InsurTalk: The Innovation Mindset in Insurance with Nic Sproul, CCO at I Love Claims
Innovation is on everyone’s lips nowadays, but it’s not surprising seeing how important it is in the growth of companies but also how it can enhance our daily life, smoothen and accelerate certain processes and save time and money. However, it is quite a challenge to implement innovation within organisation.
The guest of this episode is Nic Sproul, CCO at I Love Claims and former Director at Gallagher Bassett, who brings a wealth of experience and expertise in driving innovation within the insurance sector. Together we discuss the challenge of implementing innovation and how it is connected with certain change of mindset, letting go of what we know and pursuing the unknown.
Ewa Banaś: Hi, I’m Ewa Banaś. Welcome to another episode of IT Insights InsurTech series by Future Processing. Innovation has been on everyone’s lips for quite some time now, looking at how it can improve our daily lives and contribute to company growth in terms of money, cost, and time savings.
Today, we will delve into innovation and the mindset changes required for implementation. My guest is Nic Sproul, the CCO of I Love Claims and former director of Gallagher Bassett.
Nic Sproul: Great to be here. Thank you for recommending this private club, Homegrown.
Ewa Banaś: We recently met in Barcelona. How did you like it?.
Nic Sproul: It was very busy, but I enjoyed the event. What made me smile was the variety of food choices – from sweets to hot dogs. I might touch on a few lessons from that throughout our chat.
Ewa Banaś: Looking at your experience, I know there is quite a story behind your first career opportunity. Could you share that?.
Nic Sproul: As a young child, I was always fascinated with mechanical objects and innovation. When I was about six or seven, my father bought a new Hi-Fi system. I was so fascinated with how it worked that one evening, I got out of bed and started taking it apart, but I couldn’t put it back together again.
Fast forward to my first job; I wanted to pursue engineering. I went to a technical college for 12 months, sponsored by an engineering organisation. On my first day at the practice, I was introduced to the owner, who gave me my uniform and told me to come back tomorrow after having my hair cut. I had long hair back then and said no, because that doesn’t define my ability as a future engineer.
I lost my job literally that day. Interestingly, that particular company ultimately didn’t survive.
Ewa Banaś: So, how did you actually end up in the insurance industry?.
Nic Sproul: I eventually qualified as a mechanical engineer and navigated towards the Silicon Valley microelectronic industry about 20 years ago. It was the height of the .com boom. We worked on very nerdy Metrology equipment, which was essential for developing future silicon chips. For example, I worked with Ericsson on the Bluetooth chip.
Eventually, due to heavy international travel and my company, Thermal Wave, being acquired, I decided on a career change into management consulting. My first client was an insurance claims management company. I didn’t know much about insurance then, but I was fascinated by the opportunity to improve the sector’s processes.
Ewa Banaś: Is it possible to switch off that inquisitive mindset?.
Nic Sproul: It’s difficult. My kids are similar. For me, sport and flower arranging help me relax. I have an Instagram account, “Nick the florist father”. I find that if I am using the creative part of my brain, I am relaxed; if I am using the analytical part, I am not.
Ewa Banaś: Regarding your story about your hair, it brings up the topic of diversity fueling innovation. How can leaders embrace this to create inclusive environments?.
Nic Sproul: There is a lot of research on this. Last year, I shared a stage with futurologist Richard Watson, who explains that if you have the same types of people trying to solve a problem, you get the same solution.
If you have diverse groups, you get much better outcomes and ideas. I believe the insurance sector is “moving the dial” and doing okay in this regard.
Ewa Banaś: How do we make sure this kind of thinking is encouraged in teams to drive innovation?.
Nic Sproul: In the insurance space, we are looking at a generational change. Currently, many are risk-averse and driven by short-term shareholder value, focusing on the next quarter.
To achieve real innovation, we need a mindset shift where we accept that the next eight quarters might be for investment so that quarter nine onwards can be amazing. We need to create open-mindedness in large institutions. The challenge is to welcome people who “don’t look the same” as the traditional standard.
Ewa Banaś: Cross-functional, interdisciplinary teams are also crucial, right?.
Nic Sproul: Very much so. Startups and scale-ups make it look easy because they are in an incubator, but driving that change in a huge organisation while running the business is hard.
In the claims part of insurance, which is often overlooked compared to underwriting, there is a huge opportunity for innovation because claims represent the biggest expenditure for an insurer.
Ewa Banaś: Do you have any “life hacks” for leaders to implement innovation via these interdisciplinary teams?.
Nic Sproul: I’ll give a tech example from my time at Thermal Wave in California. There was a door I couldn’t access with my security card; it was the R&D lab. They were siloed and didn’t want contact with the rest of the business. When I finally got in, I realised that without communication, Innovation labs might be innovating the wrong things. My advice is to ensure your future innovators are not disconnected from the wider organisation.
Ewa Banaś: So, collaboration is the answer?.
Nic Sproul: I overuse the words collaboration and partnership in every presentation. Collaboration with suppliers is much better now than it was 17 years ago.
Ewa Banaś: How can insurance leaders leverage new tech like AI, IoT, and blockchain?
Nic Sproul: AI will impact all our lives, but we must focus on its ethical use. It is a generational thing; my father wants to talk to a person for reassurance, but future generations will likely use a “digital twin”. This digital version of you will speak to an AI to determine and automatically renew your insurance cover. As Richard Watson says about the future, nobody really knows, but I can certainly visualise that.
Ewa Banaś: Thank you, Nic, for your insights. And thank you to our audience for listening to another IT Insights InsurTalk episode by Future Processing.