You’ve got to choose the right toolkit, but it’s cultural. Just choosing the right toolkit doesn’t make you build great insurance products. And the cultural aspect of this is the hardest thing to get right. It requires engagement right from the top of the company to do it. It’s not something you can subcontract to a bunch of techies and just think it’s going to be okay because we bought the right tools here.
If you give me a block of marble and a chisel, I will produce a chewed lump of marble. If you give Michelangelo a block of marble and a chisel, he’ll produce David. And I think that cultural aspect is absolutely the most key thing of all. And people forget about it in the rush to digitalize.
Introduction
Crux Underwriting is a multi line specialty underwriting business launched in early July by Graham Elliott. By combining underwriting with the tech arm of Azur Technology, founded by previous colleague Charlie Blackburn, we are witnessing the production of a 21st century MGA business.
One for the technology lovers and the MGA innovators. Tune in to hear Robin speak to Charlie and Graham about entrepreneurship in the MGA world, how technology can slot itself into an underwriting business and why the cultural aspect is the hardest thing to get right.
Key Talking Points
- Journey from co-founding Azur Underwriting, to developing Azur Technology and Crux Underwriting
- Charlie’s experience forming long-term partnerships with MGAs as a separate technology provider
- Graham building out an agile insurance business in a regulated market
- The relationship between MGAs and capacity providers
- Why haven’t MGAs adopted modern and flexible platforms?
- Azur Technology: working on Salesforce
- What is it about technology that makes it currently exciting
- Petting-zoo sales: what has changed since starting a business in 2014
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This InsTech Podcast Episode is accredited by the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII). By listening, you can claim up to 0.5 hours towards your CPD scheme.
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- Identify why MGAs have difficulties with deploying technology across multiple classes.
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