The Podcast

The InsurTech Geek Podcast.

Co-hosted with Rob Galbraith. Seven years of practitioner-to-practitioner conversations with the operators actually building the insurance industry.

Visit insurtechgeek.com Apple Podcasts Spotify
InsurTech Geek Podcast
177
Episodes published
159
Unique guests
7
Years on record
1.3M
Transcript words
Why the show exists

An operator's microphone.

In July 2019, four years into the insurtech movement, with the conference circuit packed and venture money flowing, James sat down with a microphone and started asking the people building this industry what they actually did, what they actually believed, and whether it was actually working.

The trade press was covering insurtech as news — each round, each launch, each down round a separate headline. The podcast had the same people, on the record, across the entire arc. We can set what a founder told us at their Series A next to what the public market told them at their delisting. We can set a carrier CIO's 2023 prediction next to her 2025 results.

The conversation turned out to be a leading indicator. The market was the lagging one. That's the spine of Geek Out — the seven-year field report on what the microphone caught first.

Who's been on

159 guests, including:

  • Caribou Honig — Co-founder, InsureTech Connect
  • Stan Smith — CEO, Gradient AI
  • Bill Cassidy — CIO, New York Life
  • Charlotte Creech — Innovation, USAA
  • Chris Griffith — Operations, American Coastal
  • Sasha Sanyal — Insurance Lead, Microsoft
  • Frank Schmid — Chief Data Officer, Gen Re
  • Steve Kappel — CIO, Safety National
  • David Bell — CEO, ALPS
  • Preetha Sekharan — Enterprise AI, Unum
  • Holly O'Dell — CEO, Montana State Fund
  • Amir Kabir — Founder, Overlook Ventures
  • Kobi Bendelak — CEO, InsurTech Israel
  • Skip Brechtel — CCMSI (the very first guest)
  • and 145 others.
Pitch a guest

For 2026 and 2027 episodes.

Best pitches: a specific operator with a specific build, a contrarian read on a consensus-bullish topic, or a long-tenured executive with a sharp take on what's coming. Send a one-paragraph description and one-line summary of why they'd be worth an hour.

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