The Heartland of Risk and Innovation

Speaker A: Welcome to Champions and Challengers, a fintech legal review. I'm Greg Listini, an attorney practicing in the government relations and insurance regulatory spaces, and I have the pleasure of leading our regulated industries group here at Bricker Graden. I'm so pleased to welcome to the show Robert Bell. Robert serves as the Executive Director of the Nebraska Insurance Federation and is the owner of Robert M. Bell PC llo, a law firm. That's very fancy. Robert received both his Bachelor of Arts and Juris Doctor degrees from the University of Nebraska Lincoln. Prior to his role as Executive Director of the Federation, Robert served as a legislative aide for Nebraska state Senator, a policy advisor for two Nebraska governors, and an attorney and legislative liaison for the Nebraska Department of Insurance. I've had the pleasure of knowing Robert for a long time and we get to work together on so many interesting things, not the least of which is Insurtech on the Silicon Prairie in Omaha. Robert, thank you so much for agreeing to be on Champions and Challengers. It's great to have you on. Welcome.

Speaker B: Yeah, thank you, Greg. It's great to be on with you. I appreciate the invitation.

Speaker A: Yeah. And so we talked about this a little bit prior to recording, but we're using this show kind of as a relaunch of the podcast. We've done a number of episodes with different sort of, uh, and the reason we call it Champions and Challengers, kind of your more traditional incumbent insurance carriers, but then also the insuretechs that are out there in the universe. And so now, uh, with Insurtech on the Silicon Prairie being such a, you know, kind of cornerstone of the industry, and with that coming up here in November, we thought it would be great to have you on and talk, uh, you know, a lot about that. But at first I want to talk a little bit about the federation and you know, you and I play a very similar role. We're both attorneys and both have the, the privilege of running our state trades here in Ohio for, for us at Bricker Grade and you there in Nebraska. Can you just tell us a little bit about the Fed, kind of its history and its membership that, that sort of thing?

Speaker B: Yeah, sure. Um, yeah, so the Nebraska Insurance Federation is, uh, of course the state trade association of, uh, Nebraska insurance companies. We represent all different types of insurance companies. So in that way we are unique. There are a few other states that have a similar setup to Nebraska, but at, uh, the federation, we represent life insurers, we represent property and casualty insurers, and health plans as well. So we're pretty deep in all different aspects of insurers. There are 50 member companies. There is a bit of a focus on domestic companies in the federation, but we are open to anybody that writes, um, business within the state of Nebraska. And Nebraska is a little bit probably unique in the size of our insurance industry located here in Nebraska. We got over 30,000 Nebraskans that, uh, work in the insurance industry. And we only have. Our state population is just a hair over 2 million. So it's a significant portion of our, uh, workforce is in the insurance industry. And we're not. That's not including agents, of course. Right. We love our agents, but they're not included in that number. And then if you look at our domestic industry metrics, by any metric, we're in the top handful of states of premium written across the United States of surplus of assets under regulation by the Nebraska Department of Insurance. I think. I believe last time I saw, we were just a hair over a trillion dollars in assets of Nebraska insurance companies, which is great. And at the federation, we represent everybody from, you know, Fortune 10 companies to little county mutual insurance companies who have their own association. That's a member of my association. Um, it's, it's a diverse group of individuals. And really what we do, kind of similar to what you do, Greg, is we, we advocate on the state level for the principles of ins, the principles of risk management, um, and free enterprise. And we do that basically with the legislature and then with our Department of Insurance and our other elected officials within the state of Nebraska. Um, that's one part of what we do at the federation. The other portion of what we do at the federation is education. Um, and we try to educate the public, young people, whoever, about the importance of, of insurance. And that's really where insurtech on the Silicon Prairie comes from.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's really great. And as you were describing the federation, I realized this is the first time we've had a trade executive, you know, on the show. And so I think while a lot of people are listening to this, involved in the industry, they might not always appreciate, especially given their role, if they're not in the sort of advocacy space, might not always appreciate what these trade associations do. And you know, as you know, Robert, we come together, um, at least once a year at, um, the American Council Life insurers, to talk through all the issues that are affecting the different states and the state trades and share information and we communicate with one another a lot. And I think that, um, folks might not realize, but it's really, in my humble opinion, uh, from an insurance industry Sort of friendliness and you know, volume perspective. Ohio, Iowa and Nebraska are always kind of right there at the top. Right. And um, you know, the work, the work that we do is kind of constant for these companies and both in monitoring and in advocating and you know, I think it's good, I think it's good to share that perspective, you know, on this show. So appreciate you describing that.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And you know we're all big ten states. We all have uh, pretty good insurance, uh, infrastructure within our states. I mean we can count Illinois I suppose, and then we sometimes. Yeah, I mean, but maybe not.

Speaker A: Well tell me though, like Nebraska, from your experience, I mean you're a lifelong Nebraskan, right? Um, and obviously you did for the most part. Yes, for the most part. And you did your studies there. Can you pinpoint a couple things about um. Whether it's the department or the legislature or whatever that makes it so attractive. One of my favorite, um, anecdotes is the fact that a lot of people don't realize that Pack Life, Pacific Life is actually domesticated in there, in Nebraska. And whenever I see the commercials of the whale coming out of the ocean, I always picture him coming out of the uh, cornfields there in Nebraska.

Speaker B: Well, there was, there was a push to see if they would change their mascot from a humpback whale to a catfish jumping out of the Platte, which in many places you can walk across the plat. Right. And um, uh, but uh, they, they I think smartly, yes, with, with the whale. But yeah, we have, ah, we certainly have a unique uh, thing going on in Nebraska. So Pac Life Aflac is another company that's kind of an out of state insurer that has redomesticated to Nebraska in the last 30 years. First American Title Insurance out of California, another one and a numerous, numerous others. Globe Life. Gosh, they have a baseball stadium in Texas. Is it the Rangers that play at Global Life Stadium? That's right. Uh, they're a Nebraska domestic. There are, there are a number of national brands that are Nebraska domestics that have come here within the last three decades, kind of since my professional career began. It didn't start in insurance, but just kind of being aware of that and you know, now I know people who, in my personal life and everything else that work for these companies. But it's also important to remember that we have a homegrown industry too. Our director of insurance, uh, Eric Dunning talks some about when he talks about why we have such a robust industry here, talks about, you know, how the settlers, pioneers Came to the plains with no, there were no trees and terrible thunderstorms. And how do you, how do you assign, how do you assess risk, how do you transfer risk, how do you share risk? So, and you know, people back east didn't know what to do with that. And so you were almost forced to form your own insurance companies here.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: We have this uh, we had this great infrastructure whether or not it's Mutual of Omaha, which is certainly a national brand, but I grew up here in Nebraska. Woodman Life Emeritus assurity big life insurance companies. And then on the property and casualty side we have, we have kind of our local regional carriers like Farmers Mutual Nebraska FMNE is their new rebrand. We have one of the largest truck, uh, insurers in the United States, Great West Casualty. Um, and then you know, Berkshire Hathaway has numerous companies here, some of them that were grown here and some of them that have been brought here by um, the company here in the last decade or so. But is that uh, we do, we have a great department of Insurance. They work to hold companies accountable when need to be held accountable, but are also open minded to discussing issues, you know, deep regulatory, financial type of questions that come up with when they have a problem, how do you solve that problem? And they're open to having those discussions with companies. They're very, they don't, they don't necessarily look to punish particularly if it's a financial regulatory kind of issue as opposed to a consumer, you know, more of a market one. Their companies need to pay their claims, everything like that, uh, that's part of it in Nebraska is very fortunate. I don't believe we have any um, companies right now in rehabilitation or under public supervision. So it's been successful as well. So companies have not failed. Not that we haven't had failures in the past. We have just like every other state, but we don't have any active ones right now. And then our legislature is unique. I think it's probably pretty well known that we have a unicameral legislature. Uh, I think what is less known is that it's a nonpartisan unicameral legislature. So we don't have the party apparatuses of both the Democrats and the Republicans, um, you know, with majority leaders and whips and things like that. We don't have conference committee because we only have one house. Yeah, we just have a unique way of getting laws passed. And so I think we're able to in non political types of financial regulatory laws and whatnot, get those passed relatively quickly because I think everybody here Recognizes the importance of the insurance industry to our state. And then of course some of it's just math. We have a great tax rate for premium tax. And if the audience I would assume, knows the power of retaliatory tax and insurance and why we have retaliatory taxes in insurance, we could get deep dive into that and we might lose, um, listeners. But that's a very important piece too because our tax rate is at 1%, um, for premium tax, which is a great benefit to Nebraskans but also helps us be competitive in the rest the 49 other states. Yeah.

Speaker A: You know, talking about the legislature, just wonder if one of the things that we struggle with and I don't. Do you have term limits? I'm not sure if we do. Yeah, you know, one of the things that, and it's not, it's not a struggle. We always have great legislators that, that really dig into the weeds. Thank goodness. You know, want to learn these issues. Um, there is a, you know, obviously a learning curve with insurance and insurance regulatory law. You know, I find we've, we spent a lot of time here in Ohio making sure that the legislature, you know, individual legislators understand, uh, the nuances of insurance law. And then that we are bringing up sort of a generation of legislators that are prepared to take over for folks that have been here for a while and maybe have the advantage of, you know, living through things like Stoli and you know, those fights that we've done in the past. Is that something that you all kind uh, of struggle with as well or at least challenge to solve for?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, yeah, we're in fact working with our, uh, we have one committee of jurisdiction which is the Banking, Commerce and Insurance Committee here in Nebraska. And we're working with the Griffins foundation on um, insurance education to come in and help us from a non advocacy standpoint, work on the fundamentals of risk transfer and how that works and how the regulation of insurance works. So yeah, and I can talk about accreditation with the national association of Insurance Committees, Commissioners, excuse me, I can prevent the senators from saying NIAC instead of neic. Right. And we can work on those things. But also, you know, I understand legislators have a lot on their plate. Right. Uh, a lot of issues. And so I don't expect them to have an encyclopedic knowledge of insurance regulations. That's, that's why we're here to help them come along. But yeah, it, it, it does take some time. And you know there's, there's a lot of, particularly when we get into the more market side of it, there are a lot of, of fights that go on because anytime, you know, you got friction between people who have money and people who want access to that money. Right? And then they, there's always the education that goes on that our claims, our premiums really equal our claims rates. And that's this a theme that we, we hammer home with our uh, with our legislators. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Speaker A: Yeah. So, you know, I mean one of the things that I've seen, and it's interesting because Insurtech people say insurtech and then when you talk about like our trade associations, right there are, they are the insurance carriers, but they insure tech kind of captures a lot more than that. Not just carriers, but other, other um, sort of service providers, maybe larger, um, produce, managing general agents, those sort of things. Talk to me about, you know, do you have members of the trade that are considered in the insurtech space? And you know, if not, what does that ecosystem look like in, in Nebraska, sort of outside of, you know, the event for InsurTech on the Silicon Prairie? Because we want to talk about that, but I'm just curious, sort of what, you know, what the industry looks like from an insurtech perspective, just in Nebraska itself.

Speaker B: Yeah, we don't, we don't necessarily have pure insurtechs in the federation. So you have to be um, a licensed insurance company to be a member. We do have associate membership which is, you have to fit one of those categories. Insurtech doesn't happen to be one of them. You know, you gotta like answer the question, what is an insurtech? Right. Many startups have, or incumbents have investments in startups. Right. Insurtech. So many of my companies have VC components to them. So venture capital subgroups that are investing in insurtechs, we have seen within Nebraska a few startups come along and be a little bit successful. I don't think we have any of the top insurtechs in the United States or anything like that, but there is a little bit of a ecosystem, certainly not as good. I've heard Columbus is doing great in the insurtech startup space.

Speaker A: We had a couple, I think early kind of entrants to the market that paved the way. And now, now we're at the point where you have an ecosystem where they're spinning off folks that are starting their own and just, just like it happens in other industries. You know, we've seen that here in Columbus, luckily.

Speaker B: Yeah. And you know, you look at Lemonade, it's a great example. Right. Are they an insuretech? Are they an insurance company? Well, they're insurance company now. Right. And you know, but they're also an insurtech. So it's kind of like what, what are these things? Or you know, branch root. All of them was. Branch was from Ohio.

Speaker A: Yeah, they're. So then let's pivot and then talk about Insurtech on the Silicon Prairie. How did that come to be? Maybe give you a little bit of the history of it's. What year is this coming up now?

Speaker B: Uh, I gotta count. We started in 2018. We had one in 1819. Took two years off for Covid. Thank you. To the pandemic. And came back in 22, 23, 24. This, this will be six, I guess. I don't know why I'm counting with two. Two hands there. So we started. It started back in 2018. I was not at the Federation, I was actually at the Department of Insurance at the time as their attorney was actually the contact for startups at the department at that time. And um, we had some of the domestic industry approach the department to say this is something that maybe it's good to have a conference. Let me step back a little bit. I first went to, I think, um, in 2017, InsurTech Connect. Yeah. Um, as a regulator NEIC. So they had um, secured a new few spots for regulators to go. And I was on that team that went out to Las Vegas and went to InsurTech Connect, which is huge event. Right. That was even back then it was 20,000 people. Right. I think half of them, if not more, didn't know what a regulator was. It was, it was eye opening. Right. I mean it was, you know, a very different, a very different conference than we've seen with InsurTech on the silicon area. We can compare and contrast later, but there was some degree of. Some companies getting kind of nervous about like regulators didn't know exactly what was going on related to the Insurtech space. There are Insurtechs that didn't know that regulators existed. So they would get pretty far down a road. And particularly if they were not working with an incumbent insurance company, they were doing things that probably were against the law. Right. They didn't realize there's a book that thick, excuse me, several inches thick in Nebraska on just laws you have to follow for an insurance company.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Um, to make sure that you don't violate the promises that you make to the policyholder.

Speaker A: Especially, especially in an area where, you know, disruption is a point of pride. Right. And doing something differently is obviously a key to success. That gets challenging when you're dealing with, you know, the, the insurance code.

Speaker B: Right, yeah, it is, it is. And we can come back to that later. But yeah, we, we've made some tweaks to the insurance code over the years to allow more room to play, so to speak, for, for startups and for incumbents. I want to get into some different types of products that haven't been tried before, which is great. Right. More options for consumers as long as they can fulfill those promises. But regardless. So after our experiences at InsurTech Connect, we had some companies that were traveling around running into, you know, just you know, trying to do some education across the nation with regulators. And we decided, okay, maybe a conference. They had approached us at the department and said maybe we could run a conference together. And so in. The companies that were initially involved were against some of the Nebraska domestics. You're talking about AFLAC and Mutual of Omaha and Physicians Mutual Insurance Company which is another homegrown, uh, Nebraska domestic Pacific Life. Those companies really on the first floor of that. And the federation really wasn't too deeply involved at that point in 2019. And so we had our first conference. Ironic, I don't know if you were there. We only had 200 people. We were in a conference room at ah, something called the Strategic Air Command Museum, which is located halfway between Lincoln and Omaha. Nebraska is the home of the Strategic Air Command. Yeah, um, we're, we're, we're top of the, the target list, right. For ICBMs across the world.

Speaker A: But anyway, so much listening to this podcast, I love it. It's not just, not just all insurance.

Speaker B: And so we had, they had this, this nice, nice conference room or nice like auditorium. They could fit about 225 people and we got 200 and it was very tight. We had lunch, um, with being surrounded in a hangar of antiquated airplanes talking about insurance technology and it. So, but we knew we had to grow and get bigger and so we ah, we, we moved it to Omaha, um, and um, downtown omaha. And then 2019 had kind of, it was a much larger uh, conference still. Our numbers weren't what they are today. Um, I can't remember how much we had. How many we had for that second one. Probably 300, 350.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, and we really got a little bit more involved. So the federation, I came over to the federation, got the federation involved, expanded the number of companies, Surety got involved deeply on the planning committee and other companies. Along the way have as well and got a top notch venue, tried and got the NEIC involved to make sure that we could get more regulators there. So we've had a good partnership since then with the national association of Insurance Commissioners where they offer to pay for the travel and registration of one regulator from every, uh, state. And not every state takes, uh, advantage of that, but a lot do. And so it's been. We have a very unique mix. And I'll just for a second compare and contrast like InsurTech Connect or InsurTech Insights, which are for profit entities trying to make money, trying to move deals. Good for them. They do a great job of it. Their conferences are great. We're more focused on education. So kind of from day one we have been, all right, we need to make sure we have regulators there, we need to make sure we have incumbents there. And we want to get Insurtechs there as well. And we want to bring them together, talk about these topics. Don't break them out, don't break them out into different stages or things like that. Keep them all on one stage, everybody in one room, so everybody can hear the same thing. And we, all we do is we try to break even with the money that we bring in and the expenses that go out. So which is why, you know, our costs are, uh, reasonable and things like that compared. I think they're reasonable compared to the fees that you have to pay to go to some of these other conferences.

Speaker A: Absolutely. And you know, I'm sort of not the best authority on this because I haven't been to InsurTech Connect personally. But you know, I know from talking to other people, the, the accessibility, the, you know, connectivity and like you said, that, that, you know, all one plenary session type setup just makes it feel so much more intimate and so much more, you know, connected to the, to the content that you all present. And so I think that's where a lot of the, the strength and the programming comes.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And, and we also try to make sure, you know, we don't pay for speakers. Yeah. Um, but we try to make sure our speakers are top notch. Right. I mean there's, we review them, they are vetted, um, they have a great opportunity to come, but they have to pay their own way. You know, we're not, we, we don't do a lot of things that the other companies or the other conferences may or may, may not do. Yeah.

Speaker A: So I mean, I think, you know, my experience has been that there's maybe no greater champion than Commissioner Dunning himself. And you know, can you talk a little bit about like maybe you know, both pre and post creation of this conference, what, what he has meant to fostering that environment, you know, for insuretechs, for incumbents that invest in insurtechs that you know, make it a logical connection to having this be there in the state outside of just the history of insurance in Nebraska.

Speaker B: Yeah, he calls it his favorite pet project. Ready so.

Speaker A: And, and you can tell, you can tell.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And not just because of the socks. Not just because.

Speaker B: Yeah, the, the socks are, are certainly unique to uh, Director Dunning. But um, but it was interesting. I was at ncoil, an NCOIL Minisodon National Conference of Insurance Legislators in Chicago and I happened to sit next down next to the commissioner from Arkansas and you know, we got talking, where are you from? Blah blah. He was the commissioner. I don't think he's actually the commissioner anymore. And he's like oh, Nebraska Dunning, insurtech. Right. And I'm like yep, I was like you covered this year anyway. But he has been a great champion. He, he puts in a lot of work and the conference I should mention is co hosted by the Department of Insurance and the Federation and we were closely together on that. But he is um, he, he gets on the calls with speakers, he gets, you know, always an awesome regulator panel. Um, you know, and talks to his fellow commissioners across the United States. I think this year we got Connecticut, Rhode Island, Ohio, Texas, plus uh, Gary Anderson, the CEO of, of the NEIC coming. Um, you know and to, to I think for like startups to come in and see how involved our department is is a great deal. Um, you know, to understand that insurance regulation is real and it's important and then also to see the open mindedness of our department on some of these new products. Not there's endorsements of, of the startups or anything like that, but this maybe it's not such a bad place to do business.

Speaker A: And I do think that the inclusion of you know, really involved and engaged commissioners at the event gives that credibility as well. They're, they're there to talk about and to uh, engage on the issues that are important to the innovative side of what's happening in insurance. And, and they don't shy away from that. I know, you know, just from personal experience here in Ohio we do not have the sandbox set up that uh, some states have. But that's almost you know, by design in the fact that Director French has said we want to have pathways for innovation to become reality and in her mind, I think, not treat it as something special as much as treat it as part of the industry that gets just as much attention and just as much, you know, deserved sort of carefulness from the department as any carrier or any issue that comes before them and that, that shows through. And like you said, that's important for, for these companies to see that.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm very pleased that Commissioner French is going to be able to make it to ISP and get on stage and gives. It gives her a good showcase to talk about those types of things to the companies and startups in the room.

Speaker A: Yeah. This might be hard for you to answer, Robert, so I apologize. But you know, is, is there, can you kind of summarize or give some sort of sense of what your ideal takeaway is for people coming out of the conference? Is there, ah, you know, it's kind of a North Star that you guys try to point to that, you know, is the selling point for attendees, you know.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's, that is a, it is a hard question, but I think there, there is an answer. I think the answer is awareness, education, awareness. No. So we got three major populations in the room, right. We have startups, we have incumbents, and we have regulators. Right. We have VC in there a little bit. And so venture capital, we have some agents as well in there too. But those three major kind of groups kind of make the three big population centers of Insurtech on the Silicon Prairie. And we just want to make sure there's a general awareness of that These other entities do exist. Like, you know, you go to some of these conferences and it's incumbents versus startups. And that doesn't necessarily need to be the case. Right. I mean they, they can kind of go hand in hand, they can work together, everybody can make money, makers can do, uh, get what they want and get the protection that they need at a lower cost or in a, in a more timely manner. I think that's good. And you kind of throw them all in the pot together and they get a chance to interact and mix and I think that's, that's really good. So again, awareness, education, that's really what we're after.

Speaker A: Yeah. Is there anything I want to talk about this year's event? Um, sure, and maybe we'll do that first. But I also want to kind of pick your brain about, you know, are there things that you guys are looking to do in the future and you want to get to. With the event? Um, but let's start with this year's.

Speaker B: Okay, well, so this year, I mean, we're, uh. I was thinking about this a little bit, um, back when I just thinking about 2018. What was the big issue in 2018? Insuretech. It was blockchain. Yeah, right. And then blockchain again in 2019. Blockchain was still hanging around at 22 a little bit. You know, blockchain has really now moved off into crypto. You probably know a heck of a lot more about crypto than I do, and I don't know anything. So it wouldn't take much. Starting in 22, I think, or 20. It was 23. Two years ago, AI was on, uh, started to pop up. We had a professor from UNO come in, uh, from uno, University of Nebraska, Omaha, who now has his own AI program. So if there's any kids out there listening that want to get a degree in AI, go to the University of Nebraska, Omaha. He gave this presentation about ChatGPT and the computing power and honestly, kind of scared to snot out of me, right? So, um, I was like, well, it's going to take it. And like how it was growing exponentially and now. So for the last three years it's been AI. That's what people want to hear about. I would say, kind of looking at our agenda the second half, a lot of it's focused on AI and a lot of different aspects of AI. But also at the same time, we're still mixing in and doing the same thing that we always do. You know, we've got the CEO of, uh, Blue Cross Blue Shield in Nebraska, single state Blues plan coming in to kind of kick things off and to hear their perspective and think about how much is changing, um, in the health space right now. Related technology. We have, you know, prior authorization reform going on across the United States and that is leveraging that has to leverage technology. Right. But also you got to have the guardrails around technology. You also have, um, we got the, uh, individual from Lemonade coming in. Um, her name's escaping me. Sorry, I'm looking Maya, uh, Prosser. She's the Chief Business Officer. And you know, we've been after Lemonade for a long time to come in to uh, insuretech on the Silicon Prairie. So happy about that. But then there's a lot of AI, um, on the agenda as well. And that's what everybody wants to talk about. Right. Right now, I think, you know, maybe in, maybe in three or four years we'll, we'll look back and say it's the Blockchain of, you know, the older times.

Speaker A: I mean, I think it's, it's here to stay in some form or fashion. And to your point, you know, when I remember first hearing and reading and all those things, it is scary. And I think there are components to it that are still frightening in different ways, but to the speed at which it's been moving, it is manageable. Probably isn't the right word, but at least in a way that everyone's saying, okay, here it is, here's what's happening. How does this integrate into what we're doing and how does this make, uh, what we're doing better as opposed to just kind of stiff arming it and trying to work around it? So I think those questions are really important.

Speaker B: I mean, if you're, if you're into code writing and you have some knowledge of insurance, I mean, AI, uh, is a great place to be because, you know, if you're an incumbent, you have to, you know, it's there. How do you use it? How do you protect against it? What can you use it for? What is safe to use it for? What is not safe to use AI for? Right. Or. And you got those questions, you got regulators looking at it, and every state's taking a little bit different approach. Right. I mean, there's, there's a lot of activity going on across the states on AI regulation. We got Congress looking at it. If you're a startup, I mean, that's the place to be. Right. When I look at the. I, I deal a lot with the exhibitors at our conference, and they're not all AI, but they are mostly AI companies, uh, looking to talk to incumbents. Right. And say, hey, here's our product. Use us. And yeah.

Speaker A: Are you hearing from. Back to the Federation for a minute. Are you hearing from members, any overwhelming concern or, you know, I guess the opposite end of that spectrum, they really are looking to leverage AI in certain ways, or is it kind of unique to each company and not any kind of more general themes?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think every, every company is doing things just a little bit differently. You know, um, and it's, it's when you deploy the AI, how you deploy it, and how do you mitigate that risk related to deployment of AI? You know, what do you protect? You know, you have all this consumer information. Right. You're probably not going to let AI go play in that. Right. But also at the same time, you might want to let it go play in your forms. Yeah. That you have, you know, so you can do a better job of writing A better insurance policy for your consumers. Right. And, um, yeah, there's, there's some talk about it. You know, we try to. We're, we're fortunate the NEIC bulletin that came out was adopted by our Nebraska department. We know we have to follow the laws that are already on the books. Right, right. Doesn't matter if you use AI or don't have to follow those laws. And that's been kind of the messaging that we have had, so. Yeah, um, that's right. It's definitely a topic of discussion.

Speaker A: Well, back to isp, like we said, you know, it's. There's a little bit element of if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Right. So maybe you're not looking for major changes, you know, over the next, you know, handful of, uh, events. But is there anything in particular you're looking forward to, to kind of making, you know, highlighting or doing differently at

Speaker B: the, you know, that's a great, great, uh, question, I think, you know, every year we try to make sure that the agenda is different and is great. Right. Uh, we know for us what works. We know it's a single day conference. You know, I assume you were at, I remember talking to you at our networking event last year we tried to have a unique networking event to get people comfortable in interacting with one another. And this year will be different, but it'll be similar. So it'll be in a unique space with unique opportunity to chat with colleagues and, and meet new connections. Right. We always want to make sure, you know, we're always going to have that regulator component, but, you know, we don't know what the future holds. We want to make sure that we stay relevant on our topics and that our speakers are talking about things in the future. And that's not going to change. I don't think we're going to go away from the single stage. We might go to a different venue or something. We might try some different things like that. But right now we just want to grow the conference to the point we want to grow it smartly. Right. We don't want to grow too fast, but we want to grow. So. And we will. I mean, looking at registration numbers, number of sponsors, number, exhibitors, everything is up already this year. So really looking forward to it here in a month and a half, really

Speaker A: without, as you said before, without the heavy commercial sort of advertising for it that you see with some of these other. In my, in my estimation, almost entirely word of mouth and people talking about how great it is. And I think that's what has generated the growth. And that's, that's really commendable.

Speaker B: Well, we appreciate opportunities like this to get on and talk about it. And again, you know, we, we don't have a huge budget. We're not. Don't have a huge marketing arm. We don't have a marketing firm helping us or anything like that. It's all. What we do is either it's all volunteer. Right. So whether, um, that's volunteer time at the department, volunteer time with member companies. You know, I'm a, I'm a government affairs insurance regulatory attorney trying to an insurance conference. It's obviously not my, my bailiwick. We have, you know, when you have great advocates just going out into the communities out there. The insurance community. Right.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: And trying to get people to come here. And you know, probably Ohio is the same way. There's Nebraskans, it feels like in all different types of companies all across the nation. And so we have a lot of connections within the insurance community as well, so we definitely leverage those.

Speaker A: Well, I mean, just personally, I can say I had one of the best, best steaks of my life when I was out there, uh, for the last conference. So if for no other reason, the high, uh, quality beef is a reason to make the trip to Omaha.

Speaker B: Uh, yeah, three or four head of cattle for every, um, for every person I think the Wall Street Journal was talking about, too. It's a really good year for cattlemen, um, here this week. So that was, that was interesting to read. So, um, yeah, we do have good stakes, um, and it's a great. I mean, we're right in downtown Omaha.

Speaker A: Beautiful. Uh, park there in front.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's. It's great.

Speaker A: We usually, we usually end this. Since it's called champions and challengers, we ask everybody to talk about one thing they want to champion. I think it's easy to say what that might be for you, but go ahead and make sure folks know, you know, the date, um, and then sort of how to, how to find you, how to register, uh, if it's not too late and all those good.

Speaker B: Yeah, plenty of spots left. Get to Silicon Nebraska.com and get registered. Silicon Prairie, Nebraska, man. Yes. I got to get, I got to get. I got to see. I'm a. Not a marketing guy. Silicon Prairie Nebraska.com or just Google Insurtech on the Silicon Prairie and also Google Nebraska Insurance Federation. We'll get you there as well from our website. But yes, November 3rd and 4th. The conference is on November 4th, which is a Tuesday. We will have the networking event the morning, or excuse me, the evening, the Monday evening beforehand at something called the Kiewit Luminarium, which is a brand new children's science museum.

Speaker A: Oh, cool.

Speaker B: And so besides talking with insurance nerds like Greg and myself, you can also, um, go explore the various exhibits, um, and have a drink, um, if that's your thing. Right by the Missouri River. It's very beautiful venue. My daughter and I, uh, went there, uh, not that long ago. She's 13. And we uh, discovered we will not make good electrical engineers as we were trying to get different circuits to work and light bulbs too. Had a good time? Plenty of, ah, plenty. Registration is so, uh, cheap for what you get. It's $195. Um, get you lunch, breakfast the whole day on November 4th. There will be a reception afterwards as well. This year, which is unique. So if you can't get a flight out of Omaha, um, in the evening, you need to stick around until Wednesday. You're more than welcome to. And there will be some options and then go enjoy the old market area of, of Omaha and spend some, spend some of your money. Spend some of your company's money really. Um, we, we look forward to showcasing our city. It's a little bit later this year, so hopefully the weather holds. It's November though. I mean it's usually doesn't snow until December anyway in Nebraska. That's right. And you know, if you want to come early, Nebraska is playing USC, um, and Lincoln on that Saturday, November 1st. Yeah, you can get a ticket and cheer. I know Ohio State's off this weekend. Right. I assume you're going to a wedding or something. I should, uh. Yeah.

Speaker A: Enjoying the quiet actually. So I'm getting too old for it.

Speaker B: As you can imagine, we have Michigan this week, so you know, coming to town, it's haven't looked out too much. I can see the Capitol from my office, but I can't see downtown. I'm sure it's chaos down there already.

Speaker A: Already. Yeah. Well, we have some making up to do with Michigan this year, so we'll see how that goes.

Speaker B: We'll try to soften them up a little bit.

Speaker A: There you go.

Speaker B: A couple months beforehand.

Speaker A: Well, Robert, I can't thank you enough for being on. Like I said, you know, we really wanted to take this opportunity not only to re, uh, engage our audience with the podcast, but I think it's the perfect topic to talk about Insurtech on the Silicon Prairie. While we're doing that, I guess take a point of personal privilege to say that we are going to be there, not only our firm as sponsors, but the podcast is going to be there and recording. So we're going to have some really good content coming out of that event because it's such a target rich environment, as they say.

Speaker B: Well, and I appreciate your firm sponsoring as well, so thank you. We can't do this without our sponsors. Again, we don't make money, we just got to pay the bills. So, um, thank you very much.

Speaker A: Yeah, great. Well, thank you, Robert. Um, we will, uh, see you in November in Omaha and hopefully everybody else that's listening can get on and get registered and be there as well.

Speaker B: Okay. Thank you for the opportunity.

Speaker A: Thanks so much. See you.

Speaker B: Thank you for listening to Champions and Challengers produced by Bricker Graydon. Join Greg Listini and other Bricker Graydon attorneys for our next podcast covering the latest fintech related legal topics. The views expressed by the participants of this program are their own and do not reflect the views of Bricker Grayton. None of the content included in this podcast is intended to be legal advice and does not create or imply an attorney client relationship.