Vertafore Insurance Podcast

We have a big announcement to make here at Vertafore! We made a promise 6 months ago and we are making good on our promise. The buy button is here. This is a story of passion and persistence that peaked at our Sales Kick-off Meeting.  The buy button is not just about efficiency, it’s about giving the power back to the agency.  With this new feature, your account managers, producers, and all other...

Brian Comerford is an accomplished digital transformation strategist with a diverse background who began his journey in tv and radio. Brian’s specialties include innovation strategy, enterprise technology, and creativity. His work involves staying at the forefront of digital transformation and driving innovative solutions. Brian Comerford’s expertise and contributions play a significant role in sh...

Episode 11 of Season 3 on the VIP Podcast is now LIVE!  Each agency, carrier, and MGA has unique tech needs. That’s why we created the Vertafore Orange Partner Program—leveraging our open platform and APIs to create integrations with best-in-class solutions that complement your Vertafore suite of products. In this episode of the VIP Podcast, we went live at our annual Sales Kickoff meeting to meet...

Dustyne Bryant of The National Alliance for Insurance Education definitely has her finger on the pulse, when it comes to our industry. Which is why she was a perfect guest to bring on for this episode. Dustyne Bryant sits down with, good friend and host of this episode, Heath Shearon , to talk all things state of the industry. She shares her experience and her advice on so many different topics on...

Mike Becker, CEO of the National Professional Insurance Agents has his finger on the pulse of what is going on out there in our industry, discuss, which is exactly why we invited him to come on the show today and the state of the industry with, the Mayor, Heath Shearon. Mike Becker has connections all over the country inside insurance agencies big and small as well as significant connections on Ca...

Chris Paradiso of Paradiso Insurance is the guru of the customer journey. He gives us a peek behind the scenes and walks us through what makes his agency' so special as it relates to the customer journey.  He talks so highly of his staff and how important it is to train your staff up and lead with proper communication. His agency has a robust touch point system post bind, and he has been very inte...

David Watson, CEO and Founder of RiskAdvisor and Equity Partner of Mappus Insurance Agency, is a thought leader in the industry, as it pertains to processes and procedures in your agency. He talks us through the impact of the customer journey, and how important it is to have a Customer Journey enhanced and driven by technology. Not only does he walk us through what he is doing in his agency at Map...

CJ Hutsenpillar  of Hutsenpillar Insurance  takes us behind the scenes and shows us how he has built his tech stack to focus on the needs of his customers. With a tagline in his agency of "where the convenience of online shopping meets the security of having a local agent," its no wonder why Hustsenpillar insurance setting the bar high for customer experience. Not only does he walk us through the...

Carl Ziade and Jean-Pierre Vertil, Co-Founders of Gaya, make a lofty promise to “speed up your insurance quoting process by 10x.” Their AI-powered Chrome extension allows you to move data between carrier portals, management systems, and other software in just a few clicks. We have a sneaky suspicion this niche solution will grow to do big things in the future. Meet Carl and Jean-Pierre to hear: -...

Mike Fusco of Fusco and Orsini pulls back the curtain and talk to us about the hard market through his lens. Mike and his agency have a strong focus on Commercial Insurance and Employee Benefits.  He tells us how he uses robot process automation to improve efficiency, employee morale, and overall customer satisfaction. Not only do we discuss this, but also we discuss why he loves the hard market a...

Rick Warter, SVP of Customer Success, discusses how we’re thinking about system conversions differently at Vertafore. Moving massive amounts of data from one system to another is no easy feat. Doing so accurately? Even tougher. Rick explains how his team is tackling this challenge using artificial intelligence in creative ways. Meet Rick and learn: The current state of conversions at Vertafore Wha...

Jamie Peers, VP of Business Development at Synatic, guides us through the unknown as he peels back the layers of AI’s real impact on insurance. Fluent in data architecture and connectivity through his work at a leading API insurtech, Jamie’s outlook on the future of AI is intriguing. Ultimately, he wants to help you answer the question…for yourself. Meet Jamie and learn: Who is Jamie Peers (and wh...

The Vega-Sanz brothers started out as two frustrated and car-less college students trying to get to a local pizzeria. Now? They have been featured in Forbes 30 Under 30 for building the first ever AI-powered insurance agent. This is a company to watch in 2024. Not just because of their innovative tech, but because of their endless ability to pivot. Meet Matthew Vega-Sanz & Roberto Salinas and...

Casey Nelson, founder and Ceo of Stakwise, is the Insurance tech stack guru and someone to count on to question the status quo and make you change the way you think about the technology in your agency. He  is a former agency principal and has spent his entire career developing processes and procedures to increase efficiencies. Early in his career he saw technology as the answer to so much of the e...

When Sarah Zambrano , the operations director, of Colorado Insurance , started with the agency there were only 4 people on staff including the agency principal, fast forwarding to today there are over 100 people on staff and over 100 million in production.  Sarah credits much of the agency's success to the relentless pursuit of consistent process and procedures.  The procedures that were set up wh...

Elisa Stampf, CEO of Insure Equality, shares how she is working to make insurance a more welcome place for everyone. Through her non-profit, she has created an actionable framework to help any agency or company achieve a more open, authentic and, ultimately, collaborative culture. It all starts with one, honest conversation. Meet Elisa and hear: Why she chose to make DEI for insurance her mission...

Drew Kinney is the co- owner of Kinney Insurance Agency, and someone you can always count on for a collaboration session.  He is always open to sharing his ideas and his success stories with anyone in the industry. Drew is actively involved  with the daily agency operations including: process management, agency data analytics, business intelligence reporting, and marketing.  Meet Drew and hear: Ho...

Episode 33 of the VIP Podcast is now LIVE! Seth Zaremba, Founder of b atomic!, shares how he bootstrapped an insurance startup that's changing the analytics game. This isn't your standard, run-of-the-mill KPI conversation about total premium, retention and monthly sales targets. Seth is introducing new KPIs that the industry has never seen. And it all starts with three little words: cost per trans...

Tolga Tezel, Founder & CEO of Canopy Connect, is solving for a massive problem in insurance: moving sales data WITHOUT human hands. In any other industry, data is supportive to the product being sold. In insurance, the data IS the product being sold...which means, there's a lot of it. And moving it between systems? Whew. Pretty sure sales teams are already tearing up reading this. But dry up t...

Episode 31 of the VIP Podcast is now LIVE! Elijah Goodman, Producer at Goodman Family Insurance, was looking for a creative way to gain attention and write more business. He and his buddies created a video that went quickly went viral and Elijah saw his sales increase and his Tik Tok fame rise in the process. Goodman Family Insurance is a family-owned independent insurance agency. Elijah's unique...

Adam Bowe, Founder of Cake, has created a Carvana-like insurance marketplace where you can buy or sell your book of business. Today, the only way to buy or sell is...know the right person. With cake, that changes to...know the right platform. Not only are they democratizing the M&A space, they're also making it possible to exchange groups of accounts (known as "slices"), instead of the whole c...

Margeaux Giles, Founder & CEO of IRYS, sits down with us to try and settle the CRM vs AMS debate. Her experience in both agency operations and insurtech gives her a unique perspective on what the next generation of technology could look like for the indie agent. And it all starts with...the data. Meet Margeaux and hear: • 4 key differences between a CRM and AMS • A high-level overview of the i...

Carey Wallace, Founder of AgencyFocus, has an intriguing background. She cut her teeth in startup early-on after helping take a company public shortly after finishing undergrad. Since then, she's gone on to launch two more startups, both in the insurance analytics space. Her most recent venture is focused on helping agencies increase their valuation with......better data.   Meet Carey and hear: Wh...

Pat Cline, Director of Accelerator Operations at 101 Weston Labs, is building a new kind of accelerator. This accelerator doesn't help carrier insurtech, MGA insurtech or, honestly, any insurtech other than solutions meant to drive change for indie agents. Its partnership with the Independent Insurance Agents of North Carolina state association is what truly makes it powerful.   Meet Pat and hear:...

Steve Anderson, CEO of Catalyit, joins us to discuss 2023 insurtech trends across almost 500 agencies from his recent 2023 State Of Tech Report. In this episode, you'll learn: - the #1 tech issue facing agencies in 2023 - the average number of solutions an agency uses (and why) - how to turn your tech from a profit center into a cost center - a simple process for selecting the right tech for your...