Today’s rapidly changing business landscape is largely dictated by innovation and digital disruption. Change is happening quickly and it is forcing businesses to evolve. Sakthivel will address why and how businesses must be agile while remaining focused on their “true north” in order to survive in this new environment.

Big Data was supposed to help organizations make smarter and faster decisions, so why do so many executives find the flood of information paralyzing? Without the right approach, organizations can feel lost while trying to separate the useful nuggets of data from the noise.

Filler and Cheung will explain how to leverage first-party data and aggregated, privacy-friendly, third-party data with primary and syndicated research to gain actionable insights. They will describe how organizations can unlock the value of their data and provide examples of clients who have benefitted from these techniques.

In the race to acquire and retain customers and wow them with exceptional offerings, insurers rely on technology solutions to improve their market agility, raise their service levels and optimize their operations... while consolidating and modernizing their legacy administration platforms. But, amid a dizzying array of digital options, what will work and what won't?

Vitiello will unveil strategies for leveraging digital capabilities to streamline administrative operations, simultaneously improving the customer experience and deepening the relationship between the customer and carrier.

In today’s hyper-competitive and uber disruptive marketplace, two industry giants have embarked on widespread transformations in their business focus, culture and structure, including in the critical area of distribution and sales.

Cunneen and Hollingsworth will discuss the meticulous changes their respective organizations have been undertaking to be even more customer-centric and effective, and the advanced strategies they have created to safeguard the evolutionary outcome.

Blockchain is the key to the evolution of the insurance industry. Recent reports suggest that blockchain — or Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT) — will become the beating heart of the global financial system with the most prevalent industry for blockchain use cases being the insurance industry. Never before has the insurance industry been the leader in the application of new technology — but it is now.

From efficiency improvements to opening up opportunities for new value creation, McDaniel will examine where LIMRA and LOMA member companies are incorporating DLT and how they are approaching the implications for both competitive advantage and the creation of new industry-wide standards and customer expectations.

Innovation has famously been called “the most important and the most overused” word in business right now. We’re hearing it, reading it, seeing it more than ever – along with its sister term, ‘disruption’. But talking about it doesn’t mean we really understand it.

Marketing, innovation and trend expert, Valiquette will clarify why innovation is more important than ever (and why it’s also more confusing), and how innovation is much easier than we think it is. He will also elaborate on the few key things you and your organization can do immediately to foster a culture of innovation, and what innovation looks like in insurance and financial services. He will ultimately demystify innovation and leave you not fearing it, but knowing how to make it relevant and of value.