Life Accelerated

I nsurtech is no nascent industry. After ten years investing in the most innovative companies, Joel Albarella is optimistic about the present and future of life insurance. One of the industry's first venture capitalists and SVP & Head of New York Life's NYL Ventures , Albarella unearths the secrets of innovation and how New York Life is growing despite being around for more than 100 years. You'll...

No one expected century-old life insurance companies like Principal and Mutual of Omaha to succeed through the pandemic. Yet, they rolled with the punches–and even thrived. Life Accelerated's Anthony O'Donnell is joined by Kim Pfiffner , Chief Information Officer at Principal and Brian Poppe , Chief Data Officer at Mutual of Omaha . Who reveal their secrets to success and predict future trends in...

The war for talent is over. And talent won.   National Life has had a double-digit growth rate over the last decade—unheard of in the life insurance world. And CIO Nimesh Mehta attributes their success to a strong dedication to their people and a structure called teaming.   Nimesh Mehta joins us on Life Accelerated to share how they've adopted technology faster than anyone else in the industry. He...

What do you do when you don't have legacy systems and the history of a longstanding company to build your digital transformation? According to Alyssa Arellano, Head of Technology Strategy at Equitable's employee benefits division, you use it as an opportunity to be agile, adaptable, and open to the future.  Equitable's employee benefits division started in 2015, and now in 2022, they cover nearly...

"Our biggest competitor isn't another carrier—it's procrastination." Those aren't words you hear from a life insurance leader very often, but Kevin Cummer and Nick Rohan from CUNA Mutual have been on a journey to break down barriers in their industry. To focus on customer centricity, CUNA Mutual simplifies the process to obtain life insurance and leverages technology to better serve their customer...

From MassMutual and New York Life to Protective and Mutual of Omaha. The Life Accelerated Podcast thus far has been a wealth of knowledge from leaders on the bleeding edge of digital transformation in the life insurance industry. Now, we look back at the top 5 digital transformation initiatives shaping the modernization conversation, including customer-driven change, cloud migration and talent rec...

"Software is eating the world," Marc Andreesen claimed in 2011. He was right. Technology is intertwined in nearly every facet of life insurance today. But Protective's COO Cissy Williams takes a different perspective: We can't forget about the human element. In her many experiences in stay-at-home motherhood and various professional roles throughout the industry, she's learned that empathy is most...

Penn Mutual is an almost 2-century-old business—and they have the innovation and modernization to back up their longstanding success. But it doesn't come without learning curves and experimentation.  Enter Greg Driscoll , the COO of Life and Annuities. From moving to cloud services to implementing new applications and data management practices, Greg is innovating on a 175-year-old original data co...

It's hard enough to plan for tomorrow. What does the future hold for the life insurance industry? And how can we reach new generations who are skeptical? Ellen Carney , Principal Analyst at Forrester , lives in the data. In this episode of Equisoft's Life Accelerated, she walks through the major risks facing the industry, how to progress and plan for the future, and what to prioritize as the consu...

When Principal went beyond using IT as a ticket submission center and instead leveraged their skillset, they started to drive meaningful business outcomes. Kim Pfiffner, VP & CIO of U.S. Insurance Solutions, discusses on Life Accelerated how they streamlined internal processes, simplified the customer journey and bolstered their digital products.

52% of Americans trust financial service providers. That's why Northwestern Mutual's Chief Customer Officer Christian Mitchell has led product development with an open mind: To find new challenges along the way that perhaps are more important than the initial research stated. In this episode of Equisoft's Life Accelerated podcast, Mitchell recounts the story of building Northwestern Mutual's newes...

Consumer expectations have shifted, and digital experiences are a prerequisite. The life insurance industry has been slow to innovate. Head of Strategic Capabilities Alex Cook discusses how New York Life has bucked the trend and led the industry in digital transformation, including agile development and artificial intelligence. Cook explains how investing in and partnering with technology startups...

The last two years have been difficult for many life insurance companies. To meet the demands of a digital workplace and marketplace, some were forced to flip their business models nearly overnight. Others were well-positioned; They shifted priorities and embraced technology to serve their customers even better. Mutual of Omaha was one of those institutions. In this week's episode of Life Accelera...

If your goal is market disruption, you need the right technology. This is Sherriff Balogun Jr.'s takeaway after his team at MassMutual successfully launched their B2C distribution channel, Haven Life. Sheriff–Head of Platform Transformation–shares his team's 3 core pillars for digital transformation; learnings they gleaned directly from their success with Haven Life. He and host Anthony O'Donnell...

How does a 150-year old organization go from being "data rich, information poor, and analytically ignorant", to leading the technology transformation in the life insurance industry? This is Ameritas' story–and Richard Wiedenbeck is currently leading the innovation charge for this century-and-a-half old institution. Richard Wiedenbeck, CTTO of Ameritas, joins Anthony to talk about how he's helping...

This is Life Accelerated–a podcast brought to you by Insurance Innovation Reporter in partnership with Equisoft. Anthony O'Donnell provides an unconventional approach to the life insurance industry, discussing the news you need to know while his guests share their insights from their perspective - an insurer's perspective. They'll discuss leadership, strategy, and management while reflecting on th...