Insurtech Building Blocs Podcast: Episode 1

If you're curious about the Insurtech landscape and how the movers and shakers of the industry are progressing, join Cory Schmidt, Co-Founder & CTO at AgencyBloc, on Insurtech Building Blocs each month, premiering January 2024, available everywhere you download your favorite podcasts. 

Insurtech Building Blocs is presented by AgencyBloc, the #1 Recommended Insurance Industry Growth Platform serving the benefits and senior market space with 6,500+ customers across multiple solutions within the platform. With a range of insurance-specific solutions for sales enablement, client and policy management, compliance management, quoting and proposals, and commissions management — all with highly recommended customer support — we've got you covered.

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Transcript for the Episode

Note: CS denotes Cory Schmidt, and TR denotes Tim Robinson.

TR: Hey, everybody. Welcome to this edition, actually our, our first one, our first edition of the Insurtech Building Blocs podcast. I'm Tim Robinson, CEO of AgencyBloc joined here today by Cory Schmidt co-founder and CTO. Cory, great to see you.  

CS: Yeah. Great to see you excited for our, our first foray into this into this podcast. 

TR: Maybe we'll start off with you know, by the time most of you listen to this, or by the time you listen to this, we'll have celebrated Christmas and New Year's but I know Cory and I and a couple other leaders on the team love grilling love the, the Komodo Joes and the, and the green eggs.

TR: Cory, I know you've got a sizable family. So what what do you guys have in store? What do you, what are you thinking? What's going to be on the menu? Yeah.  

CS: Well, I just picked up a pork butt, so definitely doing that at some point to be able to, you know, have leftovers through the holidays, but also likely doing a brisket over New Year's, so I'm, my wish list has a fireboard, I think, on it, so hopefully that'll take all the guesswork out and keep the, keep the grill at the right temp so I can get some, some sleep and it can just cook overnight, so I'm gonna hopefully be trying that out assuming, assuming Santa Claus pulls through, so. 

CS: How about you, Tim? Love it. 

TR: Well, on the, on the fireboard, you're going to definitely have to give a product review when, when we do the next one of these. Now we'll be doing a turkey  and then we'll be doing a beef tenderloin. So and Yeah, we'll, we'll do a spatchcock version of the, of the turkey and then do a nice slow cook on the tenderloin.

TR: So excited about that. May have to sneak a ham in there as well. And just last thing, I, I don't know if you heard Bob, our, our product leader, he said it's great to do the shishito peppers on the Komodo Joe green eggs as well. So we'll, we have to report out on that. That might be on the list. 

CS: Oh, nice.

CS: Yeah, I might have to try that. 

TR: Well  let's move on to the world of Insurtech.  Cory, you know, agency for, for those that may not know AgencyBloc you know, it's a business that's it's been around for 15 years. Cory and, and his business partner Adam Lewis started it now is it, was it officially Cedar Falls or Des Moines or was it kind of coast cities?

TR: Who would claim the fame there?

CS: I think Cedar Falls probably has the claim to fame on original OG headquarters for AgencyBloc.  

TR: Okay. All right. That's, that's a, that's a great town. Enjoyed spending time there this last last week. So why don't you give us a little bit on the, on the journey? I think it'd just be great for people to understand the quick journey of AgencyBloc and kind of some of the things that you've seen in the industry over, over the last 15 years. 

CS: Yeah, sure. Be happy to. Yeah. So for those that don't know the story, we actually started a website design and development firm called Spinutech prior to AgencyBloc. And that was actually kind of the the genesis for what AgencyBloc became as a, as a business and as a, as a platform. We had built a, a couple of custom agency management solutions for some large MGAs in Iowa.

CS: And, And kind of had the realization,  you know, that there was a really interesting product play. Obviously, SaaS was really picking up steam in that, in that 2008 time frame. And Adam and I also just realized that we wanted to kind of get away from the service business and get into something where we could really invest in a product long term.

CS: You know, continuing to invest in it, build the platform, get customers on board, and then just continue to expand from there. So, That was really the impetus for AgencyBloc. And so we launched officially in 2008. You know, we, we tried the field of dreams approach, you know, where you build it and they will come and it didn't quite turn out that way.

CS: So we realized we had to, you know, invest in the team and really build the company from there. But we actually hired our first full-time team member in 2012. You know, and I think from there, it really things just started to take off, you know, word of mouth amongst our customer base. And even though we built it for MGA's and that was really the core you know, cut the ideal customer profile. Starting out, we really gained a lot of traction with the retailers like the small retailers that we're just trying to move from spreadsheets or managing their business and Outlook and things like that to a true, you know, agency management solution that could solve.

CS: You know, much more of their needs. And so incredibly fortunate just to have a team that really invested in our customers' success. And we always really kept the customer at the center. And so a lot of our growth was 99 percent inbound over the, you know, over the 10 year time period where we, you know, expanded from a few hundred customers to, you know, today approaching 4, 000 on our AMS.

CS: You know, solution. Obviously, we have customers on some of our other products as well. But you know, I think it just proved out if you just keep this, the customer at the center and just continue to invest and make them more successful you know, they're going to continue to, to, to want to use the product and, and really be great partners with us as we continue to invest in, in, in what we're doing here at AgencyBloc, which I'm sure we'll talk about kind of some of the things that are coming out next year for those customers, but really a great story. Obviously today we have. You know, about  120 team members and across all the products, you know, around 6, 000 customers.

CS: And you know, a lot has changed since 2008 you know, when we started this, but just incredibly fortunate to get to this point. And You know, you hear all the stories about starting a, starting a business and we had our, we had our fair share of failures in there as well before, before AgencyBloc.

CS: But just incredibly fortunate to have the team that we do today and in such a strong devoted customer base as well.  

TR: It's funny how a quote-unquote overnight success takes 15 years to happen or maybe 10 years, right? Whatever it is. But it is, I think it is great. The AgencyBloc team, you know, prior to my joining here just a little while ago, really did a great job staying focused on the needs of the of the customer, to your point, and not deviating away from that. And  I think over that time as well, like similar in other service industries,  there's,  there's been a real benefit to technology, right, to  adding, being able to be more efficient in managing the business, being able to scale.

TR: Sales as well. But then there's also the, the end customer, the client, that that's just an expectation, right? That if, if I'm going to buy a product or a service from you you got to communicate with me the way that I want to be communicated with and you're going to. Deliver it in a format that I want to, that I feel like I should consume it in.

TR: And I, I think that's probably an important piece that's transitioned as well. I'm sure  15 years ago, it was a lot of sitting at the kitchen table or whatever it might be talking about these insurance products. And now what we've seen is. You can do it over the phone, you can have video sessions, you can do screen shares.
 

TR: There's a lot, a lot of different ways that, that agents and brokers can effectively communicate and assist, their customers.  

CS: Yeah, certainly the demographic of our customer base has shifted over time, you know, both as a result of the, you know, some of the you know, a lot of the producers retiring and younger folks getting into the industry, but also the thing you mentioned, Tim, with just the shift that's happening to adopting technology and really leveraging technology to make yourself, you know more scalable as an organization and more effective.

CS: I think that maybe one of the most exciting times, this might sound strange, but most exciting times in our history was we had a, a brief outage in 2020 during AEP. And I think that it really makes you realize how reliant folks are on technology. And obviously, you never liked to talk about outages, especially as the CTO of the company.

CS: You don't want to tell people you had an outage, but I think it was evidence of the importance of the product of the platform to the everyday operations of our customers. And when you realize like the first thing they do when they get to the office is, or when they get on their computer in the mornings, they log into AgencyBloc and it's probably the last thing that they, they log out of every, every night.

CS: That's really when you realize like how important you are to your customers and how important it is to, to live up to that commitment.  

TR: Yeah, I love, I love that example. And we haven't had an outage during AEP. So let's, you know, it's a disclaimer, right? 

CS: I think I think AEP technically ended a few days ago.

CS: So I would, you know, I know there's SEP that goes through mid-January, but Yeah, I think we breathe a little sigh of relief every year. We finish AEP because it is, you know, it's go time for a lot of our customers. 

TR: That's right. That's right. It's and you know, so, so rewarding, so powerful to be such an integral part, right, of our customers and, and how they can meet the needs of their end clients or customers is just really, for me, really rewarding knowing that.

TR: We fit right in that value chain and that ecosystem. And,  you know, the expectation is that we're making it easier for our customers to provide services and products to, to their customers.  We're making them more efficient, right? More operationally efficient. So more profitable in the end, we also, some of the exciting things that we have coming up here in 24 we're also going to be enabling.

TR: The sales, right? Even more. There's, there's always been a portion of that in the product and the core AgencyBloc product, but man, there's so much more coming out in 24 that we're going to really help our, our customers really grow and, and be able to do it in a tech-enabled fashion. So do you want to,  Talk a little bit about that?

CS: Oh yeah, I would love to. I mean, it's probably the biggest evolution of our platform since the beginning of AgencyBloc. You know, we started more focused on back office and really policy management, you know, servicing of the customers and a little bit about a year ago we had the opportunity to to get close with the team over at Radius Clu and Danielle and some of those folks and really understand.

CS: How they had been really successful on kind of the other end of the market, which is more of the front office. Supporting kind of the lead management, sales enablement you know managing closing leads and, and that was something that, that we hadn't really invested in quite as much in, in the AgencyBloc platform.

CS: And so for those of you who don't know, we acquired Radius in December of 2022 and really quickly recognized the value of bringing the products together. And so. We've spent the majority of the last year almost entirely focused on bringing these platforms together. Just a really compelling kind of value proposition for our customers is, you know, how do I manage my leads?

CS: How do I grow my business? And that's a theme we hear pretty frequently when we ask, like, what's the single most important thing to your agency? And so Really excited that we're going to be launching the combined AgencyBloc solution that has the sales enablement Radius components as part of it now called AMS Plus.

CS: We'll be launching that in January. We've had some customers in beta, and got a lot of really great feedback on that front as well. And this is really kind of the next evolution of the platform is really solving for the front office as well as we do on the, on the back office side. And it's all fully integrated.

CS: It's not two separate products that you're logging into. You don't have to go to different places to do things like SOA. And if you want to do you know calling and, and call recording and compliance things that are a big part of the Medicare market. You don't have to go to multiple solutions.

CS: Now you can do it all in one consolidated platform that serves all those needs. It’s been a fabulous journey bringing the products together and making everything work seamlessly for our customers. We couldn't be more excited about what this will do for our product and how it’s going to help our customers be more successful and continue to grow.

CS: And I know, Tim, you joined this year, but I’m curious how you've seen this come together, because a lot has happened in such a short amount of time.

TR: Yeah, it's really been exciting. The reality is, in a fairly short period of time, we’ve watched the teams and the organizations come together and truly rally around this core purpose—which, as you mentioned earlier, is that the customers are at the center of everything we do.

TR: When we think about the products and solutions we bring to market, the feedback we've received from prospects and customers we've shown the products to—as well as from other individuals in the industry whom we consider thought leaders—has been incredibly valuable in gaining those perspectives.

TR: It’s rare to have that kind of confirmation or affirmation when you go through this process and know that you’re truly hitting the mark. We’re incredibly excited about that. It’s also rare to see a solution that meets the needs of both the front end or front office with sales enablement, engaging prospects and customers, and all of those activities, while also having the strength on the back end to manage customers, commissions, and policies.

TR: And it's. It does it at scale, which I think is amazing. The other thing that I get really excited about is our team members, the tenure of our team members and their expertise in the space. And when you talk to a support rep or an onboarding person or a sales rep or anyone else in the organization,  they, they have a deep domain knowledge around the health and benefits and life insurance markets or segments.

TR: And specifically in how you can leverage technologies to be successful, right? Cause we're having conversations, so many conversations every day. About how powerful it is or solving problems. Hey, I'm not sure if you've seen this, but I'm trying to do X, Y, or Z. And just through the power of knowledge share, there's a lot of true benefit that comes out of that.

TR: So definitely always love seeing the feedback from customers through our, through our, our successes channel that we share internally and how exciting. Customers are about well, I really wasn't sure how to do commissions before, you know, certain elements of the commissions and spent time with, you know, this person.

TR: And I feel so much better about my business and where I'm at and ability to take on more customers. So  that for me has been just great. I also truly like the our, our customers or the end market. You know, as we, we talked about in the intro to the podcast, you know, I. I come from several different vertical industries anything from financial advisory, P&C homeowner associations, property management companies, lawn care, pest control, okay, I won't bore you guys, but like a lot of different end markets.

TR: And. What I really enjoy about this one, and it's similar to the, financial advisor and P&C side is that there is a deep passion or concern for our customers to help their clients with their needs, right? Whether it's Medicare, Medicare supplements health benefits, life insurance, ancillary products, if it's helping a carrier.

TR: Show up in certain channels so that they can promote their products more effectively. That's, that's incredibly powerful to know that you're, you're a part of that.  

CS: Totally agree. And in fact, I think you know, the, the most common reason that I hear folks that we talked to about why they got into this industry, it's because they wanted to help people.

CS: Like this is really an important aspect of, you know, of anyone's wellbeing is there. They're health, right? Their health and well-being. And that's, that's really where, you know, these products fit you know, into that puzzle. And so I, I think that's really neat to see that, you know, our customers genuinely want to make people's lives better.

CS: And that's why they have many of them got into this industry. So I think there's still, you know, a lot to learn from our customers as well. Obviously, we feel like with what we're launching with AMS Plus we've. We've really listened and, and kind of delivered on a lot of that. I, I think one of our well, our, our VP of sales, I think says we, we're, we're delivering seven of the top 10 customer and prospect feedback items with this launch, which is pretty incredible.

CS: But we can't stop here. Like we have to keep listening. And I think I'm pretty excited about, you know, us bringing on other folks onto this podcast as well, to really understand. Like what's happening in the broader industry? I know that the last 10 minutes maybe sounds like more of an advertisement about the product But I'm genuinely just a curious person.

CS: I want to understand what's happening in the industry and how we can help Where we fit in?  you know, I think it's it's it's why we've been successful, but we really are partners with our customers. And so again, excited to bring on some other folks with different perspectives about what they're seeing in the market, both on the, you know, the individual and senior Medicare side of things, as well as group benefits and what's happening over there.

CS: I mean, we have We have customers on, on both sides, a lot of customers that do both both product lines. So yeah, I think it's going to be a I, I look at this as more of a, a really interesting learning experience than maybe anything else.  

TR: Yeah, I, I couldn't agree more and for those, those of you who may not know, we,  added FormFire to the family here.

TR: Boy, a little over a year ago which is more on the quoting and enrollment side of things for group benefits and that has been great. We've learned, you know, candidly as a, as a leadership team, as an organization, we've learned a lot about that end of the market or that segment of the market.

TR: And for me, it feels like.  We've evolved that product set and gotten it to a place that there's a broad even broader appeal  Driving even you know even greater value prop. So really looking forward to see that product set In the market, getting feedback from customers and prospects, and, and as you mentioned, finding,  finding great market fit.

TR: If we’re bringing products and services to market that, as we’ve talked about in this podcast, make a meaningful difference in the success of your business, then we know we’ve been successful. I’m really looking forward to that part of the journey as well.

CS: Absolutely. Quote Plus is our new branding for that, that solution.

CS: I think that officially launched earlier this summer. We’re also going to continue investing in integrating the products across our platform, because that’s important. Again, how do we enable our agency customers to be more efficient? We want to eliminate situations where they have to enter the same data or perform the same tasks more than once. That’s one of our goals: to solve problems for our customers, and we need to think intentionally about how to do that. So we’re excited to continue investing in integrations across the product lines as well.

TR: So let's, let's talk about some perspectives here on the, on the industry from what we've heard. One of the, excuse me, one of the great things is that we have. A really broad and diverse customer base. We've got. Anywhere from large carriers to regional carriers, we've got small, smaller retail agencies.

TR: We've got IMO relationships we've got GAs, MGAs. We've got the whole alphabet soup, right? And one of the nice things about that is it gives us an opportunity to have conversations, get perspectives from different portions of the, of the market, of the industry.  I think one of the things that we've heard is that this, this AEP season was, was strong in general, was a strong season  Cory, any, any insights or things that you'd like to share from, from some of your convos?

CS: Yeah, we’re also pretty well connected with some of the technology providers in that space, including the quoting and enrollment solutions that those retailers are using. All indications are that activity is up significantly over last year, which is a great sign for our customers in the Medicare space. They’re continuing to grow their books of business and find solid products for their clients. It also continues the trend we’ve been seeing, and there’s a lot of data out there about Medicare Advantage enrollment specifically and the growth in that area.

CS: I think it continues the trend of the past few years. There are certainly some headwinds, and I know there are topics we’ll probably dig into on this podcast related to what’s going on with CMS and some of the changes in that industry specifically. But the good news is that growth continues on that front, and it’s likely why we’re seeing an outsized number of new agencies joining our platform, or existing agencies growing in the Medicare space. That’s not to say that group benefits or employee benefits are not still a substantial part of the industry, but the majority of the growth does seem to be coming from the Medicare and senior benefits space.

TR: Yeah, that certainly aligns with what I’ve read and what I’ve heard in conversations as well. On the employee benefits side, there is growth, but over the last few years it has definitely become more complex, especially with the need to adhere to various regulations and stipulations.

TR: So I think the complexity has increased as well. And I believe there are opportunities we’d love to explore and discuss with others about how we can help deliver content and insights to our customers and to the industry. When you have to go seek information, it creates a significant barrier, but when that information is delivered to you in a meaningful and timely way, it provides a high benefit and a high reward.

TR: So  I think we're, we're going to be working on some pretty exciting things there to, to help the industry as well.  

CS: Absolutely. Our customers often tell us that one of the most beneficial aspects of our annual conference, BlocBuilder—which has evolved quite a bit over the years—is the opportunity to learn about best practices and the tools their peers in the industry are using. Gaining that insight helps them understand how to continue growing, evolving, and becoming better agency operators. That’s a common theme we hear.

CS: And I think that fits right into that realm, Tim, of trying to invest in educational content—content that our customers, and even their customers, would be interested in as they work to better understand the insurance products available, how those products fit in, and how they can make people’s lives better.

TR: All right, well, I think we’ve covered a lot here in this first episode. I’ll be looking for a review on the fireboard as well as the outcome of the smoking. Cory, it was great to have you here on the podcast. I really enjoyed the discussion, and thanks, everybody, for listening.

TR: Please provide feedback. We want this to be as interactive as possible, including the content we bring and the topics we cover. We already have some great guests lined up, and we look forward to having you back for the next podcast. Thanks, everyone.

Posted on Tuesday, January 30, 2024 in Podcast