get are so low, it's like
(28:17):
5 to $10 per person.
Oh It's not quite economical yet.
So I think because of the mechanics of how youcan make money in that space, there's not a ton
of opportunity.
That being said, if you have a group of, youknow, maybe three people in your company, five
people or 10 people, there's definitely anumber of solutions.
(28:37):
So one space is called ICHRA, I C H R A, andbasically it's a tax or legal mechanism that
allows you to send your employees to theexchange, but the company pays for it.
So there's startups that like venture that areessentially handling the legal and accounting
(28:59):
components of that, so small businesses can doit.
There are also, you know, some new small groupplans, like Sana Benefits is one startup.
I think you can have a plan as small as likethree or five people.
And then there's companies that are kind ofdigital brokers that help you work with a
traditional health and get quoted, even if youhave a small group.
(29:20):
So there's a company in New York called MonarchHQ and another one in Texas called Perfect
Quote.
Both of them were in our accelerator and, youknow, they're trying to help in that small
group space.
But by and large, I think you're right.
There is no breakout success there.
I
mean, I think also, I mentioned, sometimes whathappens is my conversations from a previous
(29:44):
podcast carry on to the next one.
So in my past podcast, I talked about DanaWhite.
Right?
And Dana White, you know, who's the CEO of theUFC, he's gone on to say, look.
You know what?
I don't go to doctors for for anything usually,you know, unless it's something serious or I
messed up my back or I I got seriously injured.
(30:04):
I can go you know, I think he goes to somebodyand gets his blood work done and gets all the
information in terms of how his levels aredoing.
And then he gets he has somebody that kindaguides him through things he needs to do to
kind of adjust those levels.
But I think I think there's a company.
I forgot the name of it.
I saw them in my feed, but that's essentiallywhat they do.
So they you go out independently.
(30:26):
Go get go get your blood work done, and thenthere's a report.
I think if you can kind of get that digitizedin your own private database, obviously HIPAA
compliant through the company's infrastructure,that is half the battle for healthy people.
But I think there's also opportunities fordoctors to be fractional advisors, right?
(30:49):
Like, I mean, I found somebody for my son tocome into our home and do math tutoring.
I found him on, I forgot the website, butthere's one of those websites where you can
kinda search for contractors.
So I feel like there's gotta be a place whereyou can find a doctor.
Right now you can use ZocDoc to book anappointment with a doctor.
You gotta go to their clinic.
But I feel like there's there's off hours wherea doctor would probably be happy if you pay
(31:13):
them a billable rate to come in once every sixmonths.
Right?
You pay a doctor a couple hundred dollars.
I mean, how long does that consultation usuallytake?
Right?
When you see a doctor, it's ten, fifteenminutes.
Right?
So you pay a doctor a couple hundred bucks.
The the doctor pockets everything.
I'm not sure what the rules are around that.
But, like, there could be freelance work fordifferent types of doctors.
And then if you wanna do your blood work, youknow, you partner with, some type of company
(31:38):
where you go to Quest, you get your blood workdone, and then all that data goes to the
dashboard of the doctor.
You know, so I feel like that's kind of healthcare, but there's gotta be some type of way to
innovate on that.
Right?
Kind of get some type of, you know, subsidizedhealth care to be able to just get that because
that's essentially what you need.
Right?
If you're moderately healthy, or if you havesome type of condition, you know, you probably
(32:02):
need to see a specialist.
So, you know, I know there's a lot ofincumbents and and dinosaurs that are there to
kinda make sure that the hospital systems areprotected.
But I know I spoke a lot, so I wanna hear yourreaction to everything I said.
Yeah, no, so I think definitely it's a strongidea.
(32:24):
There's a couple startups that we've diligencethat kind of touch on that.
There was one in DC, I'm forgetting their nameat the moment where it's basically offered as a
group benefit And, you know, it's a little bitoutside of the medical space.
So they had, you know, behavioral health,nutritionists, you know, psychologists, those
types of things.
(32:45):
And, you know, you basically subscribe and getaccess to all of that.
And there's also companies that do kind ofconcierge medicine.
So it's like helping you find the right doctorfor what you need.
Is there somebody that's digitizing that?
Because I mean, I know like when you go to likethe Hamptons, right?
People have these concierge doctors or thosedoctors come to your house, especially when you
(33:05):
get older.
But, you know, is there, like, an app or sometype of startup that's kinda, like, on demand?
It's like, look.
I need to see a doctor.
Because normally, if you're you're moderatelyhealthy, you're only seeing a doctor every, you
know, ideally every six months, right?
I mean, it'd be really great if you can kind oftrack your levels and obviously look at a lot
of other data, which is like, hey, you knowwhat, this is my ethnicity.
(33:28):
And statistically, look, I'm from India, mostof the people in our culture have heart
disease.
Right?
So I feel like there's so much data out therethat can kinda be plugged in to kinda give you
some, recommendations or even some predictionsto be preventative versus just kinda getting
your blood work once a year and, hey, now Ihave this condition that I didn't know about,
(33:50):
which I could have known about earlier.
Yeah.
So on the mental health side, there'sdefinitely a few, you know, Spring Health is
like one of them.
On, you know, the traditional care side ofthings, you know, it hasn't been a place that
we focused a ton of effort because, you know,most of our energy has been to kind of all the
(34:11):
other lines of business than, you know,individual medical.
So I can't cite a company off the top of myhead.
That being said, there are some structuralchallenges to it, which is, a lot of doctors
that are part of a specific network, theyoftentimes have to sign pretty onerous
contracts.
Like a non compete?
(34:33):
Either something like that, or essentially thatallocates their time in a certain way or
allocates how they charge.
And if that platform charges a differentpricing than they're charging the health
insurer, then they run into challenges.
So basically the establishment health insurershave put it in a way that they're kind of
(34:56):
handcuffing some of the doctors and how theywork.
That being said, you know, it's definitelysomething that, you know, I can be on the
lookout and definitely let you know Joel, if wecome across that.
Yeah, no, I'm just curious.
I mean, I figured there would be someone that'sbuilding it, But tell me what else?
So what are some other sectors that you're kindof excited about?
(35:16):
Yeah, so I mean, some of the sectors that we'rereally excited about is some of these specialty
areas.
So like one big theme, you know, playing off ofthe whole medical space is this idea of, you
know, fertility cover, fertility benefits.
So, you know, if you're a lady in her 20s orearly 30s, and, you know, you're not sure when
(35:38):
you want to have kids, but you're sure that youwant to have kids.
There's companies like, there was one in ourMGA lab called Flora, and you basically pay a
monthly fee.
And then if you have trouble conceiving, thenthere's an amount of money, I think up to
50,000 in their current policy to help you getthrough some of the treatments or care that you
(35:58):
need to be successful in conceiving.
There's also a couple startups I talked to thatare doing things like, if you know you have to
get IVF, but IVF is one of those things whereit sometimes takes more than one shot.
You know, it's great if it works the firsttime, but you kind of only want to pay for it
the first time, where, you know, they'll coverthe risk of it not working the first time to
(36:19):
kind of cover the second or third try.
So they've kind of figured that outactuarially.
So I think fertility benefits, just given thefact that our overall global population is
getting close to the point where we're lessthan the replacement, and I think, you know,
data is showing by somewhere around 02/1950,global population will decrease, which could be
(36:43):
a good thing or could be a bad thing, but Ithink it brings to top of mind the importance
of fertility for people that do wanna havekids.
There's not a ton of solutions out there bytraditional incumbents.
Startups are one of the only ones to do that.
Other areas that we've seen that we're kind ofexcited about is there's kind of specialty
(37:05):
areas either in property space.
So for example, we had a company that was inour MGA lab called five by five.
They offer insurance for pilots that own theirown planes.
So typically, like if you trained in flightschool or you're in the Air Force, you might
have another career path, or you might be anaccountant, but if you are successful enough
(37:29):
and have your own plane, you usually have tohire a pilot because your insurance won't let
you fly it, even though you might've been greatat flying in the Air Force.
So essentially what 5x5 does is they installtelematics in your plane, and then they allow
you to get coverage, you know, based off ofyour actual performance as a pilot and the risk
(37:51):
management steps that you take when you fly.
So That's interesting.
Yeah.
That's an interesting concept.
So, I mean, I think you can think aboutinsurance for when you kinda change your
mindset of thinking, you know, in the theutility of insurance is essentially just having
peace of mind and managing your downside.
In exchange for that peace of mind, you'repaying some premium up front, you know, in in
(38:14):
the case that it might happen.
Right?
So two additional things.
I mean, was told this was shared with me bysomebody else, but, you know, there's look.
I've got two kids.
We pay for day care and and all that other goodstuff, but there's some people that might wanna
have kids and they you know, there's a lot ofcosts in day care and day care is rising.
(38:38):
So we do have a prepaid program for college.
We don't know what college is gonna cost, butwe're paying for college right now.
Right?
Like, you have a two year old, your child mightbe in college, what, like, sixteen, seventeen
years from now, but you can pay for collegenow.
You might be a brand new couple, and youalready know the rising cost of childcare.
So I wonder if there's some type of, like,prepaid program for daycare.
(39:02):
Right?
And I modeled it out.
I actually, like, went deep on this.
And, you know, if you do the math, I mean, inNew York, it's like what?
4,000 close to 4,000, maybe even 5,000 a monthin some places.
But if you kinda front loaded some of that at alow cost and you kinda did it early, maybe
three, four years early.
Right?
Well, maybe you just got married and you maythink you're gonna conceive at some point.
(39:25):
You know, that that was just kind of aninteresting, topic, but, you know, that you
don't know if someone is going to have a child,but it's the same thing as you don't actually
know if your child is gonna go to college.
You know, you could do the prepaid college andmaybe your child doesn't go.
And then, you know, you just right now, what Iwas thinking about is you talked about kind of
(39:46):
this person, you know, being a pilot and maybehaving another path.
You know?
I wonder if this would be kinda crazy to thinkabout, but, like, you know, they do have some
funds.
I know two, three funds that have gone throughmy fund accelerator that have invested in
people.
So they're essentially doing income, incomeshare agreements.
(40:07):
So it's like, look, I'm gonna write you know,kinda like you'd invest in a startup.
It's like, look, I'm gonna I'm gonna write youa check.
I'm gonna give you 200,000, and then whateveryou do, depending on what you do to earn income
in the next three, four years.
I'm betting on you, though.
I'm gonna I'm betting that you're gonna bemaking $800,000 a year as a data scientist
because you're already studying engineering, soI'm betting on your future.
(40:30):
Or or you're gonna launch a startup.
No matter what that check goes into, almostlike a pre seed check into a person, that
person, you know, no matter what they earn, youknow, you get a percentage back.
And, you know, hopefully, the math makes sense.
But I wonder if there's if it's crazy to thinkabout, like, you know, what if you have
insurance for your future career path, which islike, look.
(40:53):
You know what?
I'm gonna pay $200 a month just in case if Idon't get a job at the end of college because
of the rising cost of MBA programs.
I'm already dropping $200,000 a year.
That'd be cool if there was this insurance planwhere I can pay 203 hundred dollars a month
where, like, if I don't get a job, god forbid,it's almost kinda like unemployment.
I get, like, $3,000 a month.
(41:14):
Now these numbers, I'm just kinda making up,but I'm just thinking in, like, different
planes of, like, what you could essentiallyinsure.
So wanted to hear you know, we got five minutesleft.
Wanna hear your reactions to those two twoexamples and then just other crazy things that
you have seen or thought about to, have anInsureTech application to.
Yeah, so a lot to comment on, I'll kind of do aquick whirlwind.
(41:36):
So the idea of actually covering someone'sfuture income.
So there's a couple startups we ran across inthis space and very specific area.
So name, image and likeness is kind of thecoverage.
So you're a college athlete, maybe you have anoffer at the NBA.
What happens if you get injured in practice andyou lose out on that twenty year career?
(42:00):
There is coverage for that.
There's a couple startups that are doing it.
And I think that's like a specific derivativeof kind of the career cover.
In terms of the daycare stuff, it candefinitely relate.
Fortunately, where I live in New Jersey, weonly pay about 2,000 a month, but, you know, I
definitely feel bad for the people.
(42:21):
Yeah, I know in DC and New York that pay 4,000and- Oh yeah, agree.
Yeah, it could definitely work like some typeof long term care insurance that people could
buy.
So I think that product is possible.
Do I know anyone doing it?
Not right now, but certainly worth pursuing.
But I think all these general concepts inInsurTech of essentially creating new products
(42:46):
is the reason why we created our lab called theMGA lab.
So MGA stands for managing general agency.
And it's kind of like, you don't have as muchcapital as an insurance carrier, but you have
more responsibility than an insurance broker,which is to do underwriting.
And for that, your partner insurer or reinsurergives you a larger piece of the ultimate total
(43:11):
revenue or gross written premium.
So we've had 33 companies go through theprogram so far.
Some ended up launching, some didn't, butthat's like one of the most fun things that we
do.
And it's actually one of the best ways for usto find deal flow for our fund because we're
working with the companies for a year beforethey actually launch.
(43:33):
And then when they're kind of a seed stage,we've already gotten to know them for a while.
So some examples
So do they already have they're already seedstage, right?
So they already have the product and theyalready have some traction?
No.
So with the MGA lab, we'll work with companiesthat are pre seed or even idea stage.
Yeah.
Our fund only invests in seed stage, so oncethey get traction.
(43:54):
But just to run through some of the ideas orsome of the companies have gone through, there
was a tornado coverage product, there was onefor excess rainfall.
So let's say you had an apartment on the FirstFloor, it's not covered in your renter's
insurance, but you probably wanna have somecoverage if it gets flooded.
(44:16):
We had a company that was focused on swimmingpool safety.
So they use machine vision to ultimately,whether it's a gym, a hotel, a community pool,
to help alert the lifeguards if it looks likesomeone's going to drown, and then they give
them additional liability cover because ifsomeone drowns in the pool, especially if they
(44:36):
don't die, it's pretty expensive insuranceclaim.
You're talking like 3 or $4,000,000
Yeah.
So, you know, that's kind of a traditionalproduct, but a new application.
We had a company that did shipping delayinsurance.
So if you're shipping things like parts for anF1 race, vaccines or organs, if it gets there
(44:58):
late, it's just as bad as being damaged.
So they actually cover delay of thoseshipments.
We had a startup that was focused on providingsurety for equipment in Mexico because banks
don't want a loan against equipment in Mexico,unless there's some type of insurance behind
(45:20):
it, they provide that insurance layer.
So even though it's U.
S.
Companies, they're doing manufacturing inMexico.
So that's like, you know, basic fundamentaleconomic development with that type of
coverage.
Yeah.
Well, hey.
David really enjoyed the time and, you know,learned a lot, and I know we covered a lot of
topics.
So, hopefully, some of the founders arelistening and they build some some great
(45:44):
things.
Maybe some of the things we talked about, butmaybe just other new innovative things and
excited to to learn more about youraccelerator.
So when do you guys do you guys have a demoday?
Yeah.
So we have a demo day.
It's usually November depending on, what thatday falls in the month.
Sure.
Okay.
Well, excited.
You know, we'll we'll share your information,your website, and, thank you again for all that
(46:10):
you do with Founders and and, for sharing your,wisdom with the community.
Thanks for having me.
Yep.
Take care.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye, everybody.
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