初参加の視点から ー ITC VEGAS ー パーティ、子犬、そしてインシュアテック！
I attended ITC Vegas for the first time this year. My colleagues had all gone before so I was the newbie! Other than developing laryngitis on Tuesday night, it lived up to the hype of non-stop meetings, sessions, and cocktail hours/parties! And who knew I could get a massage, sit with puppies, and bring home four pairs of fun socks!
October 31st, ITC Day 1 : KickOff Summits
While the event officially started on November 1st, Halloween at ITC was filled with eleven Kickoff Summits, including one from Celent. Sureify, Benekiva, and Fineos hosted all day events, while the others including Celent hosted afternoon events. The pre-conference summits covered topics such as group insurance, ESG and sustainability, claims, core systems, challenges and opportunities for MGAs, and venture capital in the insurance industry, to name a few. I sat in on three morning sessions covering life insurance history, new methods of interfacing systems, and claims. The afternoon was spent at Celent’s event which included five panels:
·Andrew Schwartz examined the insurtech landscape and probed the influences impacting the market and its evolution with two venture capitalists.
·Donald Light led a discussion with insurance and car manufacturing executives about connected cars and the rapidly changing personal auto insurance market.
·Nate Golia discussed commercial insurance quoting with a panel of agent technology vendors, an insurer, and an agency.
·Karen Monks (me) discussed life insurance automated underwriting with two insurers and their vendor partners.
·Keith Raymond ended the day discussing GenAI and LLMs with three vendors, including Microsoft.
The evening was filled with happy hours, cocktail parties, and ITC’s Halloween Spooktacular party. I think trying to talk during these events helped me lose my voice.
November 1st, ITC Day 2: ITC Exhibit Hall and Sessions
The day started with boxed breakfasts and meetings. Trying to feed 7500 people quickly meant that meals and drinks had to be moved quickly! The opening session featured Gary Vaynerchuk (aka “GaryVee”), a serial entrepreneur and prolific angel investor in some of the world’s best companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Venmo, Snapchat, Coinbase, and Uber. During his keynote he shared insights on how legacy insurance industry players (and startups) can tweak their marketing, distribution, and CX strategies to engage the next generation of insurance consumers by reaching them where they are spending their time. I was only able to capture a snippet of his talk, but he was really enthralling.
Sessions and vendor demonstrations made up most of the day. I attended one session: The Evolution of Distribution Channels. The panel discussed the lack of digital technologies available to agents to support the emerging digital products and customers’ need for improved advice. While most technology is focused on sales, the panel discussed the need for more service and claims capabilities. Celent’s recently published research (Digitizing the Agent: How Life and Annuity Insurers View Their Current And Future State and Digitizing the Agent: How Property & Casualty Insurers View Their Current And Future State) support the findings discussed during this session. There is a lot of room for improvement in agent technology.
Celent spent most of ITC Day 2 in meetings with clients and prospective clients. Seven analysts and two account managers discussed current insurance trends, vendor products and roadmaps, and insurance company requirements. In all, Celent met with over a hundred different vendors and insurers during Day 1 and 2. We also had great representation on the ITC stages with Karlyn Carnahan leading a fireside chat with Niki Kouri-Maglaras, the Chief Digital Officer at Prudential Financial International and Keith Raymond moderating a panel on Data Transformation in P&C and Life Insurance with Brooks Tingle, CEO & President, John Hancock and Jean Paul Conoscente, CEO SCOR P&C, SCOR .
The exhibit hall was packed with incumbent and veteran vendors, areas for new insurtech and brokertech firms, special locations for Israeli and LATAM insurtechs, and a large demo stage. Two espresso bars, two puppy lounges with six to eight 11 week old puppies, and tons of fun vendor gifts, games, and even massage chairs made the non-stop walking and concrete floors palatable.
While there were several parties and events this evening, I went to the Sphere and listened to U2 with some fellow Celenters! It was a once in a lifetime experience. The song list and the spectacular visual effects were amazing!
November 2nd, ITC Day 3: ITC Exhibit Hall and Sessions
Day 3 started much like Day 2 with a box breakfast and meetings over coffee. We met with dozens more insurtechs and insurers and discussed ways that insurers could create partnerships with insurtechs to meet the changes we are seeing in the evolving insurance industry. I personally met with insurtechs who are trying to improve the application process, underwriting, and claims for life insurers, and with insurers who are looking for better ways to convert legacy system data and improve their agent technology.
ITC ended with a beach party with music by Earth, Wind and Fire. If it wasn’t for my laryngitis, which lasted through Day 3, I would have joined the party and danced to Boogie Wonderland! I hope to go again next year and have a voice!