Latest / Breaking the ICE / Episode 6 - Reliability plus Availability equals Reliavability, and Jane Hegeler talks travel assistance in the AI Era

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Episode 6 - Reliability plus Availability equals Reliavability, and Jane Hegeler talks travel assistance in the AI Era · Breaking the ICE

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome back to the Breaking the Ice podcast.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: This is season one, episode six.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_01: For all of you who have been uh uh listening on and waiting on Bated Breath for this week's episode, uh we have an exciting guest this week.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I am joined by uh another colleague here at the Ice Tech family, uh Jane Hegler.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so without further ado, Jane, welcome to the podcast.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: How are you?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well thanks, Elliot.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for letting me be guest number six.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm honored.
• 0:36
  unknown: Yeah.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we would have pushed you further up the queue, but um corporate mandates and all that, right?
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh how are you doing today?
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: I made it this far.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm good, thank you.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: All good in German.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh weather's good over there.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: As you can see, sun is shining, so I'm taking full advantage and sitting in it while we speak.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: Happy days.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: I just realized I have a terrible uh tan line from my watch, which shows you that uh it's sunny here and I've been out uh running lately, which is good.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: What about you?
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: Any any uh any any fun runs?
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, runs, no, it's too hot for that.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Swimming, a lot of outdoor swimming at the minute.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's uh a necessity to cool off.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: We're yeah, we're mid-30s here at the moment, so it's pretty hot.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: But first thing in the morning, it's not it's like no break from it.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's still pretty humid, yeah.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: We start start the day around 25, 26, to the point where you you open the windows.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's pretty cool and it doesn't help.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's horrendous.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's horrendous.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: You need to get in the car and turn the air conditioner on just to get a break from it.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that takes about five minutes to cool down.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: Which is ironically also contributing to the issues.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: So, anyways, uh weather banter aside, uh, it's nice to chat with you.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, do you want to just give a little bit of a background uh and then we can get into it?
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sure.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, um, I think you know my name by now, Jane Hagler.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I've been in the industry for 25 years, my goodness.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um I joined You started in all fairness, you started when you were five years old.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I was I was literally just out of nappies.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, yeah, give me a break, kind of thing.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I um so for those that don't know, um I spent quite a substantial amount of time in Thailand.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: We moved there as an expat family, during which time I was had stints in various organizations, but I was working at the British Embassy at the time, and a friend of mine got sick, needed medical care.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: So took him to the local facility where at that time they didn't have an ultrasound machine, and so I needed to take them to Bangkok Hospital, which I did.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: In Bangkok Hospital, there was an English lady that did translation work and helped the foreign patients, and I was intrigued by this kind of job.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, hey Janet, if you're ever leaving, let me know.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: And lo and behold, she called the embassy one day, and I was like, I'm sending in my resume.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so I started working at a private hospital.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this led me to obviously see a flow of patients coming in, foreign patients, um, utilising travel insurance policies.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then there were the expats, which I was one.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: We fell into that group.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: We all had private policies which were covered by corporates or the organization for which the family worked for.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I started uh reaching out, um, doing a bit of research on the one computer we had for 40 staff members.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, I came across ITIC and joined one of their conferences in Brighton, and that was I think 2001, I believe it was.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um from there, yeah, my my career's just evolved.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: I've been, I was then drafted onto the assistant side of things, which was another exciting challenge.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I've worked around many different medical facilities within the APAC region.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I've worked for assistance companies doing traditional leisure travel to companies looking after defense based acts and workers' comp out of the US in high-risk areas.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um then I came and had my second child and thought I needed a bit of a break.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um and lo and behold, I spoke with you, Elliot.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: And here I am on the uh, as we once know it, is the Nordic insurance software side.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: And ever the salesman, ever the salesman, I sold you on the idea of it being much less uh uh strenuous.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's enough.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: We won't go into actually whether or not that came true.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think we better stop this there.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: We're on we're on the record.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's been it's been four years, it's actually four years.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um well, listen, uh I can say on behalf of everybody, it's been amazing having you on board these four years uh because I feel like the uh industrial knowledge transfer um that you've been able to bring and impart on the on the the teams uh has been invaluable.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I know they still have a long way to go, but uh, you know, uh such is the case with progress, right?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and really, I mean, you know, it's great to have folks with um, you know, lived experience be able to influence uh our products and services.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I know it's something that I've always tried to contribute as well.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, yeah, context matter so much.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I do think it's helped shape our platform uh in a positive way.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we can have very specific conversations that resonate with people because we do have, you know, folks that have lived experience in the industry that understand the importance of assistance uh and um the important components of assistance, right?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: What really matters in order to make sure that somebody's um taken care of from various different stakeholders, right?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: From from the insurer side, uh, you know, from the patient side.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we could distill that into the the product that we're working on.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: So um yeah, amazing, amazing background.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it was it was a delight to hear from you four years ago.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and it's been uh it's been fantastic.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: Jane, you and I travel a lot uh for this job.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um sometimes we cross paths at events and and sometimes uh you know we cover our our respective time zones.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um where are you going to be in the next few months?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I've got a couple of UK trips planned just to see some of our clients.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be joining this conference um in September.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Then we've got IAG, where we will actually join forces um in Istanbul, and that's closely followed by ITIC.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's hopefully taking me to the end of the year.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: There could be a Christmas party in there somewhere.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, but location to be determined, right?
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm waiting to hear from the industry gurus out there that are doing the organizing.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: The the this conference is fantastic.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I mean they've they've done such a great job at curating that event, uh, getting uh, you know, I I think how they started and what they built from a journalism standpoint uh was was great, and they've distilled that into the event.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's really good content that that they're able to bring to light.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: It is, and I think there is the thought from some people in the industry that they are two alike and uh attracting the same clientele as the iTIC conference, but in my opinion, I think it differs drastically in terms of the angle of what we're looking at from an industry perspective, and also you're looking more at there's a lot more insurers and brokers, I feel, that attend this event that are driving the policy side.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, whereas ITIC is still, I think, very much provider assistance kind of focused.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, no, I think it's a great, great achievement and a complement to each other, I think, the respective events.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we're all fishing in the same pond at the end of the day, right?
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: So there's bound to be overlap.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, of course.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: The the the news roundup that they publish is great too.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: I uh I picked up uh a couple of headlines from the last one.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I think four or five of the articles that they published were just acquisitions.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like I was I was shocked to see.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, okay, I'm being a bit hyperbolic.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't shocked, but you know, like for the salesman.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it was uh I mean it's it's been amazing to see how much um MA activity there's been in the travel space.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of brands are getting swept up.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um the one that stood out to me quite notably was Alliance acquired nib in Australia.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you if you picked up on that, but that was hung up for a while because of anti-competition, right?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I think I think regulate like it's it's not so much like insurers acquiring insured tax, like it's big brands that are coming together.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh kind of like Nordic insurance software and and ice, right?
• 9:47
  unknown: Absolutely.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Huge brands.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: But saying that we are we are leaders in our respective areas is on the travel side and on the the P and C.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, um, no, I mean the acquisitions that we've seen over the last six years has been, yeah, it's grown exponentially.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it's it's specific just to the travel market, I think it's to the the world over.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, like you say, I think a lot of I don't know what I'm seeing or what I what I think I'm seeing or hearing is that yeah, there's a lot of the multinationals buying a from an insurer perspective.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: But when it comes down to assistance, although there are some acquisitions going on, I do think that some of the bigger companies still rely heavily on those independent organizations that are running in their respective small areas, whether that be in Sudan or in Bali or Vietnam, for example.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I do still think that there is there are a lot of smaller independent companies out there.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: We just maybe don't see the visibility at the high-level end of the spectrum.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: They're being used, but along the along the uh the chain.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think that that sort of segues into a separate point on uh you know AI and and technological advancement in assistance, which I want to get to, but just going back to the merger side, do you feel like the market is getting smaller?
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Or I mean because that would be that would be the the implied outcome, right?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Is if all of this acquisition activity is happening, it's just a lot of bigger fish and and fewer of the bigger fish.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't know if I've felt the ripples of that yet.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in terms of so obviously I'm not coming from an insurer per se background.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: From an insurance, you know, we still see all the various different brands out there.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um but when it comes down to the actual claims and assistance side of things, I think that there are you are seeing actually underwritten into policies a lot fewer.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas years ago you would have, you know, now you can pick up pretty much, I would say in the UK, any policy, and I could look on what's the number that you call, and it's we know those guys, they're one of the big guys.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: You're not picking up on the smaller organizations or the independents anymore.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: You're looping into a big part.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so yeah, maybe, maybe the market is shrinking in that sense in terms of the names that are being flung around, but I I still think behind the scenes, there are still a lot of smaller companies there, but we're just not having that direct interaction or visibility of them.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: I I think um what do you think?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: There's definitely well, I think there's definitely consolidation happening, but I think there's a couple of interesting macro factors that are bringing new entrants into the market.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't actually think the market's getting smaller or like the target addressable market is getting smaller.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, first of all, travel's a global industry by definition.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so you get a lot of um globalization from a sort of regional or branch office standpoint, right?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think you have successful multinational insurers that have the ability by way of travel to scale to new markets, right?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: Umsurer X might not have a brand in um, you know, country Y, right?
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: So they've got a successful business running elsewhere, they don't have presence in country Y, you know, they can become a new entrant without being a startup, so to speak, right?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there's a lot of that happening across North America, across Europe.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: We're seeing established brands take up roots.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and I think the other thing that's happening is, or the other reason why that's happening is because travel insurance awareness is permeating across multiple channels, right?
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not just and it's not just like consumer awareness.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like the UK is the Mecca for all insurance.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: You can go to Sainsbury's and buy a policy, right?
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's crazy.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: But I think parking the UK for a second, you know, the way that travel insurance is distributed is is becoming more aware from a B2B standpoint.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so there's a lot more B2B partnerships happening.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: And because there's more B2B partnerships happening, there's more corporate partnerships happening, there's more travel being embedded into employee benefit schemes, into credit card schemes, into your bank account offering, whatever the case might be, uh you're you're just getting an uptick overall in coverage.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: And and and look, insurance, regulated insurance is so heavily saturated, I think insurers are always looking for new lines that aren't yet as saturated.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I think travel pr uh travel presents that for them.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I think we're we're we are seeing like a churn of of new faces in because of those factors.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, definitely.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think we've seen an increase in travel over the from um from a perspective of the UK.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um travel was something that in the past um not everybody would invest in it.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: They're just okay, it will never happen to me.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um so they didn't buy it.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: We've seen lots of incidents that have caused people to reconsider that approach, but we're also looking at the markets around Asia, around Africa.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you can afford to travel, you can afford to pay for a hospital bill.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: So why take out insurance?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Nowadays that has completely changed.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, I think there's a a huge growth in in the travel market on a on a bigger, wider global scale.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's actually a great point, right?
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: Medical cost inflation is making insurance a much better more sound investment for travelers, right?
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and just globalization in general, right?
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: There's more, yeah.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you were you were one of the early expat families, right?
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: But the reality is it's you know, you've got glob like digital nomads now, you've got this whole new cachet of of expat um workers, a lot of them independent consultants.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like you know, corporate um assignments, so they need to go out and find their own insurance.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's yeah, it's a it's a it's a it's a much more traveled world, right?
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think if I listened to my parents, their holidays was one day at the beach a year.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um it was a day in the car, everybody wore their suits and their best clothes and went to, you know, it was a travel was a luxury.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: People didn't travel like they do nowadays.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Getting on a plane is like getting on a bus for many people, me including.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: So so now just pivoting a little bit into the point that you were talking about, which is the unique nature of assistance and and you know, where where technology is going to be able to provide advancement and efficiency and and where it's not.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, what's what's your take on the the current state of play in the assistance space and and and then you know after that we can talk about what comes next.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean I've I've seen it from the beginning where assistance was done on a notepad and a mobile phone, and then we evolved into Excel spreadsheets to actually having dedicated systems.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um where we are today, I think the big players out there know that they need Swedot because they cannot make any um they cannot make any profit if they don't provide the efficiencies through the use of technology.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I think you know, we've seen it, lots of people have spoken about, you know, um straight through processing, keeping the human in the loop, um, you know, that automation is key.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: But the reality is that I believe a lot of small companies are adopting it as well.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just the big players anymore, it's not the ones with the huge budgets.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Things can be done um at all levels across the food chain when it comes to the assistance world.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I think when you've got assistance operations, you want to clear out a simple, straightforward, smooth stuff.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay, got you know, you've broken your arm, your flight's delayed, we've got it sorted, blah, blah, blah.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: For those get that case done using automation as much as possible with forwarding tickets, changing flights, um, processing claims to letting the human actually still focus on on the um those that really are in need, those that are really in the dire situations, that are stuck overseas and don't have a lot of options.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I think there's been a huge increase over the last five years specifically.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then where we are today with yeah, AI, um we're in a different, we're in a different world.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think a lot of people are talking about it.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how many are really actually using it, other than the ones that we personally know of, um, some of our client base, for example, um, just because we have to be very, very careful.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's a fine line, um, regulatory-wise, um, and they're dangerous tools if they're not used correctly and not have got the right guidance.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think where we're heading is that we're gonna be in a position where lots of things will never touch, we won't that that border row that's produced, that's the only time anybody gets knowledge of those claims.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um other than the the big spendouts where um obviously somebody's been in a pretty bad situation.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: Lots to unpack there.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the the one thing that jumps immediately to mind though is just on the regulatory side of things.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm I'm I'm actually quite positively encouraged by how uh how much more proactive regulators are treating AI and and working with industry on AI.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: The EU just published their latest AI regulatory framework.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: They can find uh AI firms up to 3% of revenue.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, that's sort of the the max cap, which for some of the industries, I mean, that's significant, right?
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: And you're talking billions of dollars.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I find it a positive and encouraging step because I feel like you know, we as a firm are very well positioned, focusing specifically on reliability or reliability, availability, scalability.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's you know, we we've invested so much in our security uh and infrastructure.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I'm encouraged by it.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that in regulators being more proactive, it's going to weed out a lot of bad actors early on.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: No, I think I think it's very that the regulator has got the framework in place and the guidelines or their regulation.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think it's critical at this stage because as we know, in in all industries, there are the cowboys out there.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: And sadly, with the industry we work in, this is real people, this is real personal sensitive information and data.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: So it's critical that um it's obviously dealt with in a professional and safe manner.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: If you are uh particularly interested uh to the listenership and the viewership in reliability, reliability, availability, and scalability, we will have an episode coming out focusing on that in the coming weeks.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: So uh pay attention.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um and stay tuned.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh going back to it though, the other point that you made, right, is just uh keeping um uh human touch in the assistance world.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's a duty of care in assistance, you know, there's a human element to providing support in time of crisis.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: I think assistance will never be automated for that reason.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know, I I think I think it's it's it's impossible.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean you can you can disseminate as much decision making as possible.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: You can outsource that to machines as much as possible.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: But at the end of the day, humans still want to interact with humans in time of crisis.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think there's always going to need to be uh human touch points.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's throughout the life of an assistance journey, right?
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's not just at initial point of contact I think it's it's it's taking care of somebody to make sure they're made whole at the end of the day.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: As long as we have feelings we're going to need human interaction in those times of needs and we need empathy as well.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's not everybody's uh cup of tea.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um but who knows where we'll be Elliot.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: I hope we never have to eat our words because I do believe humans will always be needed in the assistance world but as we become desensitized and robotic who knows we might not want that anymore.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: We might we might want the full automated um I'm not saying me but as you know he might in general who knows where we'll be in 20 years time, 50 years time.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah yeah the next generation we both have young kids the next generation is a bit scary to think about uh what what what what their life is going to be like in 20 years right but but I think yeah going back to that that assistance assistance really is where you demonstrate and show what you invested in when you became a policy holder in your insurance and I think going back to the whole AI piece is that if you don't do it right this day and age social media everything is negative and you are scarred that leads back to who was the what was the brand of insurance that person bought and so when you're asking chat GPT you know who is the best travel insurer out there all of those things inter interlink.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah that's still that assistance um input and interaction and smooth just basically holding hands with that person in need at that time um feeds back into the whole yeah AIPs automate all the simple stuff but yeah keep that focus yeah look I mean insurance by definition is is risk mitigation right so so I think there's always going to be uh there's never going to be the first movers you know being the insurers um I am I am interested to get your thoughts though in terms of like where where will where can tech the tech of today help assistance companies innovate uh I obviously also you know have thoughts on this but um in terms of what's available on the market today I mean what's what can assistance companies do right now to um help optimize how they're um supporting patients but also you know how that how they can provide better services to their clients the insurers or corporations or wherever the case might be I think yeah and this is this is not um a mark is this is not a sales pitch but I think some of the tools that we have for example with Orchestrator is that when we have a case um we have somebody at the end of the phone that AI can provide us with a quick overview of their PMH I'm not talking the checklist of yes they've got hypertension yes they've got high blood pressure give me it in a couple of sentences what am I dealing with here so that I've got that full view already so I know um you know what direction how severe is this situation um also in terms of location of patients um where are they AI and some of the tools can be used to you know ensure that the patient is in the the right facility early on without having to wait for the patient to tell you that hold on I don't think I've got the right level of care here this country is not the best country for me.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I think there's things that can be done that we don't it shouldn't just necessarily be relying on the assistance worker which it quite often is it's about experience and knowledge of working in the industry for a long time.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think AI can be taking some of this intelligence we can the machine learning basically and helping hold hand of the assistance worker while they're holding the hand of the the insured um that was that was amazingly amazingly subtle Jane you're you're gonna be brought back for episode seven for sure.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah see you next week yeah um no I I think I'd have practiced if I'd have known I'd be saying this yeah uh I think what underlies that is I mean for me it's two things right I mean the two quick wins for assistance companies which are actually quite impactful uh and and are iteratable in the future are you know data quality data integrity for data analysis purposes and connectivity right and I think connectivity maybe sometimes gets sort of glossed over as this foregone conclusion but I honestly think that's one of the lowest hanging fruit for uh assistance companies is being able to connect to a a disparate you know set of systems or being able to connect to the the broader world that you're servicing um assistance is tremendously network dependent and I don't mean that like provider network I mean I mean like you belong to a broad ecosystem.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: You have to worry about constantly changing exchange rates, you know, multiple different languages that you're supporting uh multiple different channels of communication whether it's voice or uh you know web chat or text or whatever the case might be and modern APIs, modern systems should give you the ability to scale your services across all those channels but then also synthesize all the other uh you know components to your um services that that that you're going to need in real time.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: Like I said, whether it's foreign exchange rates, whether it's making payments more seamless, uh, you know settling uh settling outstanding payments in a more seamless way.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean these are all incremental improvements that you can build into your operations that help you compete.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely yeah and then the byproduct of that is just better data right I mean so you connect all of these things together you have a a cleaner picture to then sell to you know your prospective clients on the insurance side or you know on on the the B2B or corporate side right if if you have that more connected picture uh you know if if you have um transcripts that you can learn from if you have uh a history of provider claims payments that you can then use to you know negotiate pricing on like yeah all of that are there they're small incremental improvements but but you know when you add them all up it can be uh pretty substantial in in competing in uh a pretty interestingly competitive market absolutely and and it is a competitive market it it is um and as you yeah regardless of the size of the the industry the market itself is very niche everybody knows each other so I think it's yeah it's important to have these advantages over your competitors and the knowledge sharing what you say Elliot it's not just for you to reach out to your clients it's for you to share with your clients for them to write better business for them to know what you know the insured are are looking for needing and what the limits should be again I mean I think a couple macro factors here I mean money follows uh where there's opportunity investment follows where there's opportunity it's not a saturated market you know there it's going to become more competitive because it's not yet commoditized.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's not a race to the bottom from a pricing standpoint.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: There's still the opportunity to differentiate and add value and and so competition's going to increase technology has also become less expensive so it's democratizing the industry it's it's lowering the barriers to entry to the industry right so uh you know I I do anticipate a lot of new entrants a lot more competition in the future uh which is exciting because the the the the end result is better and safer travel for everyone which is what we all want.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah absolutely yeah no I I I know I know you've got to uh run in a few minutes um anything else I mean that we didn't cover that you want to chat about before we uh let you go here no um I don't know um I just think yeah let's just be honest this industry is never boring and I think um you know like we like I said I mentioned earlier it's not just the big players that are out there it's everybody everybody's important and key to this industry and as you say as tech has evolved it's now it's no longer just sitting with the big guys to take the lead the small companies are out there doing some really cool innovative things with technology and I think they work hand in hand to to making this industry and giving it the reputation it deserves not just when there's been a bad uh assistance case and somebody's upset because we didn't take them home when they were drunk and on a stagda and had dived into a swimming pool and your policy doesn't cover you um you know that it that it genuinely deserves so yeah it was funny I was in um I was in Kenya in March and so we were uh meeting with a lot of uh you know regional African um service providers and assistance companies and we were doing this uh sort of like case uh almost like a uh what's the word I'm looking for um sort of like a uh simulation of different scenarios and as we were going through the different scenarios I mean one was about finding a service provider in remote Uzbekistan and and needing to worry about the topography and and you know it's not just like finding the closest provider but navigating through mountain ranges and and all I could think was like gosh there's so much opportunity now with technology to provide better service.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely at the click of a button you can you can do so much better and richer research into how to solve problems.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's such an exciting time to be in this industry.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: It is yeah I mean I've been around like like we both have for a while now and yeah it's never it doesn't get boring.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: It just there's always a new challenge or something um that's evolving that just keeps you intrigued and keeps you enticed into never wanting to work in a normal regular industry basically um yeah I don't think I'll be moving anywhere fast.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_01: No no no well that's good for us as well.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: So um Jane it was lovely speaking with you uh and recording it on camera uh just all the times we chat on a weekly basis.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's great having you on thank you for uh sharing your your knowledge and wisdom with with all of us today I'm sure we'll have you on again in the future and for anybody that wants to uh get a hold of Jane or interact with her you can certainly find her on LinkedIn you have pretty active presence on LinkedIn and yeah I guess uh you'll like you said you'll be at the this conference that's beginning of October end of September uh that's uh 22nd of September so I wish I'll stay in London um Istanbul or if you're ever in the Frankfurt region let me know perfect perfect perfect right Jane thank you so much uh until next time