The Asia InsurTech Podcast spoke with Luiza Gusmao, the VP Customer at Cover Genius, about the excitement of working for an InsurTech startup and the power of embedded insurance.
Listen to our other episodes with the team at Cover Genius here.
Find the transcript of our conversation below.
Michael Waitze 0:31
Hi, this is Michael Waitze andnd welcome back to the Asia InsurTech Podcast. Today we are joined by Luiza Gusmao, the VP customer at covered genius. I feel like I made it through something. It’s great to have you on the show. How are you doing by the way?
Luiza Gusmao 0:49
I’m great. I’m great. I’m doing really well. Early morning today for me. How are you doing Michael, are you okay?
Michael Waitze 0:57
I’m super. As I said, just before we started recording, I’m feeling a little bit silly. I’m not sure why I’m blaming Holly. Anyway, before we get into the main part of the conversation, how would you describe the state of insurance and InsurTech innovation in a in Asia? Like what do you think the biggest trend is in InsurTech? And almost by definition, because CG is global, globally?
Luiza Gusmao 1:20
Awesome. This is a great question. The biggest trend for InsurTech in Asia and globally, is definitely embedded insurance. So embedded insurance where you’re able to distribute, co create and just create really relevant products for your customers. And now to bringing fully integrated systems. So if the two main items is embedded insurance in fully integrated systems that it was just to create magic for customers.
Michael Waitze 1:51
Got it? And before we get even deeper into this, can our listeners get a little bit of your background for some context?
Luiza Gusmao 2:00
Definitely. So as a VP Customer at Cover Genius I basically look after and work with tech and technology on how we can create really smart and great customers journeys and experiences for our global customers. So mainly, especially around claims and support and thinking how we can create a really good digital journey for our customers.
Michael Waitze 2:30
Where are you from originally? Just for me?
Luiza Gusmao 2:33
That’s a great question. So originally, I am Brazilian. So I’m from Brazil. But I moved to Australia, a while ago, seven years ago. And I’ve been at Cover Genius for six years. So I joined CG grew the company over the years, we acquired a small company back then. And I’ve been part of this amazing ride. Just growing with the company. And now I’m based in New York. So I’m working with our team over our New York office.
Michael Waitze 3:11
How long have you been working in New York?
Luiza Gusmao 3:14
I just recently moved here. Like a month ago?
Michael Waitze 3:19
Did you always have this Australian accent? Here’s the thing. You know, when I looked at your background, I thought okay, Brazilian, I think I understand what I’m getting and where I’m going with this. And I kept I close my eyes and most people are gonna listen to this obviously, without the video, just the audio and you’re gonna be confused. I think by the sounds No.
Luiza Gusmao 3:36
I know. It’s very confusing. And I think that like, the funny part is that I was never aware I had an Australian accent. Because I’ve been Australia for so long. And since I got to New York, everyone’s like, so where are you from? And I’m like, it’s complicated. But um, I never I wasn’t aware of my Australian accent.
Michael Waitze 3:56
But people actually are seeing it when you joined coverage. Genius. Right? So we did our first recording with Cover Genius I think it was two and a half or three years ago. Right. So I’ve been following the company for a long time. But when you joined, there’s no way you could have known that it was going to be this big this fast. Do you know what I mean? And the role you have now is probably I don’t know, right? Different than the role you had six years ago when you joined. And if you joined in 2016, there couldn’t even have been that many people there. But are you surprised at the sort of? I don’t know what else to say that the hypergrowth that you’ve seen? And sure you can say, well, the team’s amazing. So yeah, but I mean, that’s true for a lot of startup teams, right when you look back are you thinking well, I didn’t realize this was gonna happen. Do you know what I mean?
Luiza Gusmao 4:42
Yeah, 100% like this is definitely how I look back and I joined Cover Genius I was looking for like a part time job. Just like just to get like legit just to get some cash, honestly, and it’s been an amazing ride. And I had no idea and I didn’t expect for us to get where we were where we are right now. But I think the most incredible thing, and it’s just working with this with the team and seeing them, generally they are amazing people and amazing team that we have. It’s been like, really, really cool. Yeah.
Michael Waitze 5:27
Did you have the sense when you were starting this that, like you were working at a startup that that was different? Like, did you come out of an incumbent insurance background? Or do you come at this? Like, I kind of came at the podcasts with very little insurance knowledge and I didn’t even have an insurance policy when I started doing this to be fair, do you know what I mean?
Luiza Gusmao 5:45
Yeah, no, definitely my background. I’m an engineer. So I said engineering, back then I was really into service design service engineering. So I like to solve problems. And yeah, just think of products services, how to make things global how make things at scale. That’s, that was my jam back then. In No, I didn’t have like a background in insurance. And I think like, like most people that work insurance, they probably didn’t think, Oh, I really want to work in insurance, you know, it just get into it. And it’s like, Oh, my God, there’s so many, there’s so many opportunities, so many problems to solve. And then you just kind of hang around. And kind of like, at Cover Genius. So I do have a team of service designers and engineers like globally, and most of them, it’s really hard to find someone with a background insurance, but most of the value prop. And whenever we have, like, we expand it a team, everyone is so excited, because they see there’s like, there’s massive opportunity just to create new services and products and deliver relevant products to customers. Definitely.
Michael Waitze 6:53
So last night, I had dinner with a founder in the InsurTech industry, in Asia, in Southeast Asia. And I had to stop him in the middle from saying the thing that everybody says to me, and that is, you know, when I started this, and even today, insurance and InsurTech wasn’t sexy, and I thought, Okay, we have to get people to stop saying this, right? Because one of the things you said was there aren’t a lot of people that say I want to be in the insurance business. And I think it’s kind of a 50:50 split for people at incumbents, but also at insurtechs. Right? There are people that just live and breathe actuarial math, that live and breathe the risk and the customer service around insurance. I think that’s actually true. And I’ve met a lot of them. And then there are other people were like you they’re engineers, right? So they love solving problems. And they kind of pop into the insurance world and say, I didn’t realize these problems we’re not just big, but we’re global. And we’re kind of universal, right? And once they get in, they’re like, I got to do this because this can be fixed, and I can do it better. And then they end up kind of like you saying, if it’s just a part time job at the beginning, and here I am now moving from originally from Brazil, in Australia, and then moving to New York to probably run something gigantic in the States. Yeah.
Luiza Gusmao 8:07
Yep, pretty much. The team, so, over the years to the customer, the customer function. So when thinking about claims and who our customers are, the grow has been insane over the last year. And then I’m really working at cover genius is all about, again, bringing back to what we do, we embed and we decided to create products that are relevant for global customers, right? So just being able to travel the world and like what is really the biggest digital companies in the world. And just thinking about how we can bring interesting, relevant products that our customers don’t even think about insurance. And this is like something that I think the biggest challenge for the insurance industry globally is how we create relevant products, right, as you said, when you start your podcast, or when you start the show, it didn’t even have insurance. And this is a very common I talk to a lot of friends that like running their own companies. And it’s not something that the top of their mind, and just being able to bring those products to live. I think this is the coolest thing ever because its customers the feedback is really, really positive.
Michael Waitze 9:22
The excuse me this idea of like creating relevance for the product right is actually really important. And like you said, I didn’t even have insurance when I first started the show I do now obviously because it’s really important. But what do you think? What do you think over the past year because it seems to me that at CG Can I call it that? That’s what I was going to call before you said it before we started recording because at some point I think every every company like no one called it International Business Machines, right? It was just IBM. And even in Morgan Stanley, we called Microsoft, Mr. Softee, but anyway, at sea GE what’s happened in the last year? Right? Because I think the growth has kind of gone like this. It was nice and nice and everything was happening, then I just feel like it went, like what changed? Was it a company change? Was it a technology implementation change? Or was it just a market change where the rest of the world said, Okay, there’s COVID thing going on, we all need to pay closer attention to insurance? Or is it just some combination of all that?
Luiza Gusmao 10:24
I’ll probably say there’s a combination of all of them, right? So for us, what we’re seeing is just like, over the last year, we launched some really big partnerships. So big names like Ryan Air. And um, we’re like available on Amazon. And we have some really big global partners. So even in Asia, Shopee, Flipkart, eBay, Skyscanner, Agoda. So, I think there’s also like momentum in the market for where companies are seeing the opportunity. And insurance is becoming more of like, an additional revenue and a big opportunity. And even like, when we’re talking to big players in the market, there’s so many companies out there, they’re not thinking of insurance at the extra opportunity for products and services. And there’s a bit of like an old paradigm, I would say, What, traditionally how the industry thinks about insurance, and what coverages what we have X cover, which is with a single API integration, you can basically distribute any type of insurance for any products in any verticals. I think that’s where it’s the biggest switch. So it’s been a big combination of everything really,
Michael Waitze 11:45
What does an ideal partnership look like for you? Right? Because Agoda is different than eBay, for sure. Right. And when you’re out there thinking, I want to have a partnership with this group, I want to have a partnership with that group. What is the identifying factor? What is the thing that makes a partnership really work? Well, for Cover Genius.
Luiza Gusmao 12:07
Cover Genius we’re going to work with any type of partner, and we’re going to be able to work with them and just bring our expertise and tech into play. So we have a different panel of like partners, where some partners are more tech savvy, or those are more like, probably more traditional, and we’re gonna sit down and co-create the whole experience the products and think of how this can be relevant. I’ll probably say that when we’re working with tech companies, and more like have a really strong tech background is probably where you have the biggest appetite for really innovating. But from our side, we’re there just to basically co create any sort of products really.
Michael Waitze 12:51
So I look at a company like Shopee, which you mentioned, right? And, you know, I follow the startup ecosystem in Southeast Asia in particular, but in Asia in general, very, very closely, I have an entire show called the Asia Tech Podcast that pay super close attention to it, it almost seems like shopee just came from nowhere, right? So see, or garena, as some people know it from its previous name, just said we want to be in the E commerce business. And then it feels like boom, it was just there and businesses like Lazada and Tokopedia kind of got, I don’t know surprised when you’re working with companies like that, that are also growing at hyperspeed what are some of the challenges that you have there where you’re both like running super fast like to me it almost seems like refueling, you know, like a supersonic jet with another supersonic jet. What is that, like?
Luiza Gusmao 13:41
When you think about really like fast growing companies that have this probably like very similar appetite to ours. It’s where really where the magic happens and being able to bake, bring products alive in four weeks. So like for, like in this is like, from design to going live date in several different markets in several countries. I’m thinking about the different public. So being able to bring like a whole surance product to live in four weeks, that’s unheard of. So this is the kind of place that we work, and probably where we create magic. So again, add coverage in is one of our biggest values is we create magic. So to be honest, this is where we stand for. And so thinking of the whole dynamic, right? So for us to be able to bring products to market globally, what we’ve done and we really we have a truly global team. So I feel that’s something that ad coverage is the biggest differentiator is like a global team and like global structure. So while we do like we make it easy for any partners to distribute policies or like protect their customers in any markets, because we do the whole compliance, the background, the regulatory setup, and we’ll have the we make it So it’s a single connection. And then just bringing those products live in for four weeks is, it’s a really amazing, amazing ride. So it’s funny as Oh, when we expanding the team and bringing new team members that I’m really honest and open during the interviews, because I want to have like, a team, a team, there’s like, keen to get on the ride with us. And I was like, so are you good at context switching? Are you okay? Like, do you feel? How do you feel about just like working on several like competing priorities? They’re like, Oh, no, that’s easy. That’s fine. And then like, six months down the track, like they come to me, it’s like, I had no idea. Like what I was getting myself into, and I was like, welcome to our world. And it’s really cool, because everyone feels that like creating impact, and they can see directly impact of the work that in what they doing. And I think that’s like, it’s just, it’s just really cool. I absolutely love it.
Michael Waitze 15:55
Can I just can I call up this term context switching from now on? I want to use this because it’s really just a cover term for? Can you work in a chaotic environment where things come up at all times at any time of day or night? And you’re not really sure? What’s going to happen next. This is the reason why I say this is because it reminds me of sitting on a trading desk, right. And when we used to interview people, to come on the trading desk, because everybody wanted to be a trader at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, you’d have to ask them questions like like that, like, how do you handle risk? Can you work under pressure? And, you know, really, I think the world is split into two types of people at scale. One can and one can’t, right? And you can see it pretty quickly. And you’re right. It’s like, welcome to my world. Or, please leave my world because it’s so hard. Like we had guys come on to the trading desk full bore, just say I can do this no problem, and left the desk crying because it just gets really hard context switching is really difficult. Right? And this is one of the big challenges. I think about building a company, at scale and at hyperspeed. Yeah.
Luiza Gusmao 16:57
Yeah, yeah. Yes, definitely.
Michael Waitze 17:00
But are you surprised at your own ability to do this, do you not I mean, because before you were there, you weren’t really doing it often. But I think here’s the here’s the way I look at it. I feel like can tell me where I’m wrong here. I feel like if you’re there at the beginning, you kind of walk in at a pretty fast pace with everybody else. And then you wake up on a Tuesday, and people are just walking a little bit faster. And then Wednesday, people are going faster. And by the time you know it your context switching at hyperspeed. And you don’t even know. Is that fair?
Luiza Gusmao 17:28
Yeah, that’s fair. And it’s like becomes a second nature just to being able to. I think they’re like looking personally, and like, this is me Luiza, right? What, what mesmerized me is like, we’re always like, learning and growing and taking the opportunities and bringing in new challenges. It’s not like you go back to literature, or you go back to it, no one has done that before. So and that’s like when, again, working with when my team, I’m like, How are you feeling? Like, if I usually tell them like, if you’re in your comfort zone, something’s wrong, you’re not meant to be in a comfort zone. To know is like, though, sometimes we have like a newcommers, I was like, You’re protecting someone too much. Like, they need to feel that like they like out of the COVID Center, they feel they like they’re growing, they’re learning. And I think that’s really important. It’s just like, constantly being like, probably like one step behind where you want to be. And they like push for always getting learning more and being able to do more. And I think that’s and to be honest. So like with, with the context switching again, it’s all about working together with the team and where you have like I wouldn’t say like, trust but like we work together. So it’s like knowing that regardless of the of that you’re going to work as a team because this is what actually sustained. So behind like, our growth, it’s like a great people and working closely like for the founders, it Cover Genius, and then just seeing what what we all achieve together. I think that’s that’s basically while you’re done,
Michael Waitze 19:14
Do you feel like you have to appear calm. So, here’s my analogy. When I’m on an airplane, if there’s a whole bunch of turbulence, I just look at the stewards in the stewardesses. And if they’re like smiling at each other, I feel safe. Do you know what I mean? But if they look paniced, I’m sure I’m dying kind of thing. Do you feel the same type of thing with you and your team? Like, it’s going to be okay. And if I’m feel calm, then the team can become with me. Even if we’re running at full speed. Do you know what I mean?
Luiza Gusmao 19:51
Yeah, that’s definitely 100% is all about. I mean, it doesn’t mean that like with the context switching, it’s It doesn’t mean that like you’re not. I mean non, like calm and like not uncontrolled. It doesn’t mean that like we know. Exactly it’s like planned it like you know what you’re doing? Do you know? So it’s like, obviously whenever you have like, again, with a company at a fast pace is growing, it’s all about like right now making sure that the people like they’re up to speed and thinking all the onboarding and hiring and it’s funny because when I feel that like for the newbies as well when they like when they come to me and like three, four months, if they don’t if they don’t feel like uncomfortable, like what I’m doing. I was like, oh, something’s off. I need to have like a serious conversation. But it doesn’t mean that we’re not clowns, you know, which is,
Michael Waitze 20:53
but that’s why I asked you that question. Because I think, you know, you said at the beginning, or we talked about this idea that insurance isn’t sexy. And I think part of the lack of sexiness idea in people’s mind is that it’s not exciting. And I don’t think you’re portraying any lack of excitement in this at all right? And I remember I used to have this client, I did a market facing job when I was at Goldman Sachs, right? So the market will open at nine, if you miss the market open, like you had problems. And I would have a client call me so often it like 8:59 and 30 seconds and just say, Hey, can we just change everything we were planning on doing on the open. And I always felt like the steward of the stewardess on the plane where I felt like, Okay, this is insanity. And I have 30 seconds to change something that’s probably gonna take me two minutes to change, but I don’t have two minutes. But I know that if I’m not calm, that guy is gonna lose his mind. Right? So it’s the same idea. But that was exciting. But what you’re telling me is that there’s so much excitement every day. And this is the story that I want to get across to people is that you can have the idea that insurance is a bunch of old men in like red ties, sitting around making decisions, but it’s not anymore. And this is the beauty of InsurTech. Right? And I say old men on purpose that’s purposeful, because that’s what it used to be like, and maybe that’s the old perception. But this is not true today, at any level, particularly not in the inshore tech space. Yeah.
Luiza Gusmao 22:15
No, definitely not. Again, when you think of Tech Tech, there’s nothing like an old man line. It’s all about diversity. And really, again, thinking about the diversity behind it, it’s what actually, we’re able to create those those amazing products that are selling you about what I don’t know, if you think about Ringu like a really one of the like, the coolest products that like I think we went to market is like with Ola. So with Ola, you know, you do like a cab, you’re gonna have to ride in one without and we create, like CO create, like a ride guarantee, right? So if you’re gonna, you’re calling your Ola cab, and if your cab is late, so like, if takes like more than five minutes to pick up or to show up, you’re gonna get an instant payout on your account. So you can put your next ride, you’re covered. If you lost your baggage, if you lost or dropped a phone or if you damage. Again, you’re gonna get like the coverage for that you can, it’s really easy to make a claim two clicks, you lodge like a claim that’s going to be fully automated on the same day, you’re gonna get like a compensation, your payout. So when you think about those products that are very relevant and for generations, and for like new consumers, they want to use tech and they want to use the that’s what they do, right. So that’s how we would create it. It’s like having people behind the scenes as well. They’re like, this is the kind of product that I would like to use myself. And I think that’s how, like we make the difference. Yeah, definitely have nothing to do like.
Michael Waitze 24:01
Do you so now that you’ve moved to New York, right? I guess part of the reason why is because you want to grow into the US or the North American market. Now the US is unique, right in that every state has its own regulator. Right, insurance is regulated differently. If I remember correctly, Hartford is the capital of insurance in the United States. My grandmother actually was an actuary at Aetna. So in Massachusetts, but anyway, what are some of the challenges that you see of being in the US and operating there? I mean, I know that you as a team have licenses, I mean, in 60 countries or something? I can’t remember where but the US is unique in a way right? And to really grow there is challenging in a way that’s different, I think, than it is in some other places, because it’s almost like dealing with 50 separate countries. Yeah. What does it look like to you?
Luiza Gusmao 24:48
Yeah, I think that’s like a really good summary and a really interesting challenge for us. I mean, there’s several ways I can answer the question probably we can go Started by when thinking about the 50 countries and like the requirements that you have, and like the different setup, I mean, usually when I talk to thinking about the local market, I feel that this is not the first time we’re doing this, you know, this isn’t our first rodeo. So it’s like when, when you need to serve and come up with, like with products and be able to distribute again, when you think like about global partnerships, right? I don’t know. Um, let’s go with Skyscanner or on. We’ve done that, in like several markets all across the globe. It’s not only like South America, Europe, like Asia, APEC. So when we think about the complexity of solving for the regulations, I mean, we already like the global customer company. So I don’t feel that it’s like a brand new challenge for us. Obviously, you’re gonna have like a little bit more like limitations but even thinking like if I bring back into into claims, right, and then just probably the second part on how I like to answer it. I was like, absolutely mesmerized on a little bit the challenges with the payment and like just the banking system in the US. Sure, why. Um, so I’m really funny thing that happened to me and this probably like, this is very personal, right? So you know, moving countries setting up like bank accounts getting your like, social security number, I had a delay on setting up my bank account, and I received my, my salad, right, a paycheck, like sofa check that came via post. I call like the system and I was like, so guys, I had like a delay in uploading my bank account. Here’s my bank account details Kevin’s like, processing direct debit. And she’s like, Oh, no, we’ll send you a check by post and I was like, a cheque was that, like, I literally never seen a cheque in my life before. It’s really funny. And I was like a cheque. What do you mean? If like, what happens? Or what? What do you do with it? And she’s like, Oh, you go to the bank. I know, it’s like, but and then if we bring back to like, what we do it covered genius, like x claim. So the reason why I’m telling you that is that. So I teach you and we have like a full like, big product team just dedicated. I’ll claim technology. And we have like this platform, that’s called exclaim, right. So x claim is able to issue instant payments in like, in any currency globally. So literally, you’re gonna get the payment right on your account. It goes, it’s fully digital, it’s absolutely hands off. So in our claims team, we don’t have anyone there’s like uploading bank account details. For customers, we don’t handle that type. It’s a fully automated service, right? Customers receive a link, you receive an SMS saying your payments ready, click here to collect a payment, you can say you’re gonna get like, bank transfer voucher, if there’s several different options, right. Um, and it’s so funny where we’re thinking, like, bringing again back to the US is like, sometimes getting the disruption of like, when you have like a system that is like, paper based. Yeah. And like you have checks and like insurance being traditionally paid by cheque, but posts, and then you bring the digitalization into it, and it’s like, hey, look, we can actually give you like your instant payment, and you can get right away in your bank account. So it’s, there’s so much opportunity for just creating the magic and it’s one of the reasons again, why like, I convergence Do we have any Peskov like 65 Plus, like, generic globally, so and then when you look at it as like, Oh, my God, I had no idea that I could get my payment instantly in my bank account. This is like, this never happened before. So and it’s just like, bringing that, that opportunity. That’s why I feel like the US is like the land of opportunity, because there’s so many cool services getting just like, and customers are like, wow, this is incredible. So I think there’s like a little bit my experience, again, over just being here, over a month.
Michael Waitze 29:13
But I mean, this is the thing I want to ask you, I think you’ll be surprised, right? Because there’s this external impression of what the US is like, and then this internal reality of you build all of like, you build X claim and X cover and all of these API’s, right, that can connect seamlessly and frictionless lead all these services. And then this piece of paper just gets delivered in the post and it just stops right at the end of extra time. Right. And says, Now what do I do? Yeah, right. Yeah, cuz you got other side of it? No.
Luiza Gusmao 29:48
I feel like um, yeah, it’s like, and like also understanding and be able to understand like, what the customers are coming from and like as to the education and like, overcome In the fear of like, what how things have been traditionally done, and how it’s working, and then being able to engage and understand where the customers are coming from like, and just like, be able to communicate that. So they also feel safe. It’s not because something’s like innovative, some because it’s like, it’s a product that is new. That is, it’s like just different trying to do some native. Yeah, it’s just trying to this modify like tech. I think that’s like a very interesting, like, challenge for like, such a big country like the US. Right.
Michael Waitze 30:32
So that was really the genesis of my question is that the 50? States are so different. Like there’s nothing the same about Oklahoma? In Connecticut. Yeah, I mean, you’ll find this out as you go along. I think the really interesting conversation with you will be in the year when I call you back. And now because you’ll have a different perspective on it, right? We used to say this, if you ask somebody externally, what their perception was of Goldman Sachs, they would have drawn like a Ferrari. And if you ask somebody internally, what they did draw was the front portion was like, a Cadillac. And the back part of the car was like a horse drawn carriage because what was seen by the public, what was actually happening in the back end was different. And I think that part to me is fascinating, right? Because that’s where the rubber hits the road. And that’s where you build all these incredible systems. And remember, you’re building in Asia, at the beginning, at partially right, which is leapfrogged the West in so many different ways. You know, I remember when I was in China wants to know, this was in 2017, or 2018. And I was just buying a coffee with cash. And the woman in front of me just went like this with a farm she was like, and she just looked at me derisively, and said, Everything here’s with everything here is like automated payments, who just pay with our phone and just like laughed at me and walked away. And I’m here with like, a 20. Just like trying to pay.
Luiza Gusmao 32:05
Yeah, I think I can definitely cut relate to that. Because, yeah, again, like, moving here, I was like, oh, I need to go to an ATM, like to withdraw cash. And I was like, and just coming from probably like a cashless home environment. I was like, oh, cash, I forget to have cash with me. And then my friends must be hating me. But now. They’re always getting me beers. And just like drinks, I was like, sorry, guys, I forgot, I don’t have.
Michael Waitze 32:36
So when I, when I flew to New York, this is an old story, right? But I lived in Tokyo for years. And in Tokyo, the taxi doors when you’re inside the car open automatically. And literally, the taxi driver has a handle below his seat, and he just like flips it and it pushes the door open. And when you leave, you get out of the taxi, and he just pulls it, he pushes it back down and the door closes. And if you live in Japan long enough, what you do is when you get out of it, you go to JFK, you take a taxi to your hotel, you pay the guy and you just get out and leave the door open. Taxi driver just says to you in typical New York language, which I won’t repeat, but basically like, close the door. Right? And you can’t even explain to him because I tried this once. I’m like, sorry, where I live, the door closes automatically. And he was like, Sure. Sure it does. But it’s the same thing, right? It’s like, I don’t carry cash. Because where I live, I don’t need cash. And this is what I mean, these are some of the challenges that I think are super interesting to me, right? Particularly because I’ve been an agent for 30 years. And you’ll see this as you go along, I think where you create all this incredible technology. And then you have to figure out the right way to implement it and use it. And that’s one of the really interesting challenges. You’ll see this as you go along. And I’d love to talk to you in a year. Because you’ll figure it out. It’s like you won’t figure it out. But the stories along the way will be awesome.
Luiza Gusmao 33:57
Amazing. Yeah. And like for us, it’s all like, we got like, we got like a big presence. So it’s like non like, when non willing way to customers and like, covered in is again, we got like a big presence. We have like several like 1000s and like American customers. And it’s not something that’s like it’s new, but like definitely the stories where I see even like silly things, right? Where to bringing again into X claim and the whole claims experience right? In immense it’s amaze, amazing to me, it always blows my mind where you still get a customer sending like envelopes and like documents about posts. And that’s like to know, it’s like guys, I get it and we’re gonna solve it and we’re gonna like work with our customers and I’m gonna listen to them. But it’s just like, it blows my mind where it’s like, what do you do with this document? It’s like it’s so and it’s like so unsafe. It’s like so unsafe. I feel that like when we’re thinking of about, again, technology and how we want to search for like data privacy, minimize risk, and like, say creating fully safe environments where your data is protected, right? If someone via post, like, just like, you could send me this document, my boss was like, this is like so unsafe. If it gets in the right in the wrong hands, it’s like, what do you do at it, you know? So, but then the other thing, again, is like, excellent. And the way it’s been built is that it’s chose for like all the regulatory and for all the differences. So when we build it, and when we design a few, like few years ago, we said, we want to have a platform that’s able to distribute, and we’re able to handle claims for any type of insurance in any country. Right. So it’s not only travel product, like as the other lines, and like Russia, cyber, I don’t know, like, anything you want, we can do it. So it says the challenge is it’s there. And I mean, we’re doing in and yeah, it’s just really exciting. I just feel overly excited.
Michael Waitze 36:05
Does that part of the backend system design excite you this idea that like it’s not fixed, there’s not like a table that just gets set up, and then it runs. But then you’ve got to build this flexibility into the system, like you said, if you if x claim is meant to handle any product in any country in any currency, right, and in any situation, and also be parametric, which you didn’t mention, but you said automatic payout, so it has to be parametric, right? So it has to have this real time data attachment to it as well. Like that’s hard to build. But it’s also hard to architect. I think people misunderstand, like what a CTO does, like this system architecture is almost as important as the system development. And that’s exciting. I think, no, I love doing that. Yeah.
Luiza Gusmao 36:44
Yeah, no, I like that’s, it’s really exciting. Because it’s also non like thinking, this is the other interesting, which is with interesting part of it, because it needs to be dynamic. So it needs to be allow me to have like version controls, and to iterate and to co keep constantly creating new products. And so while we do again, as I said to you, I have like we have, I’d have a team of engineers, right? So couple of like this really incredible dynamic platform, we also have a big group of engineers, they’re thinking of like creating journeys and creating like, amazing claims experiences. And then for the team is all about, like, how do we collect data? How do we measure how can we AB test? How can we actually accelerate and take it to the next level? How we can automate part of it? What are the inputs that we need, and like doing that constant exercise that the service that we’re delivering probably like last month, it’s like, it’s not the same that we’re going to be doing? Because we’re constantly collecting data and thinking about how you can make it dynamic and just keep taking to the next level, right, and empowering and is where you leverage the people and the technology together to architect that. So I think I would agree with you that when those are kind of under estimation of like, the work behind the scenes, and but yeah, I mean, it’s very similar to other tech companies. It’s just, it’s insurance. Right? And yeah, I’m stoked.
Michael Waitze 38:13
Look, and let’s just end on this creating simplicity, creating great simplicity. It’s actually really complicated. Anyway. Luiza Gusmao, you have to promise me on tape that you’d come back in a year or less. And tell me what the experience has been like in the United States. I could not be more curious, VP Customer At Cover Genius. Thank you so much for doing this today.
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