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Below is our recent interview with Ilya Bodner, the Founder at Bold Penguin:
Q: Tell us about the early days of Bold Penguin. What were the biggest challenges?
A: Commercial insurance is a huge space. We knew we wanted to make it simpler, we knew that we needed to fight pen and paper but we weren’t entirely sure where to begin and get early traction. After much debate we settled on trying to focus obsessively on the time it takes to go from Quote to Bind, specifically that window from when the application is being submitted for quoting to the time it is bound (purchased). Establishing that type of clarity – that we are focused on reducing the time from quote to bind – allowed us to execute as a company.
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Q: What are the benefits of The Bold Penguin Marketplace for agents and insurance companies?
A: We look at our selves as an exchange for the commercial insurance professionals. Coming out of the insurance industry ourselves we know there are lots of moving pieces in commercial (geography, appointments, appetites, other business rules) and our marketplace helps align the moving pieces. Specifically, we help our partners take control of the future of commercial insurance by having clarity in choosing customers and confidence in where to bind.
Q: Earlier this year you’ve announced the expansion of the Bold Penguin Marketplace’s capabilities; could you tell us something more?
A: We are getting impressively good at capturing just a few pieces of information on a risk and knowing where to place it. This type of power is driven by data and that type of data is now available to our partners. By having an API first, and a smoother self service portal for a more traditional commercial insurance organization, we’ve been able to expand usage and on-board new key partners on both ends of the marketplace. We are open and collaborative, which means that pushing and pulling data to/from the existing management software and administration systems, is possible.
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Q: What are your plans for the future?
A: We have found a non-intrusive way to help commercial insurance agents, brokers, carriers, insurtechs, and tech-first organizations to write commercial insurance and do so profitably. Our plans for the rest of 2018 and into 2019 is to continue to expand with our existing partners and on-board select key new partnerships. To be able to maintain this growth our big area of focus is on internal culture and hirings, specifically technology hirings. We’ve been fortunate to have some of the brightest people in Central Ohio join our organization and to make commercial insurance simple we need more brain power.
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