Revolutionizing Insurance with AI

Full transcript

Welcome back to the podcast guys today I'm joined by Jennifer Doty who is the vice president at 3Flow. Jennifer welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here. So Jennifer could you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you guys do at 3Flow. Absolutely. So I lead our customer operations team and what 3Flow is all about. 3Flow is a technology platform. It's a benefit placement system that helps group insurance carriers you. brokers more effectively exchange data for quoting and rating and quotes and renewals, right? And so in the group insurance industry, there is a lot of back and forth when group insurance brokers are looking to select policies with their carriers. And so we allow carriers and brokers to have a common platform, a gold copy source of data that they will leverage and be able to leverage and keep consistent and maintained on a go forward basis. And so it's really a shared system for them to leverage in a more efficient way.

And if you look at the industry that you are in, what are you seeing as kind of the major trend right now going on? Yeah, so technology is a huge disruptor, right? We've all talked about AI for a very long time now. It really hasn't been that long, but it feels like it's been a long time, right? And so looking at how we can leverage AI as we go forward, right, you think about whether it's AI agents or leveraging AI for processes and what I do in my day -to -day job when I think about driving a more efficient and better customer experience for our users, it's how can I make that process more efficient leveraging technology? What are the moments that matter for a customer or a user that we can make easier, more streamlined, less touches to a keyboard? That's really what we leverage AI for. And so there is so much opportunity and we think about the future of space and where we can really create much more efficiencies. Thank you. Yeah, Thank you.

so we've taken a lot of our processes that we use to build out, whether it's client lists or leveraging how we ingest documentation, right? You think about a plan for a group insurance carrier, includes rates, includes attributes, plan designs, a lot of information, and we're leveraging AI to read that information so that we can upload that data very quickly into our system, like within minutes, which is incredible, right? you. so this is a lot different than the past, which, you know, most group insurance carriers would have to literally spreadsheet the policy information. And that means they're taking a Word document or a PDF and they're typing what's in a Word document and putting it somewhere else, right? And so by leveraging AI, we can put it all into a shared system for them where they can look across a variety of plans, see what's different, see what's the same, and create the best recommendation for their clients, right? So we just allow that speed really, really helps. What would you say differentiates 3Flow from other companies?

I would say we lead from a technology perspective, which is incredible. And we are a team of people who the majority of us came from the group carrier and the broker space. And so many of us have, you know, a decade or more, I would tell you, I have decades, plural, in that you. space. And so we know where the blockers are, we know where the roadblocks are, we know what slows people down. And so we really come at it from a user perspective, a customer first perspective, to make sure that what we're designing and what we're developing has that customer in mind, first and foremost, because if it doesn't matter to them, it shouldn't matter to us, right? And it's really all about how do we make their life easier? And so we pride ourselves that we've got that perspective, first and foremost, in the front of our minds at all times. That's wonderful. And I guess it's not all rainbows and sunshines, right? Oh, correct. Correct. A lot of rainbows and unicorns over here.

so while you are scaling your team, can you think of some kind of challenge that you've overcome in the past? I think I would say that, you know, the goals of how do we scale profitably, right, is always a challenge, right? How do we continue to reinvent what we're doing? And, you know, we started by leveraging, leveraging vendors, outsourcing workflows, and now we're moving into why wouldn't we leverage AI first and foremost for those transactions, right? And so it's a constant moving target, right? And when you're leading teams of people, that is hard. I've led teams of people for decades now, and that's hard, right? The constant change, right? Even when it's for the good, Thank it can sometimes be really hard on people, you. right? When they wake you. up and every three months, they're you. going to be able to do it. And so I think to be comfortable and successful in this environment, you need to you.

realize that you're going to wake up on Monday, and then maybe by Friday, what you did on Monday doesn't matter anymore, and you're going to do something differently, right? And so you've got to be really flexible and agile in this space you. because it keeps, as we know, the technology is moving faster and faster and faster. And so what Thank you. would have done maybe a couple months ago is no longer important, right? Or there's a new way of doing it, a better way of doing it. And so when people are involved, right, that's always hard, right? Because you've got emotions and you've got feelings. And how do you feel about what you get to do? And so how do you get people with you on that train? Because at the end of the day, there are always people involved. AI is great, but you do need people to figure out how to tell AI what to do, right? And so you have to keep the people with you along with you on that strategy.

Thank you. with And all of this background that you have in customer success, if you had to say, like, the perfect ideal customer for you guys, that you can really help the most, who do you think it is? Yeah, that's a really great question. I would say it's somebody who really wants to grow, somebody who wants to go fast, somebody who is open to thinking differently. I think this industry is really interesting because after 20 years in this space, there's still a lot of old ways of thinking, right? And they think that the way they've done it for 20 years is the best way of doing it, right? And so someone who is really open to saying, I'm willing to you. throw everything out and start over with how we do you. this and partner with you on rethinking about how we're leveraging technology to complete the workflows that we've done for decades, right? And so those are our best clients, clients that are ready to meet with us and ready to work fast wondering, just if you're interested.

and partner around. It's not always perfect, but when you can make progress, it's really a game changer. Yeah. So Jennifer, we talked about the present, what about the future? What's the impact that you guys want to do at 3Flow in the next few years? Yeah. Well, we definitely want to be the answer for brokers and carriers with how they exchange data and continue to help them reinvent that process, right? To make it faster, more efficient, more effective, right? And so where we're looking to be is to be the only answer, the only place that carriers and brokers want to do business because it's so easy. Why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you want to put all of your business with us? Because we really help make it easy for you. And what I also love about working at 3Flow, we're a lot of fun to work with. And so we get that a lot from our customers. They're like, you guys are a lot of fun and you make it fun to get work done every day. And so that's what we pride ourselves on.

And how do you guys approach developing these partnerships with the carriers to actually streamline the benefits and the placement process? Yeah. So we lead from looking at what are their biggest pain points, right? Like coming from decades in leadership and working in strategy for a very long time, I know it's really important to lead with what is your customer, what is your customer trying to solve? What is their strategy? How are they looking to grow? What are the things that they're trying to unblock? And how can we help them get out of their own way? Right? And so we love to start there and say, well, tell us what your problems are and we'll figure out how we can help solve them, right? And where are you on your journey? Is now a good time? Is tomorrow a good time? You know, is six months from now a good time, right? And so really helping them, our customers achieve their goals helps us achieve ours. And I have this favorite question that I always like to ask every guest. love it. you had a magic wand, what one thing would you change

Oh, that's my line. I use that line. My team. Yes. I'm always saying, give me your magic wand. What is one thing I'd change? I would say one of the biggest things I would just love to make super easy is our ability to exchange data with carriers and brokers, right? There are 5 ,000 reasons why it can be hard, right? BethECT 홈 1 Legal issues, compliance sermon Take Thank you. Thank issues, technology issues, funding issues, priority issues, strategy issues. There's a lot of issues why things take a long time when you're partnering, especially with a carrier, right? And so what I would love to wave a magic wand and say when we plug in here and you plug in there, it's just a beautiful transmission of data and you can have everything that we have and we, you can send things back to us in a really super easy way that would really help us speed up our ability to help make a carrier's life more effective and efficient. And if you could give one piece of advice to a person that's listening, and they don't need to be in the same industry as you,

Yeah. what would you advise them? Okay. So one of my favorites, it's actually two, two things. One is, um, we don't save lives, right? We are not in an industry where it is life or death. Thank God this is group insurance, right? And probably in many, many other industries, you're not saving lives either unless you work in a medical field, right? And so kind of keep that in perspective, right? No one dies. No one dies when we make decisions. We just make a decision, move forward and figure it out. And then lastly, I'd say, it's always working out. You might not think it's working out for you right now, but somehow things are happening for you and everything that happens in your life, whether that's personally or professionally. And I'm here today because you. of how things have played out in my life. So just remember, it's, it's always working out for you. Thank you. Okay, I love it. Okay, so for someone that's looking to get in touch with you, where should they go, Jennifer? Absolutely.

Um, you can go to, uh, Jennifer Doty .com and you can find me there. You can figure out how to reach out to me. I love to speak with lots of other people, share my experiences on leadership and, you know, how to develop your career and, you know, how to, how to think about where you're headed next. So if you're interested in chatting more with me, it's a great place to look for me. Thank you. Thank you for coming on to the podcast, and we'll see you in the next one. Thank you so much. Appreciate you having me.