Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
In this episode, Rosie Denée, Head of Innovation and Commercial Education at Lloyd’s, explains why the Lloyd’s Lab works, how it turns innovation into long term market impact, and how collaboration, regulation and AI are shaping the future of the Lloyd’s market.
Creators and Guests
What is Insurance Technology: Fact or Fiction??
Host Georgie Simister speaks with key insurance industry figures to separate fact from fiction in a world of insurance, debunk industry myths and explore the game-changing innovations shaping its future.
Get in touch to suggest our next guest: https://artificial.io/contact/
Do accelerators need accelerating? Is it true that accelerators aren't evolving or are unable to keep up with the pace of acceleration required in today's landscape? Welcome to Fact or Fiction with Artificial hosted by me, Georgie Simister. This is the podcast that separates fact from fiction in the world of insurance, debunks industry myths, and explores game changing innovations shaping its future. Today, I'm joined by the queen of insurance innovation, Rosie.
Georgie:Rosie is head of innovation and commercial education at Lloyd's, is a dynamic force in the insurance market with over a decade of experience as a broker specializing in risk management. Since joining Lloyd's in August 2020, Rosie has been at the forefront of driving strategic initiatives and advanced innovation and accelerates transformation within the industry. As a visionary leader, Rosie has propelled the Lloyd's Lab to international acclaim, positioning it as the pioneering insurtech accelerator. Under her guidance, the program has successfully launched numerous cohorts, fostering groundbreaking insurance products and catalyzing change within the Lloyd's market. Her expertise in innovation, coupled with her responsibilities education and development, solidifies her reputation as a trailblazer in the insurance market.
Georgie:With her passion for accelerating innovation and nurturing talent, Rosie is reshaping the landscape of insurance, propelling Lloyd's into the new era of dynamic growth and opportunity. In today's episode, we will get under the hood of the Lloyd's Lab and really explore what makes it so successful. Welcome.
Rosie:Thank you very much.
Georgie:I'm very excited to have you here. I actually heard you say on another podcast that you have the coolest job in insurance, and I would just like to say I completely agree. I actually think you do have the coolest job in insurance.
Rosie:Thank you. I mean, I didn't even think this job was possible. I came from the market, and I spent ten years broking. And wish I someone had told me about it earlier, quite frankly.
Georgie:Well, no, you're doing a fantastic job. So let's look at the Lloyd's Lab then. So the Lab has an incredible ninety seven percent success rate, with 85% of cohort companies still working within the Lloyd's market. What challenges does the Lloyd's Lab help overcome to drive innovation? And kind of we're diving into the myth here.
Georgie:Do you think that that keeps up with the pace of innovation in today's landscape?
Rosie:Well, I mean, there's quite a lot to unpick there, but I will try my best. So I think you mentioned the stat 97% success rate. And so by that, I think just to unpick that for what we actually mean. So 97% of the 150 companies who've gone through the ten week accelerator still exist as companies today. And I think the reason why we're so successful and the reason why we have such a high success rate is because we don't just accelerate the companies.
Rosie:We actually put the innovators in the market with their actual end customer. So they're doing the do with their end customer. So it's not just about kind of teaching theory. Think a lot of accelerators are, and they are very good about kind of giving people the tools and the toolkits to go and deliver beyond the classroom. But what we're trying to do and the way that we deliver success is actually putting the market alongside the innovators so they can co develop the products.
Rosie:So in that sense, we are really thinking about how to make sure that the market and the innovators are working in a really collaborative way so they do keep pace with each other. And I think that is a really important part of why we are so successful. And so beyond the Accelerator programme, which is ten weeks, we then see 85% of the companies go on and have commercial relationships with the Lloyds market. And that's all because of co creation and co collaboration. And so beyond just doing what we see as the basics and putting the innovators in with the market to make sure that they're validating their solutions and they're actually kind of thinking about the commercial aspects for all the insurers.
Rosie:We really unpick from a Lloyd's standpoint how we can support their innovation journey. And there's a number of things that we've done. And I think we're so close to it. And we it's really magical how Lloyd's has set up Lloyd's lab to be the face of innovation. So it doesn't actually conflict with any of the oversight, the regulatory aspect.
Rosie:But we can also go and have sensible conversations to make sure that the oversight and the regulation isn't stifling innovation. So you've got experts in both really leading, cutting edge ways of doing things, the oversight of market and the innovation and driving the market forward. So in this, we've actually created an ICX risk code, which is $2,500,000,000 of capacity purely for innovation. And that's because we worked with the oversight, the regulatory. We really understood that there was something, as Lloyd's, as a regulator, we could do to support the continued innovation in the market and empowering our underwriters to actually take risks.
Rosie:So that is a great example of showing how we want to enable that pace and keeping up with the pace. And through other lenses, we're looking at the longevity of the companies in the market. Sort of the insurtechs, you come through our program. And the reality is we look at success so differently from any other accelerator. Our version of a success is the health of the company who's come through accelerator.
Rosie:So the scale ups, the startups, and their onward trajectory. We're not looking for return on investment, a quick sale. And so through this, we have a dedicated alumni program, which is looking at how do we set up proof of concepts in different regional offices, how do we connect him with regulators and governments around the world, which we have done, to actually help support the kind of onward growth. And so we look at it through a global lens and work out how, as Lloyds, we can turn up and support the success. So I think it's where we have really succeeded is we're embedding the innovators in with the market.
Rosie:Yeah. And it it's then a team sport.
Georgie:Mhmm. But you're attracting kind of new insurtechs or new innovation to the market whilst also solving the problem, so that you're doing both at the same time.
Rosie:A 100%.
Georgie:I'm really excited to unpick all of this with you. We often hear great ideas in the insurtech space that never quite land. From your perspective, what separates valuable and viable innovation from just an interesting idea?
Rosie:So I think to really look at this, just because you've got a great technology doesn't mean that there's a natural home for it in the insurance market. And I think where sometimes people get kind of caught up with great technology is just thinking that it can do everything. But actually, you need to take a step back and really understand the insurance value chain, the kind of economics of insurance, to then understand where it's viable, where it's solving a problem. And insurers don't really care about the bells and whistles. And that's reality.
Rosie:They they want to know what problem you're solving for and how it's gonna impact their day to day and the economics behind it. And is it even kind of worth the investment? It's more than just investment in money, it's the investment in time. It's kind of working through if it's gonna even work with your own internal systems. There's so much to it.
Rosie:And I think if you look at the lens from maybe a creator or an innovator and or then the potential end user being an incumbent insurer, they're just looking at it from totally different pathways.
Georgie:Like I know all too well.
Rosie:I think that is such a big part of it. And you've got to really know both worlds to actually do very well in this. And I think in this, we see different types of products come through the Lloyd's Lab Accelerator, those to go on who will become MGAs and sell insurance, and those who are kind of providing operational efficiencies to try and drive process efficiency in the market. And they're two very different routes to market. There's two different product pathways.
Rosie:So there is that kind of layered complexity as well. Once you've got this great technology, how do you actually then access the market? How do you penetrate? And it's complicated. So I think where tech works really well in our market is when you've got a deep understanding of insurance.
Rosie:And that can either come through something like the lab program where we really immerse you in with the market, we embed you in the market, Or it comes from people who've done insurance day in, day out, and they've really understood the issue, and then they go and partner with someone who's expert in the technology side of things, and they make a really fantastic marriage, and then they go and solve the problems.
Georgie:What's the split right now that's coming into the lab between new product development, so innovative new insurance products, versus new innovative services to the market?
Rosie:It's really heavily skewed towards services. And I think the market really are crying out for more innovative products, so MGAs. I guess they're harder to come by because there is so much more at risk. Building a new insurance solution really takes a lot of, I guess, sort of insurance knowledge. You really have to build from the ground up.
Rosie:You really have to kind of take your investors on a journey. You're not going to probably realise profits for a number of years. If you're lucky, it might be within a five year period. But it's a long kind of journey. So it's harder to do.
Rosie:And where we've really succeeded in that is we've bought in data providers who've then built an insurance product on top of what they have. And so they're quite often, they're established businesses. They've already revenue generating. They don't have to take their investors on such a kind of sort of long journey. They've proven the kind of track record, and quite often, they're gonna be selling to their kind of client base that they've already got.
Rosie:So that's where it really succeeds. And then the service providers, I think, definitely is the vast majority. It's kind of, I guess, more traditional tech route. Quite often, try and find or you will find people trying to pivot into insurance they might have established in other markets. But yeah, think where it gets interesting is that bit in the middle for insurance, like either new forms of data or risk mitigation, which is very kind of nuanced to insurance.
Rosie:So you're neither a kind of process efficiency or pure kind of insurance product. It's that piece in the middle where it is really exciting because you quite often get some incredibly intelligent people who have spent many years at university like, refining their craft, refining their knowledge, and then trying to solve problems in ways that we just don't see.
Georgie:Yeah. Insurance is not short of new start ups, and you must come across them all the time with your cohorts. What makes the Lloyds Lab selection process so rigorous, and why is that really important?
Rosie:So I think at the front and center, we are, I guess, a product of what we're seeing in the market and what the market is telling us. So we're going out with problem statements that we know the market wants solving. So our North Star is always looking to the market to understand where they want either support in, bringing technology, where they want to look into new emerging risks. And so forefront of, I guess, where our searches are very much centered around our market's appetite. And then if you dig into it a little deeper and if we go into the process, so for each application, we tend to receive around two fifty kind of applicants who are interested in the program.
Rosie:The reality is we lean on the market for all stages apart from the initial stage of scoring. So we've got a huge amount of experience expertise within our market. We have 700 active mentors alone. So in that, we are really working with the brightest minds in our market to really work out who will ultimately come onto our program. And so once we've done you know, we have two stages with the market before it even gets onto our pitch day.
Rosie:Our pitch days are really lively. They're really high energy. The companies we give them a really hard task, and they have to pitch their company and their product in five minutes.
Georgie:And
Rosie:And then they have five minutes for questions.
Georgie:You are very strict on
Rosie:your timing. And I am an absolute stickler for that clock. I don't think I'd probably make myself any friends through it, but I do realize that they're long days. So we tend to have between twenty and twenty four companies pitching to the market. And I think at our at our top, we had over a thousand people sign up for our you know, they're big days.
Georgie:Yeah. And you
Rosie:can join online or in person. And ultimately, so everyone can and does score. So we ask them to score on product and program, the audience members who are watching. We really take our read on the market score, but we will then look at overall scores as well. And they normally trend in the same way.
Rosie:And so again, it's the market who are feeding in to get into the program. So they're validating who they want to work with. And so it is very rigorous, but it's rigorous by design because if we don't have the market on board, we don't have a program. They are our secret sauce.
Georgie:Well, one of the challenges that we all face is adoption. Just because there's great technology doesn't mean that it automatically finds a home in insurance. What do you think is missing from that equation?
Rosie:So I think and it it kind of comes back to what I was saying earlier about technology. Just because you've got a great technology doesn't mean that Yeah. You know, you're gonna fit into insurance. And technology often I think technology providers go in with the view that they've got this gizmo, which can probably fly you to the moon and back again if you're lucky, and all of the other bells and whistles, which it often can do. But what they're not looking at is the relationship, right?
Rosie:The insurer is naturally or insurance companies and individuals who work in insurance are risk averse. They aren't going to want to take a punt on someone who can promise the world if they don't think the relationship's going to be there in three years' time. They want to build relationships which are going to be long lasting and actually stand the test of time. And so I think this is the biggest part, right? You can't go in on a sales pitch.
Rosie:You've got to go in on a co collaboration kind of build mentality. And it's hard to do, right? You know, the cold calling is really soul destroying. It's not a forum that really works. And this is why the lab kind of environment really shines, because we're really trying to put the technology providers with the insurers so they can take their time to build the relationship, to really understand the push and pull, and but to really kind of understand what problems are worth solving.
Rosie:Quite often, the bells and whistles are solving problems that people don't even know that they have.
Georgie:Exactly.
Rosie:And so it is misleading. And so it's about kind of really bringing the kind of relationship to the forefront. But then sadly, everyone's got different pressures. As a smaller company who perhaps are very early in their journey, they're not revenue generating, they've got a runway that they've got to work with. And our procurement cycles in insurance can often fail a company before it's even started.
Rosie:So there are definitely competing priorities, and that's hard to come around. But this is where you need to be, I guess, if you want to work in insurance, you've got to be doing it for the long term. You've got to actually get investors on board who know what they're doing. They understand insurance. They're not gonna push you too soon.
Rosie:And it's got to be, I guess, a relationship in every aspect on on your kind of journey into working with insurance. So I guess a quick slam dunk is an unrealistic expectation.
Georgie:Mhmm. But one of the things that we come up against a lot right now is legacy systems. Yes. So although we can do quite a lot with our technology, it's they've used these systems for so long, and that's completely understandable. So we're trying to like we see the relationship management from our side, bringing it's people along on this journey about what the tech can do.
Georgie:And like, I appreciate legacy systems are there. You have used them for so long. But it's like, how can we replace that with something that is going to help you be more efficient in your day to day so you can automatically and kind of instantly see the value add rather than taking people away and asking them to spend so much time on new projects, and then you don't deliver value to them straight away.
Rosie:And I think you raise a really good point because sometimes you have to look at it and work with the legacy system, right? Yeah. And and this is where the understanding on insurance and how insurance operates is so integral to success. And coming in blind, you're not gonna know that. You're gonna be talking a totally different language.
Rosie:Yeah. And I think quite often insurance sees innovation as risky, expensive, a lot of uncertainty. And this is where the relationship really and the co creation kind of gets around that. But I think for us as a lab, we're more than aware of this. And so we really see our responsibility centred in de risking innovation for the market, trying to lower the barrier to entry, trying to lower the risk, really giving them the freedom to experiment in a safe space as in our market and the companies who want to work with the market.
Rosie:And in that, you know, we do naturally see a lot of success. So you can do it. Yeah. You've just got to have the time, the patience, and actually the support.
Georgie:Mhmm. You kind of covered it, but my what I wanted to ask you was about the lab and how it uniquely is positioned to bridge the gap between kind of innovators and the Lloyd's ecosystem. You've kind of nicely summarized it there. Is there anything else that you want to add to that?
Rosie:Yeah, so I mean, our secret sauce, and there's no hiding it, is the fact that we get to work with so many amazing mentors. We've got over 700 mentors in our kind of mental panel or mental kind of mentorship. But we really embed the products in the market. And I think that is so important because they're validating their solutions, they're building on the back of feedback. They're not going in blind.
Rosie:And as an accelerator, we really believe about product development, not business development. And that is our mantra. If someone comes onto our programme and they're selling, they get kicked out. We're not here for it. We're really strict about that.
Rosie:And that's a byproduct and it will happen naturally and we're aware that that is very much part of the process. But you've got to be there to actually co collaborate with the market. You can't be there just trying to kind of hand out business cards and set up demos and but, you know, because that's a relationship which doesn't work for our market.
Georgie:So I say people, but I used to think that the Lloyd's Lab was actually just for startups. But through coming to a lot of your cohorts, that's definitely not true. You get, I guess, not just the startup, but probably the scale upside as well. What do you do at the moment for companies that are a bit more mature? You've launched is it
Rosie:lab discovery?
Georgie:Lab discoveries.
Rosie:Yes. So I guess when we look at these things, we are actually looking at them through the lens of the market. So we're not looking to necessarily support every company's journey into Lloyd's. We need to know that the Lloyd's market are looking for solutions to help solve a problem that they have. So for the more mature companies that are established, probably have all of the right insurances kind of years under the belt to scale, we have lab discoveries.
Rosie:That's very much centered around identifying and working with the market, problem statements that they kind of experience day in, day out. We have been working with the Lloyd's Market Association, the LMA, on this because they have those fantastic forums and they have the insights. And so we've been working with groups within the NMA to really hear from them where they are struggling on just key areas of day to day. And through that, we are able to structure proof of concepts. We are able to scout for the best in class.
Rosie:We're able to really kind of de- I think it comes back to de risking the innovation process. We know what frameworks and what structures put in place to run a successful proof of concept. We can act as the middleman. There's no ambiguity that- and for the companies in our Lloyd's market, it's about hours that they can put towards the program. That's all we're asking for them.
Rosie:But then we can actually really get them to a place where they understand whether or not the solution actually solves the problem. And if it does, is it kind of viable to then embed that within their own kind of technology stack? And so we've been running that program for a and a half. We've had a number of really successful proof of concepts. Mhmm.
Rosie:And now we're working with Lemos to work out whether we can contract some of these solutions through Lemos. Mhmm. So again, it's just working out what our market needs, how we make it as easy as possible for our market to play with us, and taking all of the risk out of it.
Georgie:And then looking beyond the lab, what do you do to educate people or professionals about the Lloyds market?
Rosie:So we have our Lloyds Academy, and our Lloyds Academy has been established in its current form for a little over a year. So Lloyds has always understood that it has a role in upskilling and allowing people kind of access to the Lloyds platform. The Lloyds platform is hugely powerful. And we operate across the world. We have a huge license base.
Rosie:There are many advantages to operating at Lloyds. We have our central fund. So it is giving people the access to the Lloyd's platform so they have options when they're representing their clients, especially brokers and risk managers. And so the Lloyd's Academy is there to really give people the sense of understanding and knowledge in how to place business at Lloyd's. And so it's a phenomenal kind of setup.
Rosie:We run-in person programmes to where people actually come into Lloyd's. They have shadow kind of broking hours. They shadow an underwriter, they then have to go and broker a risk to an underwriter. So it's giving them the practical insights and tools to then take that back and actually understand how to place risk and noise. And we also have on demand content, so it's one of those kind of solutions where we are often asked to roll out kind of, I guess, educational programs for people.
Rosie:And we've really understood that there is a need to have it at people's fingertips. So we can then obviously share that and disseminate that amongst our community. And we at Lloyd's are always trying to strive to be more transparent. There's always more we can do, but the Academy is a great tool to kind of make Lloyd's a kind of more transparent entity so people at least know that we're here and when the time is right, you may want to start placing business with us.
Georgie:I think as well, insurance creates barriers to entry for itself. See a lot of people come into insurance from either a grad level or potentially maybe they've been an apprentice. So you learn it from those kind of lower levels up, but kind of like what are we doing to attract people from that, I guess, that middle market level? And it can be so my background, I was at Insurtech before, I've moved to artificial. I didn't have the Lloyd's background.
Georgie:And actually, like, a program like yours would be so beneficial to people moving around the market, kind of skirting around the outside and learning, like, having a bit of touch with Lloyd's, but not actually kind of doing the day to day kind of trading in Lloyd's. And I think that would be, like, for somebody like me, so beneficial to actually, like, just get into the crux of it.
Rosie:Yeah. And there are so many people in the wider kind of network and ecosystem who support Lloyd's. Know, you look at the kind of lawyers, you look at the accountants, you look at the everyday of, I don't know, claims of handlers and assessing claims, having to go on-site. They're not necessarily working in the building, but they're all doing really important work to support the building. So coming back to this transparent piece, we as Lloyds do really strive to be as transparent as possible.
Rosie:And I think in that, we are also kind of operating with a really rich history, and people know of Lloyd's. So there's also a lot of preconceived notions about what Lloyd's is as
Georgie:With Insurtech's and alternative capital increasingly reshaping insurance, what's your view on Lloyd's ability to maintain its relevance and leadership over the next decade?
Rosie:So in this, I think the Lloyd's way of doing things is embedding insurtech, right? We're not working against it. I don't think insurtech is ever going to completely disrupt the Lloyd's kind of marketplace. We are very much working in a collaborative way to make sure that we are actually moving forward. In this, we're addressing through kind of adoptions, things around like our cost base, our efficiencies.
Rosie:But we have a huge role to play to enable that and make sure we are continuing the relationships in such a way. So I think we do see our importance as a regulator to make sure we've got the right sandboxes in place, that we are really sort of we're not getting complacent ever about our role in this. Like, we continually have to do more. But I think in this, if you look at what's going on in the bigger landscape in and around Lloyd's, we've got a huge pipeline of people interested in joining the Lloyd's platform. I think Lloyd's is really vibrant at the moment.
Rosie:There is so much going on and there's so much interest in Lloyd's and there's a huge amount of M and A activity happening in and around the marketplace. And I think that shows a huge amount of confidence for investors from Capital. They want their capital at Lloyd's because they really, I guess, see this really exciting opportunity at this point in time in Lloyd's. And I think so for us, innovation and how we show up will continue to be embedded in what we're doing because it retains talent, it attracts capital, it really makes sure that we are staying relevant and we are future focused.
Georgie:So, okay, this is your future outlook. If you had to place a bet on how the Lloyds market will look in 2035, what do you think will be the biggest structural or technology shift? And how do you think many in the industry kind of are they prepared for it, or what could they do to prepare for it?
Rosie:That's a really good question. And I guess if I had a crystal ball, my prediction would be that oh, gosh. Okay. This is probably gonna be controversial. But, hey, let's go for it.
Rosie:I think around 80% of underwriting decisions will probably be made by AI or an AI in some form. And the hugely complicated risk will still have human interaction. But I think that the human in that will probably be spending a lot more time looking at risk mitigation and risk management as a whole. And I think as a market, we will probably see naturally a lot more done around the risk mitigation space. But I think that technology piece is going to be huge.
Rosie:I do think we will, in ten years' time, probably see a lot of decisions being made by platforms with AI embedded in it. Is the market ready for it? I think ten years is quite a sizable chunk, I guess, in the day in the life of an underwriter or a broker. We're going to have a huge change in, I guess, who's working in the market in ten years. So I think today, they probably wouldn't be ready for it.
Rosie:It's an interesting question, right? Will they be ready for it in ten years? And I think it's still going to be like there are winners and losers in this. I think they're gonna be more ready than they are today. And AI's everywhere.
Rosie:It's not going away.
Georgie:So you kind of gave your artificial pitch there.
Rosie:I did. And that wasn't intentional, but you guys didn't come through Gaylord four, so it would be shameful if I didn't.
Georgie:It came on nicely, but we know the market's going there, and I think it's that whole thing that it's not there to replace. What the tooling is there to do is to make underwriters, I guess, more efficient and make more informed decisions so that you can spend, you know, that 80% of time could that be an automated decision? Yes. But that 20% of time is really valuable doing the actual underwriting that needs to happen, and that's where your kind of your specialism and your expertise come in, and it's kind of removing the mundane tasks, And
Rosie:it's interesting because and I think it is a hard prediction to me, but I think if I think about my answer through logically, we're beginning to see the early signs of it now. A lot of the strategies that we're hearing about in the market is people are being asked to double their book but retain their same headcount. Like, there's only one way you're going to do this. And and
Georgie:And it's artificial.
Rosie:And it's artificial. And there are other solutions out there I
Georgie:have to I have
Rosie:to remain impartial. But it's true, right? We're really beginning to see the early signs of it. And I think in this, there will always be winners and losers. And ultimately, there are some companies who are not even touching AI.
Rosie:So that's where the mindset shift will probably be the will happen, is the winners will just double down on what they're doing because it is winning for them. And those who don't adopt will either have to change and pivot quite quickly, or just think of, I guess, new strategies or Yeah.
Georgie:So do you have, whilst you're here, a call to action? Anything you would like to say to somebody, like get people to come to a cohort? What do you wanna leave people with?
Rosie:Yeah. I think the biggest call to action so I think I've got a few call to actions, so bear with. Call to action for our marketplace, Lloyd's Market, like come and talk to us at the lab. We are doing great things. We are having a huge impact.
Rosie:If you're not already in our ecosystem, we are here for you and we wanna have a conversation. For the kind of those who are listening and either have a tech solution or doing something neat and new, you do not need to be in insurance. Please come and talk to us. Some of our most successful solutions who've come through the lab have never had a day in insurance before coming into the lab. We will do the heavy lifting when it comes to that educational piece.
Rosie:It's what we're here for. But we really care about the weird, the wonderful, wacky. We wanna hear from you, essentially. And I think, you know, from everyone else, like, we're here as a supporter, we're here as an enabler, always reach out to us. Mhmm.
Rosie:We're really always interested in kind of hearing about new things, new ideas. Well, you go. You heard it here.
Georgie:Reach out to Rosie. Yep. And thank you so much. That's all we've got time for. Thank you so much, Georgie.
Georgie:Thank you so much for listening to Fact or Fiction. If you like what you hear, then please subscribe to our channels. We'd also love to hear from you about future guests, so please get in touch via the link in the show notes or reach out via LinkedIn. Thanks so much again and we'll see you next time.