13 — National insurance brokers
16 — National and international insurance carriers and wholesalers
12 — National and international insurtech startups
Countless — Moments of innovation in action
What I’ve outlined above illustrates our recently held BrokerTech Ventures (BTV) Mania, held April 5 – 7 in Des Moines, Iowa, at our Holmes Murphy headquarters. This intentional event is one of the key differentiators of the BTV program, and it’s a part of what sets us apart from other “accelerator” or incubation hubs in the technology space.
The goal of this initial phase of the BTV Accelerator program is to see which technologies and/or products are most applicable to the broker, insurance company, wholesaler, or direct to client spaces. These learnings are then applied to swifter moves to pilot, deployed proofs-of-concept, or immediate implementation. We’ve found that this enhanced focus helps our startups greatly as they work to make their ideas, programs, and solutions more valuable to the direct people who will be using them.
As part of this all and as a core tenant to BTV, we believe in what we like to call “co-opetition” in our industry. We believe in partnering with companies who most would view as competitors but that we view as collaborators and partners to elevate our thinking and speed to adoption of innovation by working together. It’s an interesting concept most would deem contradictory to each of our businesses, but through these relationships, we’re able to work together more quickly and efficiently to innovate within the industry.
Through this co-opetition, we share ideas and provide feedback to the founders of the insurtech startups selected to join our BTV community. And, as I mentioned, what we’ve found is that BTV provides our insurtech startups access to feedback, pilots, engagements, and ultimately distribution, which accelerates growth and lanes to capital.
From BTV Mania and through the Accelerator, some of these startups will actually have access to what we call “labs. by Holmes Murphy/BTV.” What this means is that Holmes Murphy may select a couple of the startups and their technologies to actually test out inside our business. During this time, our employees lean in, learn, and put these technologies to work to see how they may be able to streamline processes for either our own internal business practices or for our clients. This is monumentally helpful for the startups as this critical employee feedback is what can make these innovative technologies more applicable than ever to the insurance industry space.
To date, we’ve seen several of our startups transform the industry, and we can’t wait to see what this next class of innovators does. We truly believe BTV is unlike anything in our insurance industry, and we believe Holmes Murphy and BTV are catalysts for innovation — in action.
