Technology has become much simpler to adopt in the last few years, you do not need a PhD to deploy emerging technologies: Marc Adee, CEO, Crum & Forster
Marc Adee, CEO, Crum & Forster (who is also the Advisor to the Board of Fulcrum Digital), shares with us some of the key insurance trends that he is witnessing in the market.
Some edited excerpts:
What are some of the broad technology trends with respect to the insurance domain?
Six or seven years ago, there were a lot of insurtechs that were talking about disrupting the industry, and they were going to take over and they were going to replace everybody. That wave is kind of tempered. Today, a lot of people realize that, practically, or with all the regulations and all that, it’s a lot harder to disrupt that market than they might have expected.
A lot of firms and people underestimated some of the big players and how much the big players can really throw at a problem in terms of number of resources. So I think that the insurtech players did a good job of highlighting some of the gaps and how they could be addressed. But this also prompted a lot of the incumbent players to think and say, “Hey, why don’t we do that?” Many large firms have either partnered with insurtechs or have launched similar services.
How has the technology changed?
The technology available has changed dramatically in the last several years. And if you’ve looked at the cloud, you look at the SaaS landscape and the evolution of readily available machine learning or AI or big data tools, it is clear that you do not have to be a PhD to use these tools. ChatGPT is a popular example.
Also, if you go back 15 years, the insurance company’s concept of technology was all hardware. It changed to a software approach, and then the insurtechs came in with a more agile approach. So I think it’s been a super interesting evolution.
How has the relationship with Fulcrum grown?
We started small with basic kind of BPO services. We have really grown not only in size but also dimensions. We have a lot of our developmental work, and a lot of the maintenance of our legacy systems taken care by Fulcrum. And then obviously, we take advantage of the need to do accelerated development activities with them. It has turned out to be a good model for us and a bit difficult to replicate what we’ve got with Fulcrum.
As a board member, what is your advise to Fulcrum?
I tend to be a very direct sort of person. There’s no way I can tell the team anything about their main function, which I think is good for all of us. But I try to advise them about structure, motivating people, culture etc, and thinking about how we can take Fulcrum to the next level. I think Fulcrum has done a good job of surfing the key technology trends and has a sense of what’s going on. Beyond insurance, Fulcrum has gone into the food and payment business, which gives them a unique viewpoint on some of the other aspects of the industry.
