Episode 5
Available nowBuy the Expertise Not the Code
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Bryan Falchuk, President and CEO of PLRB, unpacks why hubris is the thing standing between the insurance industry and real change, and why cash is what lets carriers avoid ever feeling the cost of it.
A kid who got serious about insurance because his Venezuelan father could not look at a Ferrari without calculating the premium, Bryan traces the path from a Liberty Mutual internship to McKinsey, to running US operations at Beazley, to Chief Claims Officer at Hiscox commuting weekly from Boston to Atlanta, and into an advisory practice that started three months before the world shut down.
Discover why he thinks build versus buy is the wrong question entirely, why one carrier spent heavily on a digital claims experience and then switched it off, and why losing a hundred pounds taught him something that applies to every transformation project he has ever worked on.
In this episode:
- 00:48Twenty six years and why insurance lets the world function
- 03:53A Venezuelan father, a Ferrari, and the seed that got planted
- 10:21Economics, Chinese, philosophy, and finishing in three years
- 15:24Growing up overweight and where the drive to fix things started
- 18:01The teacher who stopped to actually understand him
- 24:40Why investors say they look for founders who have been damaged
- 29:39McKinsey, and whether it would still change you today
- 43:23Three ways into a turnaround and the one that only flatters you
- 48:44Eleven months, a glass wall, and a $198 expense report
- 52:51Hiscox, the commute, and missing thirty percent of his son's life
- 57:36The insurtech idea he thought was the stupidest he had ever heard
- 01:09:03The cook, the chef, and two very different kinds of AI
- 01:14:28The carrier that shut off its own digital front door
- 01:20:25Why build versus buy is the wrong question
- 01:22:05Protecting your alpha when knowledge is the advantage
- 01:25:10Do a Day and why you never lose a hundred pounds today
- 01:35:18Hubris, we can't because, and how might we
Bryan Falchuk is the President and CEO of PLRB, the Property and Liability Resource Bureau, an insurance industry trade organization serving member carriers on property and liability coverage questions. He is also the Founder and Managing Partner of Insurance Evolution Partners, and the author of the best selling book series The Future of Insurance along with Do a Day, the personal philosophy he built after losing more than a hundred pounds. He has given several TEDx talks.
Before PLRB, Bryan spent more than two decades across the insurance value chain, including corporate strategy and personal lines at Liberty Mutual, the P&C practice at McKinsey, distribution and US operations at Beazley, Chief Claims Officer at Hiscox USA, and growth at insurtech Hi Marley. He holds an economics degree from Bowdoin and an MBA from Tuck at Dartmouth.
Mentioned in this episode: Bryan's books, TEDx talks, and writing, including "Do a Day" — https://bryanfalchuk.com/
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