In June, I was delighted to participate in a panel at Insurtech Insights USA on “Underwriting Uncovered: The Technologies Revolutionizing Commercial Insurance”. It was great to speak on such a diverse panel and share the insights we have learned at Joyn over our first two years before an audience of insurance industry executives, entrepreneurs, and investors.
While all of my fellow panelists approached the topic from their own diverse experiences, one of the things that I found most interesting over the course of the panel was that, for all of us, getting the data foundation right was top of mind. With all the current buzz around potentially game-changing AI, and as powerful and impressive the latest methodologies are at handling suboptimal data, the panel kept coming back to “strong data foundation” as a key differentiator and the backbone for meaningful insights.
It’s no secret that we are obsessed with data at Joyn: it underpins everything we do in our mission to deliver a best-in-class, joyful insurance experience that saves our clients time, money, and frustration. Without a strong data foundation, even the best processes and algorithms “only accelerate bad decision-making”, as the panel rightly observed.
Joyn’s approach to data is unique within the insurance industry. As a startup, we developed our technology ecosystem from scratch with all the relevant parties at the table – underwriters, operations specialists, developers, data scientists, etc. Each team member thinks of themselves as both a user and a generator of data – truly understanding and internalizing that the data they generate today will be used downstream, even by themselves, to develop insights and evolve the business. That mindset is a powerful forcing mechanism for data integrity, consistency, and efficiency. Bringing these diverse perspectives together enables us to devise an ecosystem that serves the needs of each user group but also dynamically adapts to the ever-changing nature of how each user needs to and wants to interact with data.
Ultimately, one of the exciting takeaways from the panel was how it validated our approach at Joyn, as well as the work that we have done and that we continue to do. Everyone in the industry has realized the importance of data; now, legacy carriers have to spend time and energy within their legacy systems to “liberate their data”, as one panel member put it. Our vision at Joyn from the outset placed a premium on treating data as a high-powered asset that can unlock efficiencies and empower decision-making, and we will continue to rely on it to deliver the experience we promise every day.
Written by Stephan Braig, Chief Innovation Officer at Joyn
