June 4, 2025 • 43 mins
Summary:
In this episode of Insurance Unplugged, host Lisa Wardlaw speaks with Casey Kempton, President of Nationwide PNC Personal Lines, about the future of the insurance industry. They discuss the importance of revolutionizing personal lines through a focus on 'predict and prevent' strategies, enhancing consumer experience, and leveraging technology to create a seamless insurance journey.
Casey shares insights from her background in anthropology and her passion for transforming the insurance experience into one that provides genuine peace of mind for consumers. In this conversation, Casey Kempton and Lisa Wardlaw explore the evolving landscape of the insurance industry, emphasizing the importance of understanding consumer perspectives, user-centered design, and the integration of predictive technologies.
They discuss the need for insurance to transition from a necessity to a desired service, highlighting the role of curiosity and continuous improvement in driving innovation and enhancing customer experience.
Takeaways:
Casey Kempton is the President of Nationwide P&C Personal Lines.
The insurance industry needs to focus on 'predict and prevent' strategies.
Consumers often feel disappointed with their insurance experience which is why insurance should provide peace of mind, not just be a financial contract.
Technology can enhance the consumer experience in insurance.
Preventing claims is more beneficial than just processing them.
Consumers want fewer interruptions in their lives, not fewer claims.
A singular operating system for technology in insurance is needed.
Understanding customer experiences is crucial for innovation.
The insurance industry has a responsibility to make homes and roads safer. We can imagine what everyone is experiencing, but we must check in on that.
User-centered design is critical in building effective insurance solutions.
Understanding the job customers are trying to get done is essential.
Simplicity in design helps in user adoption and satisfaction.
Insurance must adapt to changing consumer needs and preferences.
Predictive technologies can enhance customer experience and retention.
The insurance industry must focus on value beyond just pricing.
Curiosity about technology can lead to innovative solutions.
The future of insurance lies in understanding consumer wants, not just needs.
Continuous improvement is necessary to keep pace with change.
Sound Bites:
"The insurance experience can be much more valued."
"We have a larger obligation to make homes safer."
"We need to prevent claims, not just process them."
"Technology must simplify the customer experience."
"The buyer is changing, we must adapt."
"We need to transform insurance from need to want."
"Curiosity goes such a long way."
"Stay curious, stay informed."
Keywords:
insurance, personal lines, predict and prevent, consumer experience, technology, Nationwide, Casey Kempton, insurance industry, risk management, innovation, insurance, user-centered design, consumer needs, predictive technologies, ROI, customer experience, technology adoption, insurance industry, economic models, change management
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Insurance. Unplugged in the hot seat where
the complex world of insurance is laid bare.
Hosted by Lisa Wardfall, this podcast promises an unfiltered
glimpse into the industry like never before.
Each episode invites you to listen in on the candid
conversations that usually happen behind closed boardroom
doors. From deep dives with industry
(00:22):
leaders and thought leaders to innovative discussions with
minds shaping the future of insurance, we bring the most
genuine talks. Directly to your ears.
Our guests take the hot seat alongside me.
To explore. The inner workings, challenges
and triumphs of the insurance world.
If you've ever wondered what goes on in the shadows of the
insurance industry, from the boardroom banter to the behind
(00:44):
the scenes strategies, this is your chance for a front row
seat. Prepare for unguarded,
enlightening and engaging discussions that cover every
angle of insurance presented in a way that's both insightful and
accessible. Welcome to the conversation.
Welcome to Insurance Unplugged in the hot Seat with Lisa
Wardbaugh. Welcome to today's episode of
(01:07):
Insurance Unplugged, proudly sponsored by Iris Insurtech,
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(01:28):
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Discover how Iris is pioneering smarter, more efficient
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Let's dive into how Gen. AI is transforming the landscape
of insurance distribution today on Insurance Unplugged.
(01:51):
Welcome to another episode of Insurance Unplugged.
I'm your host, Lisa Lordblatt. Cannot wait.
It's almost been a year in the making, Casey.
My, how, how time changes. Having Casey Kempton joining me
in the hot seat today. Casey, if you don't mind, before
we get into it, 'cause you and Idid get the benefit of having,
you know, a brief moment on stage last year, I guess about
(02:12):
June, if you wouldn't mind introducing yourself to the
guests. I know you're, I would say maybe
new. Ish to roll this year last.
Year you were like right new into your role at Nationwide.
Yeah, introduce yourself to our guests and then we'll get right
into all the topics where you get to unfold.
Awesome. Thank you so much for having me,
Lisa. I'm super excited about this and
it's been like the most anticipated podcast ever.
(02:33):
We finally made it work. So really happy to share a
message. So I'm Casey Kempton, I am the
president of Nationwide PNC Personal Lines.
I joined Nationwide in February of 2024.
So I've now stopped counting days and months and it's just
over a year. Super excited about the
opportunity we have at Nationwide and like the great
(02:55):
work I think that is in front ofus all in the industry and
personal lines and looking forward to chatting with you
about that. I've got a couple of stints and
personal lines as well as business insurance, mostly small
business insurance, spanning digital business models end to
end, spanning traditional independent agency sales and
engagement and really in the US and all over the world.
(03:17):
So super happy to be here. I'm so excited and I, I not only
love your background, but just your spark and how focused you
are on kind of the, the future of the industry.
I mean, I look to certain people, I mean, we're all, we're
all of this amazing community, but there's certain people that
I have my eye on in this sparking way.
And as soon as I met you, I was like, oh, she's going to do such
(03:38):
amazing and continue to do such amazing things for our industry.
So really excited to have this conversation today.
So Casey, let's get right into it and for all of our guests,
you know, kind of to bring you in on what Casey and I like get
to I'll say ID 8 on together when we're talking about these
things is really like how she plans within her role to
revolutionize person lines, you know, really with predict and
(04:00):
prevent. And I want to make a like a
footnote here because if I counted the amount of times I'm
on webinars or public cases and I hear people say from repair
and restorations, you predict and prevent.
And for those of you like Casey are doing all this audio, but
she's nodding her head yes, I kind of start to eye roll and
I'm like, here we go again, you know, like buzzword soup.
(04:22):
And so I'm going to kick off, I'm going to put Casey in the
hot seat a little bit. You know, Casey really goes
beyond this, like beyond we we're all trying to get there,
by the way. But I think Casey has a unique
lens to really how she wants to lead this transformation into,
I'll call it authentic predict and prevent.
And maybe, Casey, if you could give people a lens on like what
(04:44):
that nuance difference is and why it's so important in
particular in personal lines. Awesome.
OK, thanks for that setup And I could go on about this for a
long time. So Lisa you're going to you're
going to reel me in. OK, I'll weigh.
In we'll keep this going. I have a lot of passion on this,
(05:04):
and this passion for me started when I started at insurance.
So my very first role in insurance coming from a, you
know, early 2000s, very early 2000 tech startup off of a kind
of background in anthropology from an academic perspective, I
was studying that was coming into insurance, having little
experience with what the productis, how it works, but just, you
(05:27):
know, we're all aware of it justbecause it surrounds all of our
lives as consumers and getting into it and understanding how
the insurance company shows up for the customer with this
product that is effectively a contract that people can't read
or understand. And my first role as in
insurance was to build a solution that we called
(05:48):
Usherance. And it was all of the add-ons
and additions to that core indemnity product that customers
would value. And it was at a moment when
technology was sort of exploding, if you will, like
meaning like we started using the Internet to transact
business instead of floppy disks, right to do.
Actual rating, right So. From, you know, slide rule
(06:14):
rating to floppy disks to the Internet, right, big guy
Internet, we're all so excited about it.
And I think the group is called e-business Ventures, right?
So that was of the time, but I started trying to understand
like how does the customer feel about this product?
Where does it benefit them? How do they interact with it and
what sort of emotion and feelingdo they get about it.
(06:37):
And I noticed as I was trying toattach new ideas and new
offerings to it that at the coreconsumers are relatively
disappointed in the insurance experience and for a couple of
key reasons. One, there's no visibility in
rating. It's a black box and I don't
exactly understand what I'm paying for.
Number 2, I don't understand exactly how risk transfer works.
(07:01):
And therefore when I put money in, I should get something out,
right? What do I get out of it if I
don't have a claim? And then at the moment of claim,
do I have confidence that I'm going to be covered for what it
is that just happened? And is the insurance company
going to make me whole? And so those three kind of
(07:22):
dimensions, I say, well, you know, one, it's it's not a sexy
category. No ones thrilled about having
insurance, right? It just inherently already
doesn't have that about it. It's compulsory and we're
leaving sort of experience off the table in a way that it
actually can be a much more valued and critical part of how
(07:43):
people manage the totality of the stability and confidence
that they want just in their lives, right.
It is much less of a financial instrument than it is capable of
giving real Peace of Mind and people value Peace of Mind.
So a lot of the research that I've done through my career has
been in this space of what are these mental models about how
(08:06):
insurance exists for us and likewhat are the friction and pain
points in the transaction and the claims experience.
There's a lot of low hanging fruit, but I think the industry
has done a good job closing the gap on over the years.
But are we getting to the true heart of the opportunity that
exists for insurance to be valued in a way that goes beyond
(08:29):
the compulsory nature of it? And so that's the first kind of
starting point I've always had. So I feel that I've been on this
journey, both in personal lines and in small business, really
trying to unearth and unpack what is in the mindset and where
does that create opportunity forus to show up differently.
I look at that at a micro level.What can insurance companies do
(08:51):
better tomorrow? But also at a macro level and
say as insurance, we have almosta larger obligation and purpose.
Homes can be safer and roads canbe safer.
And so where does our knowledge of risk and exposure and all of
that data that we have make us better on the front end?
(09:16):
And a couple of lines of business have actually already
leaned into this. I think cyber is a great
example. And we can kind of decompose
that if that's of interest. But when you think of personal
lines, how capable can the customer be of truly
understanding their exposure beyond what you might get in an
inspection report if your home has had an inspection And with
(09:39):
the admin of technology in the last even five years, now real
time information is available and you can put it in the hands
of people who can be armed in a very simple way with
notifications that something could go wrong and you want to
get that looked at. And so that really is what
prevention is. But why make the consumers bear
(10:03):
the full burden of that prevention?
So attach service and expertise and people who can come to the
home and really guide you through that.
What I think is really differentabout this and the nuance for me
is insurance companies can have a goal to prevent claims.
It's good for customers, it's good for the, you know, the
(10:24):
insurance company allows us to have more products available,
etcetera. We'd layer that into our pricing
that inures to everybody's benefit.
I don't believe that consumers, homeowners and people driving
their car have a desire to have fewer claims or fewer losses.
They want to go through their lives without having any
(10:45):
negative experience that could reasonably be prevented.
And so that's where I think the opportunity is, is to think
about what can we truly prevent,take the data one step further
beyond the claims data into how we live our lives and where risk
exists. And then I would make it super
simple for them to understand that to the extent they need to
(11:08):
and prevent it in a way that it creates no hassle and no
friction and ultimately results in a better experience in their
life, not just with their insurance.
I wanted to go back to somethingthat you just said that I think
is such in my mind, like a catalytic moment.
And I'm I'm going to draw a couple of themes, Casey, from
(11:30):
what you said. First of all, I didn't know you
had a background in anthropologyand I went to liberal arts
school. So welcome to the I like, I
love. I've always found that people
that have a liberal arts background and I somehow ending
end up having these like non direct understood alignment of
signal. And so I'm going to just put
that out there to all my liberalarts people like keep going,
keep thinking. But, but Casey, the, the reason
(11:52):
why I think it's so important isthere's another thing that I
wanted to connect into what you said.
And I want to draw this back outto the output.
I'll say when I left my reinsurance role and I was
working in the life and health space.
So again, Casey, different than where you were in personal and
small business, although my parents both in their own
business. So I have a huge small business
obsession with making that better.
(12:13):
I was working in life and healthand I came away from this role
and I stopped using the word insurance.
I actually started analyzing thein the assurance and the E and I
started actually analyzing the root and the derivation of the
word and the actual meaning of the word and.
And. You were honestly the first
(12:34):
person that I other than me saying we need to call it
lifestyle assurance. You know, like and and for me,
lifestyle wasn't life insurance or life.
It was and I love the point thatyou just brought up on like
beaming It's. Assurance.
That we can continue with the day to dayness of our lives,
(12:54):
living in our homes, taking careof our, you know, if you have
children of your children going to where you need to go, getting
to where you need to get to handling all the things you need
to do in your life. Because I don't know about you,
Casey, but like I don't have time for any interruptions in my
day-to-day. Regardless of that what what
that is a a flat tire to something happening like it, it
doesn't matter to clearly a flood or a fire.
(13:16):
Like no, nobody has time. You don't have time for like a
beam to have water damage and have to replace it and call our
repairman. Like all these day-to-day isms,
we we need to live as uninterrupted as possible.
And so I love the framing that you bring to that because you're
right. And I, and I'm sure you think
about this from your your background too.
We don't think about it as humans.
(13:36):
Like step outside the fact that you and I are interns,
professionals. Yep.
We don't get through our day-to-day life thinking I want
to have fewer claims today. No.
We just think I don't want anything that takes me off of
the way I'm calibrated, my day, my life, my week, my month of
what I need to do because any interruption in that is
something that I didn't plan forand I need to have quickly
(14:01):
fixed. And so the more I can avoid
that, just like taking a different route to work to avoid
construction delays in the detour, the more I can avoid
anything like that in my personal small business,
etcetera. So, Casey, I'm going to put this
back over to you because I thinka lot of people think about, you
know, like 1000 technical solutions or all that, like,
(14:22):
like, you know, overwhelmingly amounts of data.
And we also can't overwhelm the customers and the consumers and
say here's 20 different apps youcan go into, you know, like
over, over indexing on these things.
I think, A, it can be costly, B,it can put people in a little
bit of a paralysis of like, whatdo I do and what do I choose?
(14:45):
So how do you think about getting the biggest impact in
the highest fidelity way? And I don't mean highest
fidelity in terms of the technology itself, highest
fidelity in terms of making the customer feel whole and actually
resulting in prediction and prevention.
Like, like, what's the art that goes into that?
(15:07):
Yeah. In a territory where there isn't
a kind of a closed system of sensors against which you can
attach insight and recommendation and centralized
monitoring and all of that, right, All the protection that
exists today or prevention, theyare all closed loop systems
today. It isn't all integrated.
(15:27):
And that really does create likea user experience challenge in
our view. The simpler you can make the
connection of the device, whatever you're sensing, how do
you just plug it in and then move forward?
And then the accuracy, consistency, frequency, all has
(15:49):
to be metered in the right direction, right?
Frequency is too much. You can't be bothering me.
Accuracy has to be spot on and informative and then actionable.
And I can't have to do a lot of work to action what that is.
So I think that user experience around each individual component
is also just as important as howthe system works together.
(16:10):
Now in in this moment in our world, there isn't 1 operating
system for our entire lives, right?
We have so many apps on our phone.
Each app does something different and while you see, you
know, operating systems evolving, what I would call but.
Yes, I agree. With you, you've got, you know,
your AI devices that you plug into the wall and they're
(16:32):
connected into some aspect of your life, right?
So if you've got Amazon, it's going to help you shop.
If you've got a Google One, I don't know, maybe to be due your
e-mail because it's on Gmail, right?
Like all of those, none of them go end to end anywhere.
So there is no singular operating system for how
technology sort of aids and abets our success in life.
Like it just doesn't exist yet. So how do you bring together
(16:54):
less on kind of the marketing side, but more on the moment of
delivery? Here's the box and these are the
pieces and this one plugs in there and that one plugs in here
and then deliver an experience that can kind of consolidate
that into a singular place. At Nationwide, we're working on
something that internally we sort of call all abode and it is
(17:16):
endeavoring to create what's more of a wrapper in this moment
and experience kind of wrapping.We can't solve all of it on day
one because the interoperability, these things
aren't componentized in a way that they can plug into each
other, right? There aren't sort of language
standards the way you see and not everything is enabled
headless and by API to just sortof plug and play.
(17:39):
So we need a little time to create that veneer that
generates that singularity and experience, right, that
consolidated experience. But like we know we need to do
it and that will be I think thatwill start to make the
difference in how successful we are at the sensors really
enabling this predict and prevent.
(17:59):
I'm truly, I mean, I always lovetalking to you, but this one,
this one is like delicious in the sense of it's so lovely to
hear you talk not only from the customer and the experience
lens, but to actually not because Casey, I talked to
executives about this so much onthis podcast.
(18:20):
And often I'll just say executives aren't always willing
to admit the complexity of the veneer.
And so it's almost like this didn't I don't want to say
dinner. It's almost like this, well,
like that's like a systems problem.
Everything can be solved. I'll just say it like that.
And what you're actually talkingabout is, and, and I'm going to
(18:40):
use this word that I, I've been kind of beating this drum for
five years and it's only going to get worse with a genetic AI.
By the way, what we are talking about solving for is flow and
dynamic. Like we're talking about real
time streaming flow concepts. Like when you when you heard
Casey talk, there's the interoperability and there's
flow and dynamicism that's inherent in what she's trying to
(19:02):
solve for. For the people that listen to me
from a technical lens, what is complicated is because of when
we built these things, even modern ish, it was built on the
backbone of stack of weight and respond.
And so high, high, high level. I often talk about even AP is at
(19:22):
a technical level, aren't reallylike we're all working beyond
that, by the way, like what's next?
You know, like agent to agent and I'm actually working beyond
those protocols, but at A at a level that Casey's talking
about. It's really fascinating because
that friction that people feel that they maybe can't put a name
to as much technology as we think we have, which we do.
(19:43):
We have an amazing amount of technology that we didn't have
before. It was designed with this kind
of wrapper and interoperability back to like the way technology
was 10 years ago. Right.
And so I think that's. Really fascinating, Casey, that
you're already like working on that veneer and I, how do people
like, how are you hoping people experience that?
Because you're probably one of the first people on my show that
(20:04):
I've been like, you're talking as a business executive, but
you're also like layering in that complexity underneath that
acknowledgement layer, which most, most people don't
necessarily call out. I love it.
I mean, the first step really it's, it's to me, it's just
simple ethnographic work. And a lot of companies and other
industries are really good at this, whether you think of it as
sort of secret shopping or you literally go to your customer's
(20:27):
home and you understand their world just to figure out how
they interact with aid, like do your taxes yourself application
or like whatever, you know, whatever, you know, small
businesses doing their own accounting or what have you.
So you have to be where your customers are and understand
their world. And I think as consumers, we can
imagine what everyone is experiencing, but there's a lot
(20:48):
of value and actually checking in on that and not bringing any
of our own personal bias to the solve.
And so it starts with research, right?
And I don't mean sending thousands of surveys out, right?
Observational insights are what help you see the dimensions of
the problem from someone else's perspective that you wouldn't
otherwise have. And when you're trying to build
(21:10):
a system that accommodates a whole bunch of point solutions
and kind of brings that together, your understanding in
that way of what I think of as asimple like Clayton Christensen,
like jobs to be done, What is the job I'm trying to get done?
And I think it's a relatively understudied space at this time.
Now there are great like kind ofcomparable type solutions that
(21:31):
exist out there. You definitely learn a lot from
the way this has been solved andother spaces.
But put that customer first. Know what's in their head, know
what they're trying again, how much hassle is too much hassle,
right? You might think you have a
fantastic tool that uses like voice over the Internet to make
a phone call for you, but then you don't give a phone number to
the person who literally only wants to make a phone call and
(21:54):
doesn't want to load your app. The tool looks amazing and wow,
it's so integrated, but there's a user out there who isn't going
there with you and is never downloading that app.
You still have to give him a phone number.
And and those are like some of the misses that sometimes we
don't connect with. So just take that like micro
kind of microcosm that I talked about for one job you're trying
(22:15):
to get done and now apply it to the system that you're trying to
build. So is it mobile?
Is it Internet? Is it an app?
Where does that app hang? Where do they get access to it?
How does it guide them through that?
You can envision a lot of that and imagine the best of that.
But then you have to bring that user in.
And that user centered design piece of it I think is what is
(22:36):
most critical. Define a set of principles for
what you think that sort of baseline needs to be, and as you
add more to it, don't lose sightof where you're bringing in kind
of unwanted complexity and intentionally solve for that on
the front end. Sounds so simple, really hard.
To do what is Steve Jobs right? The the, the art of creating a
(22:59):
beautiful product is the simplicity of simplifying
complexity. So inherently and everything
that you talked about is architecturally complicated.
It's business complicated, but the the the people that saw for
it are the ones that make you feel as a user, as the customer,
you feel congruency and when youfeel congruency, I feel that
(23:19):
change is naturally adopted. I actually, Casey, I'm not I'm
not saying change management in organizations, but I feel that
user adoption, I'll say it that way.
I kind of argue with people thatsay, well, users don't want to
do this or people don't want change or this other.
And I'm like, you know what, honestly, every piece of
technology that's ever been released, if it's easy and
(23:41):
intuitive to use, we see that humans adopt it predominantly
right. Like I use my Airpods as a great
example first in on that becauseguess what?
I opened the case and it worked.I got it.
I don't want to use headphones anymore because those work
right? Like I, I feel like to what
you're talking about and I, I want to come to the ROI on this
and I'll ask you another question because a lot of times
(24:05):
I would say people solving for problems, they might get
frustrated with insurance and they're like, I've got all these
solutions. I can't point solutions, but
like thousands of solutions and insurances may be hesitant to
adopt or maybe slow to adopt, like insert adjective.
But I often say what we're trying to do is solve for the
(24:25):
art of use and the ROI on that. Because at the end of the day,
Casey, we are in an economic business model like like
economic just drive what we do as a profession.
And I still am baffled that people don't understand that we
live and our economic models areso core.
Maybe it's 'cause I come from the CFO lens and like why you
(24:45):
don't understand how we make money.
OK. How do you think about, because
the user adoption on efforts that an insurance carrier will
take to prediction and prevention has to yield in the
ROI. Can you talk about how you kind
of combine that lens when you'rethinking about like I'll just
say policy holder adoption in actual use?
(25:08):
Right. And personal lines, people care
a lot about the price that they pay for their insurance.
And so there are opportunities as you think about how you
structure what they will be charged versus not charged.
There are trade-offs in retention benefits.
There are trade-offs and other types of solutions in the same
vein that they're interested in.So what we find is that when we
(25:29):
put what we call our smart home devices out there, there's more
of an orientation to also want telematics and vice versa.
And there's real benefits on retention when you have both of
those solutions as a customer versus when you have one or the
other. And so you build your ROI and
customer lifetime value as well as where you're able to actually
(25:52):
realize real loss benefit, whichultimately you're going to put
back into your pricing, which ultimately will make you more
competitive. And so now you have a more
compelling offer at a compellingprice.
People are staying longer at scale.
All of those economics start to inure in a way that has an ROI
that you would expect. It doesn't have an overnight.
(26:12):
This is how you just build it. You put it in and then two years
later you're like, I recaptured all of that, that I spent on
that at the rate that I would expect.
So it also requires A commitmentto a longer term approach.
That's, in my view, changing thesystem a bit of how the
economics can work, right? Insurance isn't a total like
(26:32):
word of mouth kind of solution and people aren't learning about
it on the Internet, et cetera. There's a lot of commercials out
there. The value proposition is about
switch and save and switch and save is, is right in the sweet
spot of the value that is ascribed to the insurance right
now. I always find a way to pay less
that is not unimportant. It will never not be.
(26:55):
It will always be important, right?
I'll say it that way, but but there is a desire for more and
so you have to make more customers.
I also look ahead right the the buyers is changing.
So if we build our models and solutions on the way, we always
thought about insurance and whatthe value of it was against a
buyer who eventually is going toage out.
(27:15):
You have to look at who your consumer is today.
Are they buying homes, are they not?
Are they buying cars? Are they not?
What is the impact of ride sharing?
What is the impact of other datafolks are really suspicious
about in their lives and does itconnect with insurance or does
it not? What do they value that they
want to protect? And if it's different than the
(27:35):
way like an ISO, you know, HO 3 is structured, then what does it
need to be? Where do we want to transfer
risk? Where does parametric come into
this, right? All of those changes and shift
have to be part of the transformative way that we think
about delivering value to customer.
So it's not just we added this to your insurance product,
(27:57):
figure out how to get them to buy it.
It's put all of it on the table,all the beads and perhaps make a
new bracelet that people absolutely want to wear.
And that's on all dimensions of it.
And so the return on that long term will be built into how you
advance on that road map. We've got to start experimenting
(28:17):
and pushing the limits on where the customer wants the insurance
company to show up. You know, I love the, I used to
say, I think I maybe two or three years ago, Casey, I
started saying we need to transform insurance from being a
business of what people need to the new 4 letter word is want,
want. And then I love the way you're
going with that. And and you actually just use
(28:38):
want in your description becauseI think it has to be something
so undeniable that they're not coming to it as a duress or like
a responsible person has to do this.
They're coming to it especially.So you start to think of age and
dynamics and shifting of all this.
Yes, a responsible person does these things, but as as a
steward of my assurance of how Iwant to not be interrupted.
(29:00):
These are things that I want like.
And I think I definitely think we'll see a much more voluminous
optionality to things like combination like like a little
bit of parametric with a little bit of indemnity.
And I think we'll see this almost in like how you kind of
self put together like your menuthat you're ordering, right?
(29:20):
Like, I do think we're going to see a.
Lot of, and I take that just onestep further.
There's the the what, but there's also the why.
And if you're a fan of the science cynic, like people buy
why you do what you do, right? So nationwide has a very, just
very solid mission that I believe in wholeheartedly,
right? And it is to protect people,
(29:42):
businesses and futures with extraordinary care.
There is so much leeway in that extraordinary care while also
functioning as a modern mutual right with all the financial
responsibility that that you would anticipate from an
insurance carrier. And so the power of that is that
we can connect to a greater Y and not just be a commodity
(30:06):
product. And like the world needs good
news and the more of it the better.
And so how we show up, I think matters in this moment and how
we continue to evolve as the world changes.
There is nothing about our worldthat is standing still right
now. And so we think a lot about
that. And where is it going and how do
we be there when that moment arrives?
(30:29):
And then it's all the way down to how do we be there and show
up the best way in every single moment that matters here and
tomorrow. It's, it's so, so refreshing and
so important. And one of the reasons I think
those of us who are era veterans, I call it eras, not
decades, era veterans. I think that's the reason why
we're all so committed to it andhave these frank and honest
(30:51):
discussions, which I deeply value.
How do you think if you, you know, if you in your role at
Nationwide and you drive towardsthis predict and prevent model?
And I know that other insurers are also working on predict and
permit models and I see there's,there's need for nuance.
We're finding a nuance and that how do you think this could have
broader implications? You know, clearly the why I
(31:13):
think gets reinforced, but what are the additional implications
do you think there will be and do you think others will
continue maybe to focus on some of that nuance?
Maybe we'll get out of this little, little bit because, you
know, I know, and I'm just goingto say this objectively because
I'll say something that probablywould be like unbiased.
I think people are trying to getout of the fragmented point
(31:36):
solutions. But I still it's I still think
it's a lot, right? It's a it's it's it's art.
It's a very artful thing to do. How do you think people can kind
of shift into this nuanced paradigm in an elevated and
elegant way? Because to your point, like we
need it to be societal, not justnecessarily one, right?
Like and I think we're all out for the overall industry lens on
(31:57):
this. Yeah, but that's a big question,
right. And it's hard for me to know
what folks are talking about, you know, anywhere outside of
the walls of of nationwide and where similar strategies or
opportunities are are being pursued.
I'll say it's, it's not in the market today in any meaningful
(32:18):
way. And as long as the basis on
which we win and position ourself is about discounting, we
don't have as much chance of bringing forward value that
there is demand for latent or overt it is it is there.
So the the industry as a whole has to wrestle with the power of
(32:39):
the discount and the necessity of the discount and the
switching that we are constantlysort of driving out.
That to me is a is a critical ingredient in the weather
challenge states that we have today and emerging evermore that
conversation with the regulator as well as the insurance company
and understanding the consumer and you know, coming around
(33:00):
scarcity and what is possible is, is it also an important
conversation? And while we might think of that
as sort of the base of Maslow's pyramid as sort of food and
water in those states, there is more opportunity to bring this
value around resiliency prediction prevention at this
(33:20):
moment then perhaps in some other places where those same
kind of exposures don't exist, right.
So it's about being smart about how all the levers that we have
as we work at Nationwide, we work with IBHS, we think about
resiliency, we think about building standards, but also
just creating transparency around the roofing material that
(33:43):
you have and how long is the reasonable lifespan on that
roof, right. So adding that value to me is
from the perspective of the holistic levers that we have in
insurance, how we work with local governments, how we work
with insurance regulators and and sort of solve the problem in
its totality. So if if we just did device and
(34:04):
integrated those devices into anexperience on the nodes that are
available to us today, we still wouldn't satisfy the problem as
holistically it needs to be in the context of how insurance
shows up and exists in today's world.
So that's like my boil the oceankind of comment, like we must
solve all of it everywhere on every dimension, which is, you
(34:27):
know, an extraordinary task. But we can as an industry start
to chip away at that. But from a holistic lens of all
the ways that it shows up. And I think that's a lot of the
difference for us. You know, we started with that
nationwide. Let's not just add the device,
let's work with partners who understand.
(34:48):
It's no more convenient to be aware of a problem.
I it's good to know that, but now I have to do something with
that. We got to call the plumber, I
got to call the electrician. I don't actually know how to
interpret this signal. So the back end service on
predict and prevent before therewould be a loss is just as
important. And so we lean in on that moment
(35:10):
to make sure that whatever that experience is, it creates a
great experience, but it also reorients our customers to what
the value of that solution couldbe.
And we get feedback on that dimension more than anything.
And it's not just about why I was convenient, you didn't
interrupt me. It was you saved me from
(35:31):
something that I didn't even know could happen, and you did
it in a way that could not have been done better.
And now we're keying in on something.
So these micro moments will chipaway at that all in the spirit
of knowing what the customer needs.
But there is a bigger macro problem.
So how other carriers are going to go at all of those threads
(35:52):
and try to string it together over time, I think that could
become the new basis of of competition in our industry and
and we'll see how that shakes out.
That's exactly in, in my opinionthat's going to be what
separates the pack. I think we are going to and
again, this is me saying this not as affiliated with any
carriers. I can say this, I do not see the
(36:14):
future being separated by price and commodity based.
I see it based on informed consumers because you know, you
know, generically most services are similar, most capital
sufficiency is similar, just generically.
Casey right. If, if price competition drives,
you're kind of in a similar boat.
So I think we've been talking a lot.
(36:36):
You know, I have been at least over the last two years as
experience as a service, being adriver.
To your point, you know, I love what you said.
I grew up as an auditor and thenCFO before I got into office and
innovations. So I kind of went the other way.
Casey So I laughed because I used to always say in
accounting, if you tell me there's a reconciling item as a
human, if you're telling me there's something wrong, if you
don't tell me the fix, it's almost worse that I know about
(36:58):
it, right? Or horribly, if I know about it
and then didn't take action. So imagine people that don't
trust and they're being told there's this thing and you're
not being told how to fix this thing.
Then you're like, oh gosh, Big Brother, they're just going to
use this as a reason to deny or like whatever, right?
You know, people have a huge mistrust.
So I love where you took that. And I'm just going to bring this
full circle as I start to wrap this up and then I'm going to
(37:19):
lead into my final question for you.
I fundamentally believe that ourindustry is very heavily with
math and science. Of course, we're an industry
built on actuarial frameworks, right, Law of large numbers.
I have always believed, and I started this pursuit of those
five years ago, that the liberalarts mind is incredibly
(37:40):
necessary in society as a whole and clearly in our industry.
I actually went to one of my friends that read a book.
His name is Scott Hartley. I call him out on my web, my
podcast a lot. He wrote a book case they called
The Fuzzies and the Techies, Whythe Liberal Arts Will Rule the
Digital World. And I encourage everyone to read
it because it's such a mindset. And Casey, I love the mindset
(38:01):
you're bringing to your role at Nationwide.
I love where you're thinking about it.
I see. And I'm, I'm going to give a
shout out. I'd see other people if I look
at LinkedIn profiles, which I doa lot, but look at people hiring
people with behavioural psychology backgrounds and
things like this, you know, sociology, anthropology,
behavioural sciences. And I find that I'm drawn to
(38:24):
those companies. Casey, I usually put a star when
I see someone being hired in a leadership role with that
background. And then I use it as a way to
kind of almost like mind map what's going on in those
companies. Like I kind of find that
interesting. So I'm just like giving that as
a shout out out there to our, our people who are like, you
know, what is all the source? So keep asking those questions,
keep saying curious, you know, even if somebody says to you,
(38:46):
well, that's not the way we do it, or that's that's, it's
always been done this way. I'm just telling people like
continue to challenge, continue to ask why, because I think we
don't get there if we get there by just saying it has to be done
the way it's always been done before.
So Casey, my call to you is, andin this amazing discussion, I,
I, I could talk to you forever. By the way, what was your call
(39:09):
to action for people listening to this episode Be, you know,
what would you ask for them to start doing, stop doing and
continue doing? Because we have a lot of things
that I think we can do beautifully as an industry and
as professionals, like kind of tackling these problems.
Yeah, I think for your listeners, curiosity goes such a
(39:31):
long way. And the more you know about
something, the more curious you can be about it.
And you can dive into the layers, being curious about
technology on its own and use cases, but really diving into
and for what and for why and howcould it be better?
So that curiosity around a broadview of the world and
(39:54):
understanding how it can be applied in ways it's it's never
done right. So just start being more curious
about the world as sort of #1. Embrace the possibility that
that technology can actually come on the front end.
It doesn't have to just be applied to sort of efficiency on
claims handling or how we're able to respond faster with
(40:16):
higher quality, but how it can prevent the risk.
I think from a stop standpoint, personalized is is mature, but
again, nothing in our world is standing still like there is
there. I can't think of one thing that
is the way that it was, you know, in the 80s and 90s when I
was growing up. Like everything is changing.
(40:38):
And even if you just look, if you've got, you know, young
people in your life from the daythey came into the world to what
their experience is today, different for them as well and
constantly evolving. So the moment we say to ourself,
you know, it's it's done, it's mature, it's just going to keep
churning the way that it always has and, you know, throwing off
the profits that it does and things are good.
(41:00):
No. And nothing is standing still.
And you know we like to reference Kodak and other
companies who fall behind in that way.
I'm not at all saying we should be having this existential
crisis that anything is going tocome in and disrupt our
industry. That is not going to happen
tomorrow. But we do run the risk of not
maximizing the value we can haveand ultimately the economics of
(41:21):
our business and in personal lines if we don't think that
that it could change. And that's the orientation that
I think about. Is there a better way?
Is there a different way? What don't I see around the next
corner? What could I imagine imagine it
would be and where's the business model attached to that?
Love that. Well, first of all, if people do
not follow you and all the work that Nationwide is doing, please
(41:43):
follow Casey and her team on Lington.
They, they, they are, so I'd sayvisible in the work that they're
doing. I'm a huge admirer.
And for all of our guests, you know, as a listener, whether
you're an insurer, whether you're a policyholder, whether
you're somebody trying to fix the discrete problem that you
think is being overlooked or unidentified, you know, really,
(42:05):
I would just say continue to double down on personal lines,
you know, continue to invest in predictive technologies, stop
settling for the status quo. We can always do better.
And it's worth it to do better. It's worth it to do more.
You know, we're all after reducing that protection gap
that, you know, keeps widening. It's good for society as a
(42:27):
whole. It's good for our policyholders.
And so stay curious, stay informed.
And thank you again so much, Casey, for being a distinguished
honored guest today. Thank you so much, Lisa.
This has been so much fun and can't wait to chat more about
liberal arts and its impact on insurance.
We. Had that in common.
Yeah. Thank you, Casey.
Thank you. Today's episode of Insurance
(42:50):
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(01:51):
Welcome to another episode of Insurance Unplugged.
I'm your host, Lisa Lordblatt. Cannot wait.
It's almost been a year in the making, Casey.
My, how, how time changes. Having Casey Kempton joining me
in the hot seat today. Casey, if you don't mind, before
we get into it, 'cause you and Idid get the benefit of having,
you know, a brief moment on stage last year, I guess about
(02:12):
June, if you wouldn't mind introducing yourself to the
guests. I know you're, I would say maybe
new. Ish to roll this year last.
Year you were like right new into your role at Nationwide.
Yeah, introduce yourself to our guests and then we'll get right
into all the topics where you get to unfold.
Awesome. Thank you so much for having me,
Lisa. I'm super excited about this and
it's been like the most anticipated podcast ever.
(02:33):
We finally made it work. So really happy to share a
message. So I'm Casey Kempton, I am the
president of Nationwide PNC Personal Lines.
I joined Nationwide in February of 2024.
So I've now stopped counting days and months and it's just
over a year. Super excited about the
opportunity we have at Nationwide and like the great
(02:55):
work I think that is in front ofus all in the industry and
personal lines and looking forward to chatting with you
about that. I've got a couple of stints and
personal lines as well as business insurance, mostly small
business insurance, spanning digital business models end to
end, spanning traditional independent agency sales and
engagement and really in the US and all over the world.
(03:17):
So super happy to be here. I'm so excited and I, I not only
love your background, but just your spark and how focused you
are on kind of the, the future of the industry.
I mean, I look to certain people, I mean, we're all, we're
all of this amazing community, but there's certain people that
I have my eye on in this sparking way.
And as soon as I met you, I was like, oh, she's going to do such
(03:38):
amazing and continue to do such amazing things for our industry.
So really excited to have this conversation today.
So Casey, let's get right into it and for all of our guests,
you know, kind of to bring you in on what Casey and I like get
to I'll say ID 8 on together when we're talking about these
things is really like how she plans within her role to
revolutionize person lines, you know, really with predict and
(04:00):
prevent. And I want to make a like a
footnote here because if I counted the amount of times I'm
on webinars or public cases and I hear people say from repair
and restorations, you predict and prevent.
And for those of you like Casey are doing all this audio, but
she's nodding her head yes, I kind of start to eye roll and
I'm like, here we go again, you know, like buzzword soup.
(04:22):
And so I'm going to kick off, I'm going to put Casey in the
hot seat a little bit. You know, Casey really goes
beyond this, like beyond we we're all trying to get there,
by the way. But I think Casey has a unique
lens to really how she wants to lead this transformation into,
I'll call it authentic predict and prevent.
And maybe, Casey, if you could give people a lens on like what
(04:44):
that nuance difference is and why it's so important in
particular in personal lines. Awesome.
OK, thanks for that setup And I could go on about this for a
long time. So Lisa you're going to you're
going to reel me in. OK, I'll weigh.
In we'll keep this going. I have a lot of passion on this,
(05:04):
and this passion for me started when I started at insurance.
So my very first role in insurance coming from a, you
know, early 2000s, very early 2000 tech startup off of a kind
of background in anthropology from an academic perspective, I
was studying that was coming into insurance, having little
experience with what the productis, how it works, but just, you
(05:27):
know, we're all aware of it justbecause it surrounds all of our
lives as consumers and getting into it and understanding how
the insurance company shows up for the customer with this
product that is effectively a contract that people can't read
or understand. And my first role as in
insurance was to build a solution that we called
(05:48):
Usherance. And it was all of the add-ons
and additions to that core indemnity product that customers
would value. And it was at a moment when
technology was sort of exploding, if you will, like
meaning like we started using the Internet to transact
business instead of floppy disks, right to do.
Actual rating, right So. From, you know, slide rule
(06:14):
rating to floppy disks to the Internet, right, big guy
Internet, we're all so excited about it.
And I think the group is called e-business Ventures, right?
So that was of the time, but I started trying to understand
like how does the customer feel about this product?
Where does it benefit them? How do they interact with it and
what sort of emotion and feelingdo they get about it.
(06:37):
And I noticed as I was trying toattach new ideas and new
offerings to it that at the coreconsumers are relatively
disappointed in the insurance experience and for a couple of
key reasons. One, there's no visibility in
rating. It's a black box and I don't
exactly understand what I'm paying for.
Number 2, I don't understand exactly how risk transfer works.
(07:01):
And therefore when I put money in, I should get something out,
right? What do I get out of it if I
don't have a claim? And then at the moment of claim,
do I have confidence that I'm going to be covered for what it
is that just happened? And is the insurance company
going to make me whole? And so those three kind of
(07:22):
dimensions, I say, well, you know, one, it's it's not a sexy
category. No ones thrilled about having
insurance, right? It just inherently already
doesn't have that about it. It's compulsory and we're
leaving sort of experience off the table in a way that it
actually can be a much more valued and critical part of how
(07:43):
people manage the totality of the stability and confidence
that they want just in their lives, right.
It is much less of a financial instrument than it is capable of
giving real Peace of Mind and people value Peace of Mind.
So a lot of the research that I've done through my career has
been in this space of what are these mental models about how
(08:06):
insurance exists for us and likewhat are the friction and pain
points in the transaction and the claims experience.
There's a lot of low hanging fruit, but I think the industry
has done a good job closing the gap on over the years.
But are we getting to the true heart of the opportunity that
exists for insurance to be valued in a way that goes beyond
(08:29):
the compulsory nature of it? And so that's the first kind of
starting point I've always had. So I feel that I've been on this
journey, both in personal lines and in small business, really
trying to unearth and unpack what is in the mindset and where
does that create opportunity forus to show up differently.
I look at that at a micro level.What can insurance companies do
(08:51):
better tomorrow? But also at a macro level and
say as insurance, we have almosta larger obligation and purpose.
Homes can be safer and roads canbe safer.
And so where does our knowledge of risk and exposure and all of
that data that we have make us better on the front end?
(09:16):
And a couple of lines of business have actually already
leaned into this. I think cyber is a great
example. And we can kind of decompose
that if that's of interest. But when you think of personal
lines, how capable can the customer be of truly
understanding their exposure beyond what you might get in an
inspection report if your home has had an inspection And with
(09:39):
the admin of technology in the last even five years, now real
time information is available and you can put it in the hands
of people who can be armed in a very simple way with
notifications that something could go wrong and you want to
get that looked at. And so that really is what
prevention is. But why make the consumers bear
(10:03):
the full burden of that prevention?
So attach service and expertise and people who can come to the
home and really guide you through that.
What I think is really differentabout this and the nuance for me
is insurance companies can have a goal to prevent claims.
It's good for customers, it's good for the, you know, the
(10:24):
insurance company allows us to have more products available,
etcetera. We'd layer that into our pricing
that inures to everybody's benefit.
I don't believe that consumers, homeowners and people driving
their car have a desire to have fewer claims or fewer losses.
They want to go through their lives without having any
(10:45):
negative experience that could reasonably be prevented.
And so that's where I think the opportunity is, is to think
about what can we truly prevent,take the data one step further
beyond the claims data into how we live our lives and where risk
exists. And then I would make it super
simple for them to understand that to the extent they need to
(11:08):
and prevent it in a way that it creates no hassle and no
friction and ultimately results in a better experience in their
life, not just with their insurance.
I wanted to go back to somethingthat you just said that I think
is such in my mind, like a catalytic moment.
And I'm I'm going to draw a couple of themes, Casey, from
(11:30):
what you said. First of all, I didn't know you
had a background in anthropologyand I went to liberal arts
school. So welcome to the I like, I
love. I've always found that people
that have a liberal arts background and I somehow ending
end up having these like non direct understood alignment of
signal. And so I'm going to just put
that out there to all my liberalarts people like keep going,
keep thinking. But, but Casey, the, the reason
(11:52):
why I think it's so important isthere's another thing that I
wanted to connect into what you said.
And I want to draw this back outto the output.
I'll say when I left my reinsurance role and I was
working in the life and health space.
So again, Casey, different than where you were in personal and
small business, although my parents both in their own
business. So I have a huge small business
obsession with making that better.
(12:13):
I was working in life and healthand I came away from this role
and I stopped using the word insurance.
I actually started analyzing thein the assurance and the E and I
started actually analyzing the root and the derivation of the
word and the actual meaning of the word and.
And. You were honestly the first
(12:34):
person that I other than me saying we need to call it
lifestyle assurance. You know, like and and for me,
lifestyle wasn't life insurance or life.
It was and I love the point thatyou just brought up on like
beaming It's. Assurance.
That we can continue with the day to dayness of our lives,
(12:54):
living in our homes, taking careof our, you know, if you have
children of your children going to where you need to go, getting
to where you need to get to handling all the things you need
to do in your life. Because I don't know about you,
Casey, but like I don't have time for any interruptions in my
day-to-day. Regardless of that what what
that is a a flat tire to something happening like it, it
doesn't matter to clearly a flood or a fire.
(13:16):
Like no, nobody has time. You don't have time for like a
beam to have water damage and have to replace it and call our
repairman. Like all these day-to-day isms,
we we need to live as uninterrupted as possible.
And so I love the framing that you bring to that because you're
right. And I, and I'm sure you think
about this from your your background too.
We don't think about it as humans.
(13:36):
Like step outside the fact that you and I are interns,
professionals. Yep.
We don't get through our day-to-day life thinking I want
to have fewer claims today. No.
We just think I don't want anything that takes me off of
the way I'm calibrated, my day, my life, my week, my month of
what I need to do because any interruption in that is
something that I didn't plan forand I need to have quickly
(14:01):
fixed. And so the more I can avoid
that, just like taking a different route to work to avoid
construction delays in the detour, the more I can avoid
anything like that in my personal small business,
etcetera. So, Casey, I'm going to put this
back over to you because I thinka lot of people think about, you
know, like 1000 technical solutions or all that, like,
(14:22):
like, you know, overwhelmingly amounts of data.
And we also can't overwhelm the customers and the consumers and
say here's 20 different apps youcan go into, you know, like
over, over indexing on these things.
I think, A, it can be costly, B,it can put people in a little
bit of a paralysis of like, whatdo I do and what do I choose?
(14:45):
So how do you think about getting the biggest impact in
the highest fidelity way? And I don't mean highest
fidelity in terms of the technology itself, highest
fidelity in terms of making the customer feel whole and actually
resulting in prediction and prevention.
Like, like, what's the art that goes into that?
(15:07):
Yeah. In a territory where there isn't
a kind of a closed system of sensors against which you can
attach insight and recommendation and centralized
monitoring and all of that, right, All the protection that
exists today or prevention, theyare all closed loop systems
today. It isn't all integrated.
(15:27):
And that really does create likea user experience challenge in
our view. The simpler you can make the
connection of the device, whatever you're sensing, how do
you just plug it in and then move forward?
And then the accuracy, consistency, frequency, all has
(15:49):
to be metered in the right direction, right?
Frequency is too much. You can't be bothering me.
Accuracy has to be spot on and informative and then actionable.
And I can't have to do a lot of work to action what that is.
So I think that user experience around each individual component
is also just as important as howthe system works together.
(16:10):
Now in in this moment in our world, there isn't 1 operating
system for our entire lives, right?
We have so many apps on our phone.
Each app does something different and while you see, you
know, operating systems evolving, what I would call but.
Yes, I agree. With you, you've got, you know,
your AI devices that you plug into the wall and they're
(16:32):
connected into some aspect of your life, right?
So if you've got Amazon, it's going to help you shop.
If you've got a Google One, I don't know, maybe to be due your
e-mail because it's on Gmail, right?
Like all of those, none of them go end to end anywhere.
So there is no singular operating system for how
technology sort of aids and abets our success in life.
Like it just doesn't exist yet. So how do you bring together
(16:54):
less on kind of the marketing side, but more on the moment of
delivery? Here's the box and these are the
pieces and this one plugs in there and that one plugs in here
and then deliver an experience that can kind of consolidate
that into a singular place. At Nationwide, we're working on
something that internally we sort of call all abode and it is
(17:16):
endeavoring to create what's more of a wrapper in this moment
and experience kind of wrapping.We can't solve all of it on day
one because the interoperability, these things
aren't componentized in a way that they can plug into each
other, right? There aren't sort of language
standards the way you see and not everything is enabled
headless and by API to just sortof plug and play.
(17:39):
So we need a little time to create that veneer that
generates that singularity and experience, right, that
consolidated experience. But like we know we need to do
it and that will be I think thatwill start to make the
difference in how successful we are at the sensors really
enabling this predict and prevent.
(17:59):
I'm truly, I mean, I always lovetalking to you, but this one,
this one is like delicious in the sense of it's so lovely to
hear you talk not only from the customer and the experience
lens, but to actually not because Casey, I talked to
executives about this so much onthis podcast.
(18:20):
And often I'll just say executives aren't always willing
to admit the complexity of the veneer.
And so it's almost like this didn't I don't want to say
dinner. It's almost like this, well,
like that's like a systems problem.
Everything can be solved. I'll just say it like that.
And what you're actually talkingabout is, and, and I'm going to
(18:40):
use this word that I, I've been kind of beating this drum for
five years and it's only going to get worse with a genetic AI.
By the way, what we are talking about solving for is flow and
dynamic. Like we're talking about real
time streaming flow concepts. Like when you when you heard
Casey talk, there's the interoperability and there's
flow and dynamicism that's inherent in what she's trying to
(19:02):
solve for. For the people that listen to me
from a technical lens, what is complicated is because of when
we built these things, even modern ish, it was built on the
backbone of stack of weight and respond.
And so high, high, high level. I often talk about even AP is at
(19:22):
a technical level, aren't reallylike we're all working beyond
that, by the way, like what's next?
You know, like agent to agent and I'm actually working beyond
those protocols, but at A at a level that Casey's talking
about. It's really fascinating because
that friction that people feel that they maybe can't put a name
to as much technology as we think we have, which we do.
(19:43):
We have an amazing amount of technology that we didn't have
before. It was designed with this kind
of wrapper and interoperability back to like the way technology
was 10 years ago. Right.
And so I think that's. Really fascinating, Casey, that
you're already like working on that veneer and I, how do people
like, how are you hoping people experience that?
Because you're probably one of the first people on my show that
(20:04):
I've been like, you're talking as a business executive, but
you're also like layering in that complexity underneath that
acknowledgement layer, which most, most people don't
necessarily call out. I love it.
I mean, the first step really it's, it's to me, it's just
simple ethnographic work. And a lot of companies and other
industries are really good at this, whether you think of it as
sort of secret shopping or you literally go to your customer's
(20:27):
home and you understand their world just to figure out how
they interact with aid, like do your taxes yourself application
or like whatever, you know, whatever, you know, small
businesses doing their own accounting or what have you.
So you have to be where your customers are and understand
their world. And I think as consumers, we can
imagine what everyone is experiencing, but there's a lot
(20:48):
of value and actually checking in on that and not bringing any
of our own personal bias to the solve.
And so it starts with research, right?
And I don't mean sending thousands of surveys out, right?
Observational insights are what help you see the dimensions of
the problem from someone else's perspective that you wouldn't
otherwise have. And when you're trying to build
(21:10):
a system that accommodates a whole bunch of point solutions
and kind of brings that together, your understanding in
that way of what I think of as asimple like Clayton Christensen,
like jobs to be done, What is the job I'm trying to get done?
And I think it's a relatively understudied space at this time.
Now there are great like kind ofcomparable type solutions that
(21:31):
exist out there. You definitely learn a lot from
the way this has been solved andother spaces.
But put that customer first. Know what's in their head, know
what they're trying again, how much hassle is too much hassle,
right? You might think you have a
fantastic tool that uses like voice over the Internet to make
a phone call for you, but then you don't give a phone number to
the person who literally only wants to make a phone call and
(21:54):
doesn't want to load your app. The tool looks amazing and wow,
it's so integrated, but there's a user out there who isn't going
there with you and is never downloading that app.
You still have to give him a phone number.
And and those are like some of the misses that sometimes we
don't connect with. So just take that like micro
kind of microcosm that I talked about for one job you're trying
(22:15):
to get done and now apply it to the system that you're trying to
build. So is it mobile?
Is it Internet? Is it an app?
Where does that app hang? Where do they get access to it?
How does it guide them through that?
You can envision a lot of that and imagine the best of that.
But then you have to bring that user in.
And that user centered design piece of it I think is what is
(22:36):
most critical. Define a set of principles for
what you think that sort of baseline needs to be, and as you
add more to it, don't lose sightof where you're bringing in kind
of unwanted complexity and intentionally solve for that on
the front end. Sounds so simple, really hard.
To do what is Steve Jobs right? The the, the art of creating a
(22:59):
beautiful product is the simplicity of simplifying
complexity. So inherently and everything
that you talked about is architecturally complicated.
It's business complicated, but the the the people that saw for
it are the ones that make you feel as a user, as the customer,
you feel congruency and when youfeel congruency, I feel that
(23:19):
change is naturally adopted. I actually, Casey, I'm not I'm
not saying change management in organizations, but I feel that
user adoption, I'll say it that way.
I kind of argue with people thatsay, well, users don't want to
do this or people don't want change or this other.
And I'm like, you know what, honestly, every piece of
technology that's ever been released, if it's easy and
(23:41):
intuitive to use, we see that humans adopt it predominantly
right. Like I use my Airpods as a great
example first in on that becauseguess what?
I opened the case and it worked.I got it.
I don't want to use headphones anymore because those work
right? Like I, I feel like to what
you're talking about and I, I want to come to the ROI on this
and I'll ask you another question because a lot of times
(24:05):
I would say people solving for problems, they might get
frustrated with insurance and they're like, I've got all these
solutions. I can't point solutions, but
like thousands of solutions and insurances may be hesitant to
adopt or maybe slow to adopt, like insert adjective.
But I often say what we're trying to do is solve for the
(24:25):
art of use and the ROI on that. Because at the end of the day,
Casey, we are in an economic business model like like
economic just drive what we do as a profession.
And I still am baffled that people don't understand that we
live and our economic models areso core.
Maybe it's 'cause I come from the CFO lens and like why you
(24:45):
don't understand how we make money.
OK. How do you think about, because
the user adoption on efforts that an insurance carrier will
take to prediction and prevention has to yield in the
ROI. Can you talk about how you kind
of combine that lens when you'rethinking about like I'll just
say policy holder adoption in actual use?
(25:08):
Right. And personal lines, people care
a lot about the price that they pay for their insurance.
And so there are opportunities as you think about how you
structure what they will be charged versus not charged.
There are trade-offs in retention benefits.
There are trade-offs and other types of solutions in the same
vein that they're interested in.So what we find is that when we
(25:29):
put what we call our smart home devices out there, there's more
of an orientation to also want telematics and vice versa.
And there's real benefits on retention when you have both of
those solutions as a customer versus when you have one or the
other. And so you build your ROI and
customer lifetime value as well as where you're able to actually
(25:52):
realize real loss benefit, whichultimately you're going to put
back into your pricing, which ultimately will make you more
competitive. And so now you have a more
compelling offer at a compellingprice.
People are staying longer at scale.
All of those economics start to inure in a way that has an ROI
that you would expect. It doesn't have an overnight.
(26:12):
This is how you just build it. You put it in and then two years
later you're like, I recaptured all of that, that I spent on
that at the rate that I would expect.
So it also requires A commitmentto a longer term approach.
That's, in my view, changing thesystem a bit of how the
economics can work, right? Insurance isn't a total like
(26:32):
word of mouth kind of solution and people aren't learning about
it on the Internet, et cetera. There's a lot of commercials out
there. The value proposition is about
switch and save and switch and save is, is right in the sweet
spot of the value that is ascribed to the insurance right
now. I always find a way to pay less
that is not unimportant. It will never not be.
(26:55):
It will always be important, right?
I'll say it that way, but but there is a desire for more and
so you have to make more customers.
I also look ahead right the the buyers is changing.
So if we build our models and solutions on the way, we always
thought about insurance and whatthe value of it was against a
buyer who eventually is going toage out.
(27:15):
You have to look at who your consumer is today.
Are they buying homes, are they not?
Are they buying cars? Are they not?
What is the impact of ride sharing?
What is the impact of other datafolks are really suspicious
about in their lives and does itconnect with insurance or does
it not? What do they value that they
want to protect? And if it's different than the
(27:35):
way like an ISO, you know, HO 3 is structured, then what does it
need to be? Where do we want to transfer
risk? Where does parametric come into
this, right? All of those changes and shift
have to be part of the transformative way that we think
about delivering value to customer.
So it's not just we added this to your insurance product,
(27:57):
figure out how to get them to buy it.
It's put all of it on the table,all the beads and perhaps make a
new bracelet that people absolutely want to wear.
And that's on all dimensions of it.
And so the return on that long term will be built into how you
advance on that road map. We've got to start experimenting
(28:17):
and pushing the limits on where the customer wants the insurance
company to show up. You know, I love the, I used to
say, I think I maybe two or three years ago, Casey, I
started saying we need to transform insurance from being a
business of what people need to the new 4 letter word is want,
want. And then I love the way you're
going with that. And and you actually just use
(28:38):
want in your description becauseI think it has to be something
so undeniable that they're not coming to it as a duress or like
a responsible person has to do this.
They're coming to it especially.So you start to think of age and
dynamics and shifting of all this.
Yes, a responsible person does these things, but as as a
steward of my assurance of how Iwant to not be interrupted.
(29:00):
These are things that I want like.
And I think I definitely think we'll see a much more voluminous
optionality to things like combination like like a little
bit of parametric with a little bit of indemnity.
And I think we'll see this almost in like how you kind of
self put together like your menuthat you're ordering, right?
(29:20):
Like, I do think we're going to see a.
Lot of, and I take that just onestep further.
There's the the what, but there's also the why.
And if you're a fan of the science cynic, like people buy
why you do what you do, right? So nationwide has a very, just
very solid mission that I believe in wholeheartedly,
right? And it is to protect people,
(29:42):
businesses and futures with extraordinary care.
There is so much leeway in that extraordinary care while also
functioning as a modern mutual right with all the financial
responsibility that that you would anticipate from an
insurance carrier. And so the power of that is that
we can connect to a greater Y and not just be a commodity
(30:06):
product. And like the world needs good
news and the more of it the better.
And so how we show up, I think matters in this moment and how
we continue to evolve as the world changes.
There is nothing about our worldthat is standing still right
now. And so we think a lot about
that. And where is it going and how do
we be there when that moment arrives?
(30:29):
And then it's all the way down to how do we be there and show
up the best way in every single moment that matters here and
tomorrow. It's, it's so, so refreshing and
so important. And one of the reasons I think
those of us who are era veterans, I call it eras, not
decades, era veterans. I think that's the reason why
we're all so committed to it andhave these frank and honest
(30:51):
discussions, which I deeply value.
How do you think if you, you know, if you in your role at
Nationwide and you drive towardsthis predict and prevent model?
And I know that other insurers are also working on predict and
permit models and I see there's,there's need for nuance.
We're finding a nuance and that how do you think this could have
broader implications? You know, clearly the why I
(31:13):
think gets reinforced, but what are the additional implications
do you think there will be and do you think others will
continue maybe to focus on some of that nuance?
Maybe we'll get out of this little, little bit because, you
know, I know, and I'm just goingto say this objectively because
I'll say something that probablywould be like unbiased.
I think people are trying to getout of the fragmented point
(31:36):
solutions. But I still it's I still think
it's a lot, right? It's a it's it's it's art.
It's a very artful thing to do. How do you think people can kind
of shift into this nuanced paradigm in an elevated and
elegant way? Because to your point, like we
need it to be societal, not justnecessarily one, right?
Like and I think we're all out for the overall industry lens on
(31:57):
this. Yeah, but that's a big question,
right. And it's hard for me to know
what folks are talking about, you know, anywhere outside of
the walls of of nationwide and where similar strategies or
opportunities are are being pursued.
I'll say it's, it's not in the market today in any meaningful
(32:18):
way. And as long as the basis on
which we win and position ourself is about discounting, we
don't have as much chance of bringing forward value that
there is demand for latent or overt it is it is there.
So the the industry as a whole has to wrestle with the power of
(32:39):
the discount and the necessity of the discount and the
switching that we are constantlysort of driving out.
That to me is a is a critical ingredient in the weather
challenge states that we have today and emerging evermore that
conversation with the regulator as well as the insurance company
and understanding the consumer and you know, coming around
(33:00):
scarcity and what is possible is, is it also an important
conversation? And while we might think of that
as sort of the base of Maslow's pyramid as sort of food and
water in those states, there is more opportunity to bring this
value around resiliency prediction prevention at this
(33:20):
moment then perhaps in some other places where those same
kind of exposures don't exist, right.
So it's about being smart about how all the levers that we have
as we work at Nationwide, we work with IBHS, we think about
resiliency, we think about building standards, but also
just creating transparency around the roofing material that
(33:43):
you have and how long is the reasonable lifespan on that
roof, right. So adding that value to me is
from the perspective of the holistic levers that we have in
insurance, how we work with local governments, how we work
with insurance regulators and and sort of solve the problem in
its totality. So if if we just did device and
(34:04):
integrated those devices into anexperience on the nodes that are
available to us today, we still wouldn't satisfy the problem as
holistically it needs to be in the context of how insurance
shows up and exists in today's world.
So that's like my boil the oceankind of comment, like we must
solve all of it everywhere on every dimension, which is, you
(34:27):
know, an extraordinary task. But we can as an industry start
to chip away at that. But from a holistic lens of all
the ways that it shows up. And I think that's a lot of the
difference for us. You know, we started with that
nationwide. Let's not just add the device,
let's work with partners who understand.
(34:48):
It's no more convenient to be aware of a problem.
I it's good to know that, but now I have to do something with
that. We got to call the plumber, I
got to call the electrician. I don't actually know how to
interpret this signal. So the back end service on
predict and prevent before therewould be a loss is just as
important. And so we lean in on that moment
(35:10):
to make sure that whatever that experience is, it creates a
great experience, but it also reorients our customers to what
the value of that solution couldbe.
And we get feedback on that dimension more than anything.
And it's not just about why I was convenient, you didn't
interrupt me. It was you saved me from
(35:31):
something that I didn't even know could happen, and you did
it in a way that could not have been done better.
And now we're keying in on something.
So these micro moments will chipaway at that all in the spirit
of knowing what the customer needs.
But there is a bigger macro problem.
So how other carriers are going to go at all of those threads
(35:52):
and try to string it together over time, I think that could
become the new basis of of competition in our industry and
and we'll see how that shakes out.
That's exactly in, in my opinionthat's going to be what
separates the pack. I think we are going to and
again, this is me saying this not as affiliated with any
carriers. I can say this, I do not see the
(36:14):
future being separated by price and commodity based.
I see it based on informed consumers because you know, you
know, generically most services are similar, most capital
sufficiency is similar, just generically.
Casey right. If, if price competition drives,
you're kind of in a similar boat.
So I think we've been talking a lot.
(36:36):
You know, I have been at least over the last two years as
experience as a service, being adriver.
To your point, you know, I love what you said.
I grew up as an auditor and thenCFO before I got into office and
innovations. So I kind of went the other way.
Casey So I laughed because I used to always say in
accounting, if you tell me there's a reconciling item as a
human, if you're telling me there's something wrong, if you
don't tell me the fix, it's almost worse that I know about
(36:58):
it, right? Or horribly, if I know about it
and then didn't take action. So imagine people that don't
trust and they're being told there's this thing and you're
not being told how to fix this thing.
Then you're like, oh gosh, Big Brother, they're just going to
use this as a reason to deny or like whatever, right?
You know, people have a huge mistrust.
So I love where you took that. And I'm just going to bring this
full circle as I start to wrap this up and then I'm going to
(37:19):
lead into my final question for you.
I fundamentally believe that ourindustry is very heavily with
math and science. Of course, we're an industry
built on actuarial frameworks, right, Law of large numbers.
I have always believed, and I started this pursuit of those
five years ago, that the liberalarts mind is incredibly
(37:40):
necessary in society as a whole and clearly in our industry.
I actually went to one of my friends that read a book.
His name is Scott Hartley. I call him out on my web, my
podcast a lot. He wrote a book case they called
The Fuzzies and the Techies, Whythe Liberal Arts Will Rule the
Digital World. And I encourage everyone to read
it because it's such a mindset. And Casey, I love the mindset
(38:01):
you're bringing to your role at Nationwide.
I love where you're thinking about it.
I see. And I'm, I'm going to give a
shout out. I'd see other people if I look
at LinkedIn profiles, which I doa lot, but look at people hiring
people with behavioural psychology backgrounds and
things like this, you know, sociology, anthropology,
behavioural sciences. And I find that I'm drawn to
(38:24):
those companies. Casey, I usually put a star when
I see someone being hired in a leadership role with that
background. And then I use it as a way to
kind of almost like mind map what's going on in those
companies. Like I kind of find that
interesting. So I'm just like giving that as
a shout out out there to our, our people who are like, you
know, what is all the source? So keep asking those questions,
keep saying curious, you know, even if somebody says to you,
(38:46):
well, that's not the way we do it, or that's that's, it's
always been done this way. I'm just telling people like
continue to challenge, continue to ask why, because I think we
don't get there if we get there by just saying it has to be done
the way it's always been done before.
So Casey, my call to you is, andin this amazing discussion, I,
I, I could talk to you forever. By the way, what was your call
(39:09):
to action for people listening to this episode Be, you know,
what would you ask for them to start doing, stop doing and
continue doing? Because we have a lot of things
that I think we can do beautifully as an industry and
as professionals, like kind of tackling these problems.
Yeah, I think for your listeners, curiosity goes such a
(39:31):
long way. And the more you know about
something, the more curious you can be about it.
And you can dive into the layers, being curious about
technology on its own and use cases, but really diving into
and for what and for why and howcould it be better?
So that curiosity around a broadview of the world and
(39:54):
understanding how it can be applied in ways it's it's never
done right. So just start being more curious
about the world as sort of #1. Embrace the possibility that
that technology can actually come on the front end.
It doesn't have to just be applied to sort of efficiency on
claims handling or how we're able to respond faster with
(40:16):
higher quality, but how it can prevent the risk.
I think from a stop standpoint, personalized is is mature, but
again, nothing in our world is standing still like there is
there. I can't think of one thing that
is the way that it was, you know, in the 80s and 90s when I
was growing up. Like everything is changing.
(40:38):
And even if you just look, if you've got, you know, young
people in your life from the daythey came into the world to what
their experience is today, different for them as well and
constantly evolving. So the moment we say to ourself,
you know, it's it's done, it's mature, it's just going to keep
churning the way that it always has and, you know, throwing off
the profits that it does and things are good.
(41:00):
No. And nothing is standing still.
And you know we like to reference Kodak and other
companies who fall behind in that way.
I'm not at all saying we should be having this existential
crisis that anything is going tocome in and disrupt our
industry. That is not going to happen
tomorrow. But we do run the risk of not
maximizing the value we can haveand ultimately the economics of
(41:21):
our business and in personal lines if we don't think that
that it could change. And that's the orientation that
I think about. Is there a better way?
Is there a different way? What don't I see around the next
corner? What could I imagine imagine it
would be and where's the business model attached to that?
Love that. Well, first of all, if people do
not follow you and all the work that Nationwide is doing, please
(41:43):
follow Casey and her team on Lington.
They, they, they are, so I'd sayvisible in the work that they're
doing. I'm a huge admirer.
And for all of our guests, you know, as a listener, whether
you're an insurer, whether you're a policyholder, whether
you're somebody trying to fix the discrete problem that you
think is being overlooked or unidentified, you know, really,
(42:05):
I would just say continue to double down on personal lines,
you know, continue to invest in predictive technologies, stop
settling for the status quo. We can always do better.
And it's worth it to do better. It's worth it to do more.
You know, we're all after reducing that protection gap
that, you know, keeps widening. It's good for society as a
(42:27):
whole. It's good for our policyholders.
And so stay curious, stay informed.
And thank you again so much, Casey, for being a distinguished
honored guest today. Thank you so much, Lisa.
This has been so much fun and can't wait to chat more about
liberal arts and its impact on insurance.
We. Had that in common.
Yeah. Thank you, Casey.
Thank you. Today's episode of Insurance
(42:50):
Unplugged, the AI and distribution series, is proudly
sponsored by Iris and Suretech, your gateway to the future of
insurance distribution. Iris harnesses the power of
generative AI to transform data processing and decision making
across the distribution landscape.
The Iris platform integrates AI driven decision engines, dynamic
(43:12):
form generation and configurableworkflows, all underpinned by
continuous data quality management.
Discover how Iris is powering smarter operations and more
efficient distribution with cutting edge AI setting a new
standard of excellence across the entire industry.
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