sum.talk Episode #54 Accelerating Innovation (with Roger Peverelli, Co-Founder of DIA)

In episode #54 of our insurance podcast we invited Roger Peverelli, Co-Founder of the Digital Insurance Agenda, better known as DIA, for a joint sum.talk.
Roger brings a lot of insights to DIA and also an incredible amount of knowledge about the insurtech and fintech industry. Enjoy the new episode of sum.talk! These are the topics we're talking about this time:

Digital Insurance Agenda

Born out of the idea to establish an event where insurtechs and established insurers can expand their network, DIA took place for the first time in Barcelona in 2016. Roger Peverelli and Reggy de Feniks, wanted to use it to learn from previous conferences they had attended and change things. Ingolf, who has attended DIA twice and presented SCIP at DIA Amsterdam this year together with Walter Capellmann, tells us about the special atmosphere on site.

But what also makes DIA special is the way of presentations. Powerpoints slides in the demo are strictly forbidden, instead you have to present freely within eight minutes. This makes the presentations more exciting and personal.

This year, the DIA will also take place from 28.09.-29.09. in Munich. We from sum.cumo Sapiens will also be presenting there again!

There are also big plans for the future: Next year, in addition to London, Paris and Tel Aviv, more stops are planned. In any case, one thing is clear: the Digital Insurance Agenda promotes innovation in the insurance industry and advances digital processes. In this way, trust is built up among the often rather conservative established insurers to work together with small to medium-sized insurtechs.

Drivers of innovation

Where does innovation actually take place in the insurance industry? When it comes to technology, people like to look over to the U.S., where tech giants like Google, Apple and Facebook dominate Silicon Valley, but is that true in relation to insurance companies? No, that's actually how everyone agrees. Roger offers the necessary numbers.
"More innovation is driven by Munich than by silicon valley"
Especially in terms of sales models, American insurers are more traditional, while in Europe there is more focus on digital.
Still, Oli brings in, the big innovation role model continues to be Asia. This is also a topic that is not neglected at DIA.

The three pillars to digitize an insurer.

Let's say there is a best-performing CEO and an insurer that is not yet digital: what to do?
According to Roger, there are three aspects to consider.

1. the question of the system: of course, the first step would be to check the core system, but usually there are many systems that are interconnected. So it is not an easy task, but it is the basis to start at all.
2. the cultural aspect: in order to digitize, you have to be able to open up to new processes and take new paths. In contrast to opening up FinTech companies in the banking industry, the insurance industry is too often backward-looking and numbers-driven.
3. digital transformation has a strong connotation on "digital", but above all it is about transformation. For transformation, it's not just enough to introduce digital signatures. Digitization gives us the advantage of collecting data, which in turn can be used to shape the user experience, with all the different identities.

Hear more about innovation and digitization of the insurance industry in the full episode #54 of sum.talk.
sum.talk is an in-house production of sum.cumo Sapiens and appears every other Friday.