Interview with David Carpenteir - CEO at Assurely

As CEO of Assurely, David Carpentier is building insurance products for changing industries,  technology and times and is bringing it to market in new ways.

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Guest - David Carpenteir
Host - Carl Grant
Producer - Seth Grant

Episode Transcript

Carl Grant (00:08):
Welcome to Rainmakers! I'm here with David
Carpentier CEO of Assurely thenext generation in insurance.
David, you've been in theinsurance business for a while.
And now you're innovating. Tellus a little bit about what
you're doing.

David Carpentier (00:23):
Hi Carl, good morning. So it's really what
we're doing is we're buildingand or adjusting insurance
products for changingindustries. And, you know,
technology, you know,traditionally has been a
catalyst for change, whetherit's insurance or other
industries. But in the wake ofwhat's happened in the last 15
to 18 months or so, there's nota single industry in the world

(00:44):
that isn't required to change,adapt and or innovate.

Carl Grant (00:48):
Yeah, COVID is kind of rocked the world. And so how
is that? So insurance? So justback up a little bit. Every
company that that grows to anysignificant level requires
directors and officers liabilityinsurance. And I know that all
too well, because I was afounding board member of a bank
that didn't do didn't do so wellin 2008. And and we were really

(01:12):
concerned about our DNO policyis how we abbreviate it. And so
those policies were boughthistorically on relationships. I
know somebody who knows somebodywho sells directors and officers
liability insurance, how has theworld changed?

David Carpentier (01:31):
we're diving right into insurance terms,
directors and officers. Promisea little stay away from some of
the technical insurance.

Carl Grant (01:40):
Not everybody who's listening understands even what
that is. So yeah, feel free tojust explain it,

David Carpentier (01:45):
nor numbers, nor should they need to. Um, but
yeah, so certainly itrelationships are important in
especially insurance. And whenchange occurs, when you know,
the word innovation starts toembed itself within an industry
like insurance. What does thatdo to the word relationship,

(02:06):
right. And so the broker agentintermediary role, there's value
propositions that are required,that end up manifesting itself
in the form of a relationship.
And that is people want to trustwho they're working with. They
want to feel, maybe not aninsurance, they don't
necessarily need to have awonderful buying experience, but

(02:28):
they need to know that theydidn't make a mistake when they
purchase it. They need to beinformed, but they don't really
want to deal with it. They don'tneed to be an expert, but they
want to feel informed. They wantto feel confident, they want to
build Express confidence totheir board, to their vendors,
to their customers, to theirregulators. These are the value

(02:50):
propositions that come out of arelationship when you're selling
insurance.

Carl Grant (02:59):
Now, by bringing the buying process more online, as
you have, how do you keep therelationship in the mix?

David Carpentier (03:10):
Well, I'm a 41 year old CEO. If a vendor comes
to me with a non non digital orif technology is not involved in
the transaction, it actuallyhinders my ability to have to

(03:31):
have that trust, there is athere's an expectation that my
life's gonna be easier that datais going to be a part of the
transaction going forward,anything I purchase, car,
apartment, insurance, you nameit. So what I really believe

(03:53):
technology augments that in Ibelieve industry should view
that as a supporting functionversus a disrupting function.

Carl Grant (04:03):
So So I'm thinking about my own buying habits. And
so I use a bank that'scompletely online. And then I
have entrusted them withvirtually all my money, and so I
can get that. But I'm thinkingabout, like, when we were when,
when our bank was going througha tough time and we weren't sure

(04:27):
if we were going to be able tosell it or declare bankruptcy or
what was going to happen whenwhen the market, you know,
cratered. We have the guy whoprovided the DNO policy on our
board of directors, so we alllooked at him. So when, when,
when, you know, when when theworld falls out from underneath
your feet and you're looking foryour DNO policy, and your you

(04:51):
know, you're looking at whoyou're going to call. How are
they to think about a surely inthat situation, who do they
call?

David Carpentier (04:58):
Exactly.
Human, you know, I mean, I canrattle off, you know, the rattle
off the qualifications of ourteam, which are impressive, from
Tice agloe, to pure Slattery toBrian moving house and to our
board, you know, all massive,massive insurance names. But
again, when we go back to insuretech, when we talk about

(05:19):
technology, the word that weneed to make sure we focus on is
augmentation, not necessarilydisruption, enablement. And
those pieces of the puzzle,again, when it goes back to the
value proposition of selling,whether it's the directors and
officers, insurance, policy,etc. You need to have trust, you
need to have confidence andcalling the phone and saying

(05:45):
hey, man, I need some help. I'm,I'm in a world of hurt, can you
sort us out? That is somethingthat is still done an analog
basis, and we don't believe thatnecessarily, it needs to be
replaced. But certainlytechnology can support the
success metrics of that phonecall.

Carl Grant (06:06):
And so if I'm a startup founder, and I raise, I
raise a round of venturecapital, and all of a sudden
they say, hey, you need a DNOpolicy. And so, you know, I've
heard about your company on thispodcast. How is the buying
process different from going onthe surely website versus

(06:27):
calling up? You know, the guydown the street? I know.
It's gonna be than less 10minutes.
Wow. So explain that.

David Carpentier (06:38):
The digital exhaust that we create by our
lives, the various riskmanagement items that a company
needs to go through. When theyraise capital, the data exists,
the ability to go get that datathat information intimately

(06:58):
understand a certain industrysector that'll exists.
Traditional underwriting,whether it be directors and
officers was typicallyleveraging finite data sets in
the form of the applicationutilizing underwriter judgment
when you start underunderstanding where those

(07:21):
variables are with anunderwriter, judgment, and start
saying, Okay, cool. So when youdo look at this, what questions
are you asking? What are thevariables, you start coding
those, it gets kind of powerful.
On top of that, there's otherrisk management pieces of the
puzzle from Who's your content,who's your research VC firm, you
know, this is not a, you know,the Cavalier nature that people

(07:44):
think the VC may have, orcrowdfunding or E other, any
other capital raisingexperience, people got to go
through various checks andbalances. Now, the ability to
leverage some of that in theform of information risk
management, is a crucial pieceof the puzzle for us.

Carl Grant (08:06):
So David, this this, this podcast is focused
primarily on businessdevelopment. And so, so much of
what we talked about on each ofthese episodes is developing
relationships and trustrelationships and referrals.
When you go to market digitally,like that, how is how is that
equation different? How do youbuild that same type of type of

(08:27):
trust, that that, you know,somebody's out in the
marketplace, face to face,shaking hands and so forth,
would do

David Carpentier (08:33):
not do anything different? Right?
There's nothing different. Andso we talk about how to build
trust is, one is just having anintimate understanding of an
industry sector of a company,people want to want you to know
that we know you, right. Sogoing into industry segments,

(08:54):
specific types of companies,specific types of of, of
sectors, specific types ofrisks, and saying, We're the
experts, or here's ourcredentials. You know, if you
fall within this, we're gonnaknock it out of the park. That's
a piece of the puzzle. Also.
This is something that's notgoing to specifically the more
upmarket, you go, people aregoing to kind of roll their eyes

(09:16):
at this. But if you look at Bainand recents, put some
information out. handful otherstudies. And this is more
relevant in the personal linesof insurance. But there's a lot
of studies that say over 80% ofinsurance, consumers prefer to
buy insurance from someone otherthan an agent. Now, when you're
talking about, you know, some ofthe folks that that you interact

(09:37):
with the insurance folks don'tnecessarily acknowledge
themselves as agents, they'rebrokers, consultants, what have
you, but surely largely focuseson creating partnerships with
non insurance native thirdparties to help them advance
their core business. What doesthat Again, we are very, very,

(09:59):
very active in the know what wasformerly known as crowdfunding,
but the Lord's movement ofpeople using the internet and
technology to raise capital. wedigitize that capital raising
process. So when you find waysof the various components and
the various stakeholders thatare involved in that process,

(10:22):
then you say, Hey, I can helpyou help your customers. And
that's a tangible valueproposition. That is not. Hey,
Carl, I know you got a bunch ofcompanies raising capital. Those
are people we want assumptionsto? How would you flip them to
me, buddy, and, you know, theidea here, that's not a

(10:44):
sustainable long term, tangiblevalue proposition. But when I
can go to what we refer to asthe adults in the room, if we
can identify the adults in theroom, they're supporting
capitalism, supporting onlinecapital formation, and say, Hey,
you bring me a value propositionin the form of risk management
data customers, I can bring youa value proposition in the form

(11:08):
of better form, better pricing,better process, etc. And there's
something tangible that nowbrings that that entity, that
third party partner, that in theform of Rainmaker, that referral
partner, tangible valueproposition that advances their
core business, because they'renot in the business of selling

(11:30):
insurance.

Carl Grant (11:33):
So, so much of the powerful. Yeah, so so much of
the interaction during the wholeCOVID era, we've had, you know,
is not not personal. So you andI are in the same town right
now. But we're, you know, we'renot in the same room. And so
we've gotten accustomed tomeeting people digitally and
having trust relationships builtdigitally. And, and the whole

(11:55):
kind of notion of an influencerout there has really
proliferated. Is that kind ofwhat you're seizing upon?

David Carpentier (12:04):
If we can take the word early, the stigma of
the word influencer to what itis today, which is, you know, a
clickbait driven. Instagram,social media.

Carl Grant (12:15):
Yeah, I'm not thinking about the Instagram
model. I'm thinking about, youknow, business influencers,
people who have credibility.

David Carpentier (12:21):
Yeah. And so that's it goes back to tangible
value propositions, right. Andso when you say, credibility,
what does that turn into? butcertainly the answer's yes. At
what level can we impact aninfluencer versus a core
business stakeholder? Right? Soif if an attorney, would you

(12:46):
view Cooley or any othersecurities attorney as an
influencer, or a key stakeholderof somebody who's raising
capital,

Carl Grant (12:56):
probably more of an influencer? You know, the
stakeholder would be the venturecapitalists.

David Carpentier (13:01):
Okay, then yes, the answer would be yes. To
the stakeholder or some sort ofthe influencer. I apologize.

Carl Grant (13:05):
Okay. All right. So, so that makes sense that we're
talking. I can't even rememberhow we can, I guess it was, it
was Tim Donahue who connectedus.

David Carpentier (13:14):
Yet another another one of the more highly
listened participants on this onthis week on this podcast.

Carl Grant (13:22):
Yeah. Yeah, he was.
He was a guest on this podcast,but I actually physically met
him. So you know, it's, it's a,it's kind of a hybrid model
here.

David Carpentier (13:31):
You know, I became friends here in town. As
you know, I'm new to Austin, wefounded the company. And you
know, I was in New York for 12and a half years. And early on
intimidates friendship. I kindof, you know, floaters named to
a couple people. And one personin the real estate world,
though. Yeah, he's a big hitter.
I gave him that legitimate blushout of his Irish.

Carl Grant (13:56):
So if somebody is listening to this, and they want
to, you know, they want to checkout your product, possibly by
how do they reach you?

David Carpentier (14:04):
Yeah, there's two ways. Um, there's the old
fashioned way of knocking on ourdoor that is surely calm and
getting to us. The primarily innausea, there's more value for
everybody involved, is accessingus through your attorneys
through if you're utilizing sometype of software, to raise
capital manage your cap table,coming through us asking your

(14:28):
colleague grants the world, hey,do you know what surely Can you
introduce me? They're going toget a lot of benefit coming that
direction versus coming to ourwebsite directly. That being
said, there's a lot of folksthat still come to us directly
and then we'll go access theCarl's of the world on their
behalf to ensure that you know,everybody's aligned.

Carl Grant (14:49):
And one last question, David, so if a young
person's listening to this andthey're thinking, I want to be
an innovator in an industry likeyou have been what recommend,
recommend Do you have for themto prepare themselves to do what
you've done?

David Carpentier (15:03):
Ask questions ask why. In the first time
somebody says, Well, that's justbecause the way it's always been
done. Write that down in justdata. Because if that's the
case, that means there is aninnovators dilemma sitting
within a stakeholder that's notadding value.

Carl Grant (15:24):
Great advice, David Carpentier, founder of Assurely
Thank you.

David Carpentier (15:29):
Thanks, Carl.
Thanks for having me. Thanks forjoining us on rainmakers.

Carl Grant (15:32):
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