October 10, 2025 | 12:33
Sarah: Thank you. It's great to be here.
Dani: Thanks for joining us. Let's get right into it. We've got some questions for you. Insurance is a for-profit industry. Where do you see money being left on the table and what can we do to address this?
Sarah: So it's interesting because I think that question kind of is a starting point where we talk about trust, maybe runs the risk a little bit of feeding into some of the narrative that is actually causing some of the mistrust in the first place. So that narrative is that maybe insurance companies are out to make a profit at all costs and maybe even at the expense of delivering on the promises that they make to customers. And I categorically don't believe that to be true, right? So I'm a big believer in the noble purpose that insurance serves in society and in protecting customers and that's really what motivates me every day and I can say that about all the people that I work with as well. So maybe I don't want to just take the liberty to reframe the question a little bit and to how come we remove cost from the insurance intervention and because ultimately I think if we can address the affordability and availability of insurance and some of the drivers of that, that's ultimately how we can help get risk management and insurance back to that sort of risk pooling in its truest sense and ultimately pass that benefit on to the customer in the form of better pricing and better coverage. Now I know that that sounds like a big thing and we're talking about fundamentally shifting some of how the market operates but I think a lot of the solution starts with simple things like transparency and communication, education, and collaboration. So if you reframe the question to how can we work together to remove costs, remove unnecessary or fraudulent costs from the insurance equation, it really becomes clear how you can actually partner with customers, with agents, across the industry, with legislators and regulators to do that. So if you think about it, how can we help customers understand simple things that they can do to help better protect their homes, or exhibit safe driving? How do we work with agents to help better educate customers on how things like fraudulent roof claims, all those kinds of costs actually get passed back to them and their insurance costs. How do we partner as industry carriers and across the industry to address things like legal system abuse more systemically? How do we lean into building cones and building more resilient homes? How do we influence that together? So just really thinking about if we can get cost out of the equation that ultimately helps solve some of the drivers and that benefit goes back to the customer. And I think there's also sort of the innovation front to that, right? There's the opportunity to think beyond the indemnity of our products, just the traditional indemnity products and think about how can we meet those changing customer needs in new ways. So things like parametric insurance and warranties and maintenance and just thinking more holistically about how to solve customer needs. So I think there's a lot of exciting possibilities and, that's where we spend a lot of time and focus even as we're sort of navigating the challenges.
Dani: So let me ask you a question, Sarah. I mean, completely agree with what you said there taking the cost out of the equation because that does get passed on to the customer. These are fundamental, super important. There does seem to be perhaps some people would say in inertia, with the industry a little bit in terms of, you know, making these shifts. Like, for example, on the cost of fraud, maybe an accepted perception that, well, you know, 10 % of claims are fraudulent, and that's okay. But it's not, you know. So I guess, how can we get past that inertia as an industry and start to make some of these changes that you've so eloquently shared?
Sarah: Yeah, I think it's a great question. And I think it goes beyond sort of buzz and just just talking about it. And again, some of these are big problems. So a single person, a single carrier, can't change them alone. So I do think there's just a lot of opportunity to just think differently about how we influence and collaborate across the industry to influence some of those things. I do also think technology offers some great opportunities to address those, again, more systemically and holistically, so again if we are kind of all talking about that the challenges and the problems and the opportunities together, we've cut some amazing technology vendors and partners out there that are really trying to help us solve business needs and so helping them understand the challenge of fraud and how do we how can we get good at that more systemically I think is one example.
Dani: The technology question is interesting because you know I think there's an opportunity for everyone to integrate technology more seamlessly into what they're doing. What do you think about when you're making those technology decisions like are you looking at the outcomes are you looking at solving a particular problem you know, and then there's also that buzz, AI, everything, what are some of the things you think about?
Sarah: So I think it's really important to get clear on the business problem that you're trying to solve. But I think it's also really important, especially in this environment, sort of mistrust with the industry, to think about it from an outside end perspective, from a customer perspective. Because there are lots of solutions and things that we can do to help solve the math, the insurance math equation. But how is that going to feel to the customer that transparency and that control is just I think such an important piece of helping bring customers along on that journey. So that's been one of the things that we really look at is, how does this problem feel from the customer's perspective? Why are they behaving a certain way? What's thriving and motivating that behavior? And we look for technology solutions that, yes, help address that problem, but that really create that seamless experience and transparency for the customer. That's really where you get the win and where you start to build trust. You get the accuracy of input, but you get the customer along on that journey.
Dani: Yes, and the experience as well. I mean, the two -way trust relationship because consumers need to trust their insurers that they are going to do the thing that they promise to do it. But also, I mean on on the profit side and the fraud side insurers need to trust their customers too in a way. And right now if you think about some aspects of the experience You're putting even genuine customers sometimes through this whole shaman of things where perhaps that they don't need to go through that So how can you improve that experience? And you know that was related to one of the questions here, that we are going to talk about, like what is you and your role or insurer at large could have had a way to more confidently trust the information, you know, that they're getting from their customers and how might that impact all of your processes, your people, your business?
Sarah: Yeah. And I do think that to a large extent, that shift is already happening, right? There's already so many ways that we are leveraging technology to improve that experience, to reduce the intrusive questions that we have to ask in the underwriting process and where we can really feel confident in that information that we're using to underwrite the risk. So I do think that's already happening, but there are some touchpoints that are still really challenging for agents, for customers, and for insurers. So one great example is age of roof, right? That's a big topic in the industry. It's really big in rating. It's really big in how you settle claims. And we're all sort of wrestling with this. You've got a broad component in there, right, from a fruiting contractor perspective a little bit. And so, but genuinely, I think most people aren't trying to be dishonest with that roofage information. They just honestly don't know. But that's a great example where there's a lot of vendors and technologies sort of really trying to figure out how to solve that problem. Again, ultimately for the customer's benefit, because if we can rate on that accurately and underwrite and settle claims on that accurately, that's ultimately to their benefit as well. So looking at how can you use aerial imagery and AI to improve that roof-age accuracy. We also had some really fascinating conversations with IBHS, the Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety, around how we could partner with shingle manufacturers, some claims technology that's already in the market and aerial imagery to actually pinpoint the shingle, shingle age. So again, thinking about how technology can really help that. Another great example I think is with self inspections. We're piloting self inspection technology and you think about that experience for the customer. It's a lot less disruptive for them to inspect and use an app that can sort of help them just walk around their home and take pictures of what we need to see. A lot less disruptive for the customer. It also actually gives us a lot more accuracy and confidence in that input. I can see the claims process for years, we've been using photos and things in that process, but that technology is rapidly advancing. And I just think those are all great examples of where it's already there, there's momentum and if we really think about it from the customer's perspective, how do we improve it for that money experience and a transparency perspective, that ultimately also helps the carriers, it helps the whole mechanism operate or smoothly, and that benefits the customer in the long run as well.
Dani: Absolutely, it's, you know, you're kind of feeding into the consumer behavior that it exists today, you know, with Amazon, Netflix, like all consumerizing that experience further for the customer. Let's close with a question. If there's one thing you could implore to industry leaders listening, what would it be?
Sarah: I don't know that I need to implore because I'm pretty sure we're all aware of some of the challenges and really motivated, you know, to solve them. But I do think that while obviously we all want to maintain a competitive advantage, we are facing some really systemic big problems that we can really only solve together. And so I think that would probably be my challenge is how do we double down on some of those efforts to address those together. I think if I had to pick one thing right now that I would kind of ask us to work on together, I think that time is really right on influencing building codes and building back more resilient claims. So there's just been so many examples in the media and so much opportunity to sort of dig into that and use some of that experience, recent experience to help educate customers, but really influence at that kind of local community level. So that's something where IBHS is a great partner, but I would love to see us kind of across the industry lean into that together.
Dani: Fabulous. Thank you, Sarah, so much for being here, and thank you for your perspective.
Sarah: Alright, thanks for having me.