Insurance Companies Doubling Down On CX | Todd Breton & Eileen Potter

Hey CX Nation,

In this week's episode of The CXChronicles Podcast #276, we welcomed Todd Breton from Hippo Insurance & Eileen Potter from Smart Communications to talk through CX's role in the insurance industry. 

Smart Communications is the trusted choice for regulated enterprises looking to modernize complex processes and connect with customers in the moments that matter most. 

More than 650 enterprises worldwide—including Zurich Insurance, Priority Health, The Pacific Financial Group, and The Bancorp—rely on Smart Communications to reduce compliance risk, boost operational efficiency, lower costs, and fast-track digital transformation that fuels business growth and elevates the customer experience.

500,000+ homeowners are insured today by Hippo with 70+ insurance carrier partners to boot. 

In this episode, Todd, Eileen and Adrian chat through the Four CX Pillars: Team, Tools, Process & Feedback. Plus share some of the ideas that their teams think through on a daily basis to build world class customer experiences.

**Episode #276 Highlight Reel:**

1. Technology's role in the insurance industry
2. How AI is changing the insurance space 
3. Why most insurance companies are doubling down on CX
4. Relationships still matter for most insurance customers
5. The future of insurance

Click here to learn more about Todd Breton

Click here to learn more about Eileen Potter

Click here to learn more about Smart Communications

Click here to learn more about Hippo Insurance

Huge thanks to Todd & Eileen for coming on The CXChronicles Podcast and featuring their work and efforts in pushing the way that customer experience fits inside of the insurance industry in the future. 

For all of our Apple & Spotify podcast listener friends, make sure you are following CXC & please leave a 5 star review so we can find new members of the "CX Nation". 

You know what would be even better?

Go tell your friends or teammates about CXC's custom content, strategic partner solutions (Hubspot, Intercom, & Freshworks) & On-Demand services & invite them to join the CX Nation, a community of 15K+ customer focused business leaders!

Thanks to all of you for being apart of the "CX Nation" and helping customer focused business leaders across the world make happiness a habit!

Transcript

Adrian Brady-Cesana (00:00.782)

All right, guys, thanks so much for listening to another episode of the CX Chronicles podcast. I'm your host, Adrian Brady-Cesana. Guys, we have a super cool show today. We have two guests with us. And we're doing a different type of conversation where we're gonna be learning about the world of insurance. And then we're, as always, gonna be talking about how it relates to the world of customer experience, employee experience. I think we might even get into agent experience and partner experience too, but I wanna introduce number one, Eileen Potter.

from smart communications. Eileen, say hello to the CX Nation, my friend.

Eileen Potter (00:34.047)

So hi everyone out there. Thank you, Adrienne, for having me on here today along with Todd.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (00:40.16)

Absolutely and then the next time Tom Redden say hello to CXNation my friend.

Todd Breton (00:44.604)

Yeah, good morning, everybody. Todd Breton from Hippo Assurance and Adrian, appreciate the invite to speak with you today about all customer experience.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (00:54.31)

I'm pumped guys. So a few weeks ago we had a couple of chats leading up to today and our conversation is funny. Eileen and I told you guys I was going do this. I literally told my best friend who's also in the insurance business after our conversation that I chatted with you guys and that he would love this episode because it's the world that you guys are in every day. But before we get into the show, let's start off with introductions. Eileen and Todd, one of you feel free to go first, but let's just start off with how we start off all these episodes, the stepping stone question. I'd love to.

like two minutes or so, how'd you get into the space and place? What were maybe some of the early things you were doing in your career and your life that led you to working in the roles that you're in today?

Eileen Potter (01:35.017)

Okay, should I go, I guess they always say ladies first. And so is that how we're gonna do this though? So how did I get into insurance? Like almost everyone else I know, it was an accident that, you know, you go to school, you go to college, you need a job. And so there was a job in an insurance agency. you know, obviously I knew about insurance, but I didn't understand the business of insurance, but it-

Adrian Brady-Cesana (01:38.358)

I think you lead us off, Yeah.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (01:48.078)

Yeah

Eileen Potter (02:03.145)

seemed like a good place to work and I needed a job and needed insurance. So here we go. So I went to work in insurance agency. Like most people, it just kind of is learning curve. You start off in insurance that you're familiar with. So personal lines, learning about home insurance and auto insurance. In an agency, I worked in an independent agency. I was a CSR. So I worked with people every day, helping them with their coverages, helping them with their claims.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (02:19.576)

Okay.

Eileen Potter (02:32.811)

I have now been in the industry, I always say more than 25 years, it makes me sound much younger than if I say over 30 years. But my experience as an agent has really shaped everything that I've ever done in insurance. Because to me, it really does go back to the customer and taking care of people. Insurance is not something that anyone is excited about.

But it is a promise. It is a promise to take care of you. And so everything I do, I have now been on the software side for a very long time. But for me, it's all about, I look at what I do at Smart Communications is helping people like Todd at his company, Hippo, take the best care of their customers just throughout, like at any moment during.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (03:03.512)

Yeah?

Eileen Potter (03:29.343)

like the buying cycle or the claim cycle especially.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (03:32.812)

Love it. love it. mean, one quick thing before we jump over to Todd, but like you're right. Insurance is a funny game where you don't always necessarily want it, but you need it. And then the other thing is, and then you guys laughed at me when I told you this a of ago, but as you get deeper into life, as you get older, a little wiser, you can see the gray in my beard now. got a daughter, I've got a few property, we've got cars, we have stuff. And to not have that...

Eileen Potter (03:43.627)

You need it.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (04:00.876)

those assets protected is crazy. And then the other thing too is like, as you get older, stuff does happen in life and hopefully doesn't happen to you and hopefully doesn't happen to your family or your friends, like stuff happens and insurance is one of those things where like to have that coverage to have that, that, that, that, that backing and that support. And then let's call it in today's world. mean, with, with people financing cars, financing homes, financing businesses, then you got that extra like this stuff's gotta be protected.

Eileen Potter (04:03.146)

Yeah.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (04:28.0)

So I love the intro. Todd, feel free to jump in my friend. Introduce yourself and Jessica Eileen. Give a sense for how you got into some of work that you're doing with Hippo and how you got into this space.

Todd Breton (04:39.26)

Yeah, thanks, Adrian. Appreciate it. So my journey in customer service morphed a little bit when I was in high school working at a cash register at a small little convenience store in Connecticut. But where it really started resonating with me is when I was doing my undergrad program, I did an internship at Disney World in Florida through a college program. And one of the things I learned that I've taken with me the entire my entire career is Disney really formed us to

give the customer the experience they want and what they expect. And one of the things that they preach to us is when you're working, you're on stage and you're acting. And that's kind of how I have gone through my journey and my career is, you know, what does a customer want and trying to be in their shoes, but also, you know, having that empathy and having that

Adrian Brady-Cesana (05:12.568)

Big time, yeah.

Todd Breton (05:37.342)

as Eileen alluded to, know, people have a claim. It's a pretty traumatic experience and being able to have the empathy to understand that. So that's kind how my journey started with customer experience. I've been in the insurance space for about 35 years. Started when I was young, I wish I could say. But anyways, it's a lot of fun. And yeah, this the insurance space is very unique and absolutely love it.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (05:42.808)

Be sure to. Yep.

Eileen Potter (05:54.666)

You

Adrian Brady-Cesana (06:04.17)

Awesome. So number one, thank you for that. And guys, I'm excited to dive in. I'd to kind of jump into the first pillar of team. And Eileen and Todd, feel free to kind of jump in as needed here.

Being in the space this long, you guys have probably seen a ton of different insurance companies set up their teams in a bunch of different types of ways, or you've seen agencies set up their teams in a bunch of different ways. Over your journey, and Eileen, I'll make this easy, I'll start with you and then we can move to Tyler, like, over your guys' journey, I guess what are like two big things that you've seen across the way that have really changed or really enhanced the way that...

an insurance team that's serving those customers and doing the things that you guys are talking about right now where you're dealing with these claims, you're dealing with these difficult situations. Talk about team for like a couple of minutes. I just want to hear some of the lessons that you've learned or things that you've observed or parts of your playbook that are now like gospel as far as what do you think about the first pillar of team.

Eileen Potter (07:07.102)

So it's really interesting because when I started, there were computers, but the technology was just, things were manual. People were calling in with the claim that was really the only channel. Like you had a fax machine, it wasn't, there weren't digital apps. Everything was handwritten or typed. Everything was manual. It was...

Adrian Brady-Cesana (07:29.154)

Yep, right.

Eileen Potter (07:35.381)

To me, that's the biggest change is that technology has made it, there were so many more different channels that you can communicate on. There wasn't any texting, there were really not many mobile phones. mean, that part of it was just completely different. And so I look at technology, so to me, that's the enabler that it can help.

it can help so much. can make things. There are so many different channels to communicate on the repeatability of communications in terms of being able to not have to start from scratch each time. So things can move a lot faster, even in terms of things like digital payments, like all of that technology has completely changed insurance and the way that people can use it. I feel like

Adrian Brady-Cesana (08:17.868)

Yeah. Yeah.

Eileen Potter (08:30.93)

at times that that is the balance that insurers really have and agents really need to find is that, so if every claim at best is just an inconvenience. So if I break my windshield, I really don't need to say like, Ms. Potter, we are so sorry. I just need to know where I can go get my windshield fixed. where, is very practical. I need to get my windshield fixed. Please tell me how.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (08:52.718)

Where's the infect?

Eileen Potter (09:01.19)

If my car is totaled and somebody is injured, I need more empathy. I need someone to say like, this is what you should do. And you want to feel taken care of. And I think technology can give you that opportunity to, people use the term high value processes. And I don't love that. I love the idea is that technology can enable,

insurance agents and CSRs and people in call centers to really focus on the people that you really need to take the most time with and that technology can give you a different level of bandwidth and then also not having paper files. I mean, well, and just the idea of like, can literally remember like, pick up

Adrian Brady-Cesana (09:47.182)

Offices are a lot cleaner these days, probably, right?

Eileen Potter (09:56.373)

picking up the phone, going to a file cabinet, the file is not there and running around the office and saying, does anyone have the so-and-so file? Technology makes it a lot easier, so you don't have to, maybe it's less exercise, yet it's more efficient. yeah, that's, me, technology has just, it's changed everything when it comes to assurance.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (09:59.719)

you

Yeah, right.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (10:10.178)

Yep.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (10:16.654)

I love it. love it. Todd, what are some of the things that you've seen over the years, my friend, and what are some of the things that you've seen kind of change on the team front? Eileen brings up an awesome, technology's changed rapidly. It's going to continue to change even faster. What are some of the things that you've seen on the team front, my friend, or what are some of the big things that you've kind of walked away these last 35 years knowing are paramount when it comes to building your team or thinking about the folks that are serving your customers every day?

Todd Breton (10:42.142)

Yeah, it's a great question, Adrian. I think, as Eileen has highlighted, the customer experience has changed over, at least for me, 35 years. I think one thing that I've, when I've been in the insurance, is I think as an industry, we always have a blind spot. And I'm trying to understand what the customer needs are and how we need to adjust to those and adapt to those.

Um, I mean, like I mentioned, you know, the tech piece has really been huge. It's the speed of service, how quick your claim is being handled. did read an article just recently that, you know, our customers now, at least in the insurance space, expect Amazon kind of level of service. want, you know, they want self-service interactions with us really quickly. So what I've seen is, you know, we've gone from a manual process.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (11:26.434)

Wow. Yeah. Right.

Todd Breton (11:36.592)

slow processing, slow adapting to adjusting a claim to quick of speed, fair settlement, and it's just really evolved. The tech piece has been huge. And like I said, I know for me, I I want something done really quick and I don't want the things to drag out. And I do have that Amazon kind of level of thought processes, just making it easier to move through our process, but it has evolved.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (12:03.246)

I mean, try the whole world, you're right. The whole world has changed because of Amazon, Walmart, Google, things now, right now. I want it right now. It's become so normal. And there's still certain businesses where that's not really part of it. Some things take time. Some things have compliance. Some things have checkboxes that have to happen. Some things have terms. And it's funny because I hear that statement all the time from guests coming to the show.

trying to keep up with Amazon, but it really has changed customer expectations across the board.

Todd Breton (12:37.926)

It has.

Eileen Potter (12:38.44)

Yeah, know, insurance fundamentally has not changed. mean, really, when you think of the insurance, so there's there's policy administration, there's issuing a policy, you know, there is paying a claim like like those functions are the underwriting function, the billing function. Fundamentally, those are the same. You're doing the same. Still the same thing. But what has changed because, you know, technology has changed. Customer expectations have changed. All of those things.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (12:57.518)

Still the same thing.

Eileen Potter (13:06.728)

All of those things have changed. And you brought up such a good point, Adrienne, about insurance is a highly regulated industry. Like your policy is essentially a legal document. It's a contract. This is what you're purchasing. This is what we're going to cover. people don't, I think that to me, when you talk about customer experience and I think about communication, Todd works on the claim side, but I also think it's

Adrian Brady-Cesana (13:18.573)

Yep.

Eileen Potter (13:34.315)

proactive communication, it's making things easier to understand. That probably is the one of the biggest, if you can be passionate about insurance, that's a passion of mine, is to enable people to better understand what's being covered. I was in front of a group of underwriters a few months ago and I said to them, I said, for everyone, for all of my close friends and family, I am the insurance person. If anything happens,

they are calling me to ask like, what should I buy? You talk about your good friend, like what kind of insurance do I need if I have a claim? Like what should I do? And I looked at everyone out there, I said, I'm assuming that you are that person to all of your close friends and family. And it was a group of maybe 60 or 75 people and they all nodded. And I said, but we have to be able to communicate because not everybody has an Eileen or a Todd or a friend like you do.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (14:04.046)

Fuck you.

Todd Breton (14:05.747)

Thank you.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (14:31.116)

Yep. Yep.

Eileen Potter (14:33.108)

that we have to be able to, you know, understanding legal parameters to make it easier to understand. Because to me, the saddest thing is when people are like, no, I thought I was covered. I didn't understand that I, yeah, yeah.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (14:47.502)

that miscommunication or the misalignment of expectations. And I mean, it's a complex space though. When I was telling you and Todd about one of my best friends who's in the insurance game with you guys, some of this stuff's complex. So depending on who you're dealing with or who's across the table from you, if they don't have a certain level of sophistication, comprehension, vocabulary, like some of this stuff, like not everybody understands all the caveats of what's going on here. So it is an easy.

Eileen Potter (15:00.36)

It is.

Todd Breton (15:00.446)

video.

Eileen Potter (15:13.332)

Yes.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (15:16.43)

place and space in the world to where you can get confused, right? And I guess one last thing is this, most people only buy one house. Most people only buy a car every six, seven, 10 years. So like some of those big items, not everyone's doing that shit every two, two years, three years. Not everyone's doing it again. So like it is one of those things. And then again, law, regulation, compliance changes. So even with my friend, it's funny since he's gotten into this, into this, this, this line of work.

Eileen Potter (15:19.988)

Yeah.

Eileen Potter (15:29.758)

Mm-hmm.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (15:46.348)

and you guys are gonna laugh because you've been doing it for decades, but he's already getting excellent at just understanding updates, new requirements, different legality changes, guys. One of the things I was excited to pick you guys brain on is like, everyone's heard about like Florida, for example, insurance companies pulling out of Florida. It's literally a country. I know there's a lot of opinions on Florida. We won't go there today, but like stuff like that, that.

Todd Breton (16:02.194)

Yeah.

Eileen Potter (16:03.871)

Yeah.

Eileen Potter (16:08.904)

you

Adrian Brady-Cesana (16:12.238)

takes a certain breadth of knowledge and that takes a SME like you folks, who's always kind of, you gotta be on your game, you gotta understand what's happening, and then you're relaying and socializing that to your customer base, right? So.

Eileen Potter (16:25.61)

It's, I think of this as there are a lot of things out of insurers control. So you think like climate change and weather conditions, you know, in Florida, like so many hurricanes impacting insurers saying, well, I can't pay these, it's,

premiums go up because of risk. And there's a lot of risk in Florida for there to be lots of like hurricanes, total losses, there's flooding, there's wind. know, Florida is this, it's not an island, but it's close enough. I mean, when it's just this peninsula, but then slowly sinking into the ground. But then thinking about there are like wildfires in places where there weren't wildfires. There's floods in places where there weren't floods.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (17:00.802)

It is.

slowly sinking to it.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (17:12.022)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Eileen Potter (17:14.588)

And Todd, you know this on the claim side, like this is complex, like these weather events that people don't have control over. This is really, there's lots of changes. And I guess I think of that as one of the ways I think that insurers can use technology is to respond to things they can't control because they can't control the weather. So how can they use technology to

provide better customer service. To me, efficiency and cost cutting, it shouldn't be just about like lowering expenses, and you want to lower expenses, but you also don't want to impact customer service negatively. Like there has to be that balance that if you cut costs too much and you can't provide that level of service, it really, is it going to help you if you lose customers?

Todd Breton (18:13.798)

I want to back up real quick, Adrian. I know you want to move on, but one thing you had brought up is the ever-changing world of policies and, you know, it changes from year to year. I think one thing that I've experienced in my career as a claims adjuster and then as a leader is most of us, when we get our insurance policy, we pay our bill, we put the insurance policy that's either in a digital portal or goes in a file cabinet. We have no idea what's on that policy.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (18:15.8)

We stood your food.

Todd Breton (18:42.802)

We have no idea. And it's our role.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (18:44.366)

I mean, books come, Todd. These policies are like books.

Todd Breton (18:47.568)

They're huge. They're really huge. Yeah. I think it's our responsibility as an insurance company to spend time with our customer when they have a claim, kind of outlining, you know, being empathetic, for that, you know, because this loss is tragic to them in some cases, but having them understand what their policy conditions are, what's covered, what's not, they're deductible. Because a lot of people don't understand that. mean,

Eileen Potter (18:48.895)

Yeah.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (18:49.378)

Greetings!

Eileen Potter (18:51.506)

Not even me.

Todd Breton (19:16.4)

Shame on me, I'm in insurance and I get my policy and I just switched carriers. I haven't looked at my policy. I need to, but that's our role in the insurance business to give that customer the benefit of the doubt and spend time with them.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (19:29.518)

Going back to what Eileen said a second ago, and to your point here though, it's like that is why the upfront expectation setting, communication, education, it's education. Eileen, my friend that I told you and Todd about, like, again, it's, and then for certain customers, and this is what's interesting for all of us guys, for everyone listening, all of us have different types of customer segments, right? All of us have different types of customers that we interact with. But in my circumstance, like,

The fact that I have a partner that's like Eileen and Todd that has been in this business, understands what's going on. There's also the trust value. I know that this is a unique thing because not everyone has the benefit of being able to work with their friends. Like Eileen, your point about 75 people that you were talking to in the room, them all being that person is pretty damn awesome because like, if you've got that authentic trust built in, like for my friend, basically ask him, what's the, here's my concerns, here's the things that I'm worried about.

what do you think I need? And I'm not worried about being oversold. And the other thing too is, again, as I've older, and I think for many of our listeners, many of our listeners guys are business founders, they're business leaders, they're people that are thinking about running teams, managing customers. To spend a little bit more, to have excellent coverage or excellent contingency plans, awesome, fine. If it's not gonna break the bank, even better. Now I've also learned though guys about over coverage. That was something that.

Eileen Potter (20:29.983)

Yeah.

Todd Breton (20:47.538)

Yes.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (20:54.734)

A lot of people, know, might not understand. there is that you can go too far and you can be literally great for something that you don't even own what the value of the thing is. But I want to ask, I want to ask a question, Todd. Let's start off with you this time. How does AI come into play in the world of insurance? How does, number one, guess, what is some of the big yammering or what are some of the big themes when you guys go to some of your industry events or as you guys are

Todd Breton (20:54.738)

Yeah.

Eileen Potter (20:58.6)

Mm-hmm.

Todd Breton (20:59.069)

Yeah.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (21:22.146)

just listening to all the changes that are happening in every industry. How's the AI playing in this, guys? What are some thoughts that you have around what you're seeing or what you think might change? We've talked about technology, but specifically with AI, does this change everything? Does it just change a few areas? Like, I'd to kind of pick you right on that.

Todd Breton (21:41.107)

So I know from a HIPAA standpoint, we're still adopting to the AI space. And part of that is because it's heavily regulated and we're still unclear, or at least from my prior conversations, unclear of what regulators kind of think about the AI piece. But I know internally from the claim side, we've slowly been...

Adrian Brady-Cesana (22:01.834)

Interesting. Really?

Todd Breton (22:08.657)

implementing some AI tools. One of them is when so many files are first notice of loss with us, because they had a claim, there's a tool that we've put into our claim system that summarizes the loss and assigns a severity level to it. And that kind of helps us determine what type of inspection we're going to do on that claim. if it's a big fire loss that a customer is going to, it's severity.

it's probably going to be a red flag for our claims adjusters too, that they probably need to send it to one of our mitigation vendors and construction. need that kind of thing. The smaller ones, it'll recommend, maybe you could just do by the phone and adjust it over the phone. So we're slow to adapt to it, but it's really been a helpful tool for us in claims.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (23:01.346)

That's awesome. So a couple of things before we bounce off this. The compliance piece is interesting. Financial professionals have the same problem right now. like specifically wealth managers, certified financial planners, that type of thing, where their compliance, their rules, whether it's FINRA or whether it's of the federal financial regulatory, same type of thing. Meaning there's still rules around.

how to send certain messages or what type of messages you can send or what words and copy you can send. So I find it so interesting that you've got some of the biggest segments of our economy, insurance and finance and like even automotive. Automotive, they say that they're adapting. It's still the same thing guys, we're back a house. It's still a little bit slow, but I find that fascinating that there's not a position yet because you think about policies, you think about...

Eileen Potter (23:44.445)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (23:55.438)

back office work, I mean, when I'm imagining like 20 years ago, and imagining the paper all over the filing cabinets, faxes and like, but like, you'd think that there would be some type of position around how a minimum usage, minimum, like a minimum expectation of what we can use at a minimum, or what types of parts of the insurance business we're allowed to use it. Maybe it's only sales and marketing, maybe it isn't the stuff that's actually more.

Eileen Potter (24:00.651)

Yeah.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (24:23.257)

you know, back house. But I find that interesting. What are some thoughts you have?

Eileen Potter (24:27.996)

So I always laugh about AI and conversations like this, because I'm like, I'm glad you brought it up, because otherwise we'd get fined. Like you can't have a podcast. We're not talking about, it would just like, you can't do that. it's, it is AI. I could just like, let's just talk about, so this is really interesting from an insurance standpoint. So I know it will surprise neither of you that I am a big giant dork and I spend a lot of time reading.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (24:40.18)

It's the most popular topic in the world, whether you love it or hate it.

Eileen Potter (24:56.81)

there's lots of insurance industry analysts about AI. So I might not be reading my policy, but I am reading industry analyst reports a lot. So this is, because this is a part of what, you know, what I'm thinking about. And from a technology standpoint, how can insurers use it? I think there are a couple of things. So AI from insurance, becomes really, what becomes,

Adrian Brady-Cesana (25:04.94)

Nice. Yep.

Eileen Potter (25:27.338)

gets kind of regulators looking at things is when AI is just making the decisions. Like that's problematic. Like AI saying like, going to, we will cover this or we won't cover it. just letting, like AI just kind of running amok. It's really important to have a human in the loop. AI can be like, know, what is, and what are you using it for? From the technology,

Adrian Brady-Cesana (25:41.805)

Okay.

Eileen Potter (25:56.079)

that I work with right now, especially customer communications technology, AI can be so helpful. AI can help summarize and make things easier to understand. There are lots of rules that come to accessibility in terms of reading. AI can really help with that. AI can be a great assistant. Those are the things that AI can really, really be helpful with.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (26:12.033)

time.

Eileen Potter (26:24.916)

but there always has to be a human in the loop. think, know, you know, from smart communication standpoint, that is just a huge, you know, for us, you know, AI is going to be relevant. So we're not going to use AI in a way that doesn't add, we want it to add speed and efficiency to, you know, to insurers tasks.

We want it to be accountable in terms of access and logging and maintaining providence. this is, we have very strict rules. Like this is, as an organization, this is something that I'm passionate about, that Smart Communications is passionate about. And our AI technology is going to be compliant. It's going to comply, regulations are changing, AI is, it's still, things are changing. so,

and there are regulations at national, state, and local levels. I think that that to me is super important is how it's going to be used. There are lots of, you talked about back office tasks. AI can compile information really quickly in a way so someone can make a faster decision. So that can help in adjudication of a claim or in an underwriting decision. But to me, it's all about the human in the loop. It's about being compliant. And it's not just

Adrian Brady-Cesana (27:33.699)

Yes.

Eileen Potter (27:50.127)

using it where it's adding a layer instead of helping. So that was kind of windy, but I hope that that resonated and made sense.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (27:59.96)

you

Todd Breton (28:01.04)

Yeah.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (28:03.15)

Absolutely, Todd, free to join on.

Todd Breton (28:05.811)

Yeah, no, mean, it's just we as an industry, I think we're we're taking small steps to to engage with the AI. just think it's a it's a phased approach that we really need to understand what we can and cannot do. And, you know, like I mentioned earlier, we have an internal tool that we use. It's not a claim making claim decision for us. It's just summarizing the data that we're receiving from a first notice of loss and then giving us

some kind of trajectory of possibly how we can handle the claim with our customer, but it's mostly internal. I'm not privy to what our organization has done on a larger scale, but I know that there is a concern in the industry right now from an insurance standpoint about what you can and cannot do. To Eileen's point, making decisions like an underwriting, you we can't use an underwriting tool to say, we're not going to write you. Your regulators may have a hard time with that because what did you use in that logic to do that? So, yeah.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (29:05.326)

And guys, the speed. So Eileen and Todd, you guys are both spot on. like, totally understand that institutions are gonna want to regulate and continue to control and continue to set expectations and law around how things have to be ordered and structured. Fine, got it. Totally fine with that. This thing's gonna move faster than anything has in the past. But going back to Eileen's point, and I'll give you guys an example. like,

Eileen Potter (29:08.084)

Yeah.

Eileen Potter (29:19.242)

100%.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (29:33.236)

We use a number of different AI tools at CXE for not only our internal work, but for some of our client work, right? And then many of our partner, our strategic partner software solutions, they're already building some crazy stuff inside of their existing tools that leverage AI so that essentially people can do more with less. Or I think to your point, can do the manual slow stuff that's important, wicked fast, and then have a smart person.

take things the last mile, right? But one example that I think I'm gonna keep using for people and I'm gonna share with you guys is like, I'm finishing up my second book, Make Happiness a Habit. And I have promised you guys, I wrote the book, I wrote it, I promise you, there's still some of us out there, but I did leverage ChachiBT, I did leverage Gemini, I did leverage a few other tools. And what's funny is compilation,

Todd Breton (30:17.342)

We'll back.

Eileen Potter (30:18.218)

you

Adrian Brady-Cesana (30:31.402)

and then citing, sourcing, connecting facts, Connecting facts, reports, case studies, analyst reports. That was really good. And then Eileen, you're spot on where I I now have the next month and a half in front of me of literal human rewriting every fri- because as great as the compilation, the aggregation, the quick and dirty of just like pulling stuff together is, humans are still the last mile. And then, then I'll give you another example.

Eileen Potter (30:41.289)

Mm-hmm.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (31:01.208)

with the last several episodes, we have people coming on from AI companies, founders of AI companies, making it clear that, and usually when we get into the first pillar of team, humans are still the last mile for a while. Elon's gonna have to pump his brakes because we're not riding around a robot tomorrow. That's not happening. mean, that would be wild, but there's still gonna be human involvement, human intervention. And then one last thing, and I really like this idea because I don't, think,

Eileen Potter (31:15.679)

Yeah.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (31:30.688)

A lot of the world is still a little bit nervous or scared or uninformed around what this means for their space, their subject matter expertise area. But I think in the next thousand days, there's going to be really interesting migration across every industry, every industry, every space. Some might be a little bit slower than others, sure, no doubt about it. But there's going to be a cohort or a group of leaders in each one of these subject matter expert spaces that are going to figure this stuff out.

Eileen Potter (31:37.278)

Yes.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (31:58.486)

And they're either whether it becomes comfortability with leveraging an industry specific type of AI solution that can get them ahead a little bit further, whether it's leveraging some of the out of the box solutions that we see kind of taking over the world right now. And then lastly, just education and comprehension of what it can and what it can't do or set it another way, how to work smarter, right? Which parts of a business kind of goes to a bot where we even trust the sorting or the

the scanning or the quickfire stuff versus what smart humans have to pick up the information from that and make critical decisions or make or make minimally big ticket decisions. Guys like Todd, you're talking about a fire in a house. You got to replace a house that you got to. Family's got to go rent a house for 12 months. Then they get that's a lot of money. So like those decisions are still need to be in the hands of humans. But I love that. Guys, I'd like to jump into.

Eileen Potter (32:36.638)

Yeah.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (32:56.558)

process and feedback. Insurance is interesting because we've talked about all these different ways that you guys become aware of a claim or aware of a situation or can you can each one of you spend a couple minutes kind of talking about how have you guys built process around getting feedback from not only your customers or your insurers, your end insurers, but you guys have another piece that's similar to what we do at CXC, right? Where you have different insurance

Offerings, right? So you've got a customer Then you've theoretically got your insurance partners or some of the different things that you're you're able to provide He's spent a couple of minutes just kind of talking about how you sort of manage that and what that looks like It's sort of what you've learned along your own your way for some of the the best ways of using feedback To really kind of push these words

Todd Breton (33:34.478)

Thank you.

Todd Breton (33:48.338)

I I mean, you want to go first? I go first. Yeah.

Eileen Potter (33:49.044)

Who first? So I work really closely with, obviously with our customers, with HIPAA, with Todd. Like that is a big part of my role here is that I work with insurance companies to talk about what their end customer, like what their insurance really need. It's not about technology for the sake of technology because it's cool. It's about how is this going to help them

take better care of their customers. And to me, that is a continuous feedback loop. You know, I want...

I guess like that is my passion is taking this technology to help insurance companies take better care of their customers. And so for me that I spend, know, obviously Todd and I are pretty comfortable together. He is not afraid to like speak on a panel discussion with me on stage, like even live. now there's this like the, this is just virtual, but I do this a lot.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (34:59.566)

Todd, why don't you go ahead and jump in here as well, why don't you go ahead and kind of pick up where Eileen left off and give us a sense for some of the things you've seen with leveraging feedback and really kind of using it to your advantage with growing the business and providing that incredible customer experience.

Todd Breton (35:16.478)

Yeah, that's a great question, Adrian. So I want to step back a little bit. So one of my roles at Hippo and why I came to Hippo is looking at the continuous improvement cycle and understanding what is lagging and what needs to be improved in the process. And that's kind of where Smartcom came in. So backing up a little bit, when I first came in, I noticed that Hippo was sending out our customer letters.

in a manual process. It would take them 15, 20 minutes to write a letter. Then they had to email it to a manager to look at, and then send it back and put it in the file. It really just, we had, I think, a network of 1,560 letters with the 40 states we wrote business in, and it became a time suck. We spent a lot of time doing letters.

And then this is where SmartCom came in. So when we integrated into a new claim system, SmartCom came on board. And we knew that there was a pain point with our customers, with possibly what we identified as sometimes we weren't putting the right policy number. We weren't writing the claim number. We were maybe putting the wrong language.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (36:35.534)

just due to manual error, due to not having that.

Todd Breton (36:37.97)

Just manually. Exactly. So Smartcom came in and we were able to reduce that 15 to 20 minute time frame to do a letter to five to eight minutes just by automating it. And it helped the customer. We have less service. We have it's the the letter lives within the within the system. It was not a manual thing where we had to manually through an email address. And it really just made a huge impact on the customer.

But we got feedback from our customers that, hey, this is not right. This is not correct. You you were at the wrong policy number, the wrong address for our loss. Or, you you use the wrong policy language. This was for a condo loss. wasn't for a homeowner's loss. So just having that automation and getting the feedback from our customers and then me coming in and helping with the claims operation to to try to automate that and make it a lot better. you know, we were we were.

The process time we reduce somewhere around 60, 65 % and just process, which it helps us as a company, but also helps the customer at the end of the day, they're getting the right information the first time.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (37:40.046)

That's amazing. It's amazing.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (37:47.854)

Before I let you jump off that top, what does an organization, what does a team, what does an individual do when they get 65 % of their time back in a certain area? What did that open up or what other things became present or possible with some of that time?

Todd Breton (38:06.879)

Yeah, that's a great question, Adrian. I think what we ended up focusing on is more as... The cat's out of the bag. I do live on a golf course, but I don't play golf very much. anyways, I think Adrian, it's a good question. that frees us up to be more responsive to our customers, even though we are responsive.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (38:09.975)

Don't tell me your golf game got better, Todd. Don't you tell me.

Eileen Potter (38:11.784)

Todd's a runner, not a golfer. Or maybe he's a golfer too, but I know he's a runner.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (38:18.146)

But, okay, okay, okay.

Eileen Potter (38:25.425)

You

Adrian Brady-Cesana (38:25.463)

Yeah.

Todd Breton (38:35.974)

at a high level, but I just think it gave us a little more time to focus more on our customer instead of doing the manual process and more technical piece that doesn't really, at the end of the day, impact our customer. It's more internal and it just really had a good push for the customer at the end of the day.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (38:36.14)

Yep. Yep.

Eileen Potter (38:57.138)

Yeah.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (38:57.262)

I love that. know, guys, it makes me wonder, and this is going to be question I'm going to ask all year long in every episode, like, and Eileen, going back to what we were joking on, another AI, AI, AI, right? But here's the deal. If the whole world is mainly talking about it, means they're aware of it, means they're probably starting to learn some things about it here and there, whether they want to or not, but due to exposure, right? There's, things that are becoming more, more front center, but you don't really granular, crisp,

Eileen Potter (39:06.479)

Yeah.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (39:28.205)

detailed stories around what we're gonna do with some of this time. And then it leads one to believe like it will likely then continue to just be, if you save this time, okay, now we can do more with less. And now on one side, like that's cool. But as we sit here on a customer experience podcast, and then guys, you know that I told you when we met a few weeks back, you cannot have world-class customer experience without world-class.

employee experience. And so then it just makes me continue to wonder and I just would like at least like a thought from each of you on like, what, how are organizations and our business leaders gonna start to create actual plans, actual strategy, actual roadmaps, actual, go ahead and put a slide up around what are we gonna do and what are we willing to invest when that comes? Because I think what's gonna happen is like,

Eileen Potter (39:57.01)

percent.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (40:24.654)

you're going to have a smaller group of professionals that become extremely valuable. So yes, some people and some roles and some jobs in certain areas might go away or change, likely more to change, right? The world, when we see these big, crazy catalyst moments, doesn't make everything just go away altogether. It could, this might be a different thing, but normally it's just a shift. People go do different things. There's a spreadsheet, example, the creation of a spreadsheet created the ability for

Eileen Potter (40:37.008)

I agree.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (40:54.422)

CPAs and accountants to then manage a hundred customers right first before with their bookkeeping they could do a few right but like yes like as we as we start to weigh down what how does that look how does that resonate in the insurance space with you guys meaning like Are there already some leaders that are really kind of leading leading insurance companies or leading insurance providers that are really kind of thinking about this are their agencies maybe big agencies across across the land that are thinking about

how they're gonna sort of play into that effect because I don't know, it's interesting. I'm gonna keep kind of asking people, what are you seeing here? Or even what do you think or what do you potentially see might happen knowing where we've been and kind of seeing where we're about to go. Eileen, why don't we start with you and then Ty, can jump in to after.

Eileen Potter (41:46.343)

So I 100 % whether it is AI or any other technology, it is really helping insurance companies, insurance agencies.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (41:52.565)

Um, Todd, actually what? Oh, sorry. I mean, okay. Sorry. Go ahead.

Todd Breton (42:04.382)

You

Eileen Potter (42:05.325)

No, it's so unstable. I'm so sorry.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (42:22.293)

Adrian Brady-Cesana (42:31.246)

Yeah, okay. Todd, why don't you go ahead and pick up the question? I'm sorry.

Todd Breton (42:35.112)

Yeah, I think if I'm looking at a snow globe, a future of what that's going to look like, think we need to, our claim side is be focusing as an industry more on claims automation, moments of truth. How can we get people to adopt, our customers adopt more technology to do it on apps?

Adrian Brady-Cesana (43:02.573)

Yep.

Todd Breton (43:03.932)

to handle their claims through that way. I know a lot of carriers do that. I just think, I think as we evolve as an industry, we're always gonna have to be looking at what the customer is wanting. And I think it's an ongoing, I it changes every day. mean, customers expectation 20, 30 years ago was one thing, now it's different this year, and I think this time period. And I really think, you know,

Adrian Brady-Cesana (43:07.831)

Absolutely.

Todd Breton (43:33.722)

having a lot of different options for our customers and being able to have that automation to help them navigate through their claims, or at least from the claim side, their claims journey.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (43:46.146)

Yep. No, think you're absolutely right, man. And then again, for all of us, continues to be, you know, work in progress. And then again, for all of us, we're going to continue to see what types of ebbs and flows and we're going to continue to see where the core opportunities are for disruption, optimization, and really, again, anything that we can do to kind of continue to make things better for our customers is going to be great. So guys, this has been absolutely fantastic. we wind up the show, number one.

Todd, anything that you would like to call out about some of the things that are going on in Hippo and then where can people find you, my friend? Or where can people reach out to you if they want to learn more about Hippo?

Todd Breton (44:23.366)

Yeah, we are a publicly traded company. Hippo. Just a little bit about Hippo itself. Hippo Holdings is where our technology native insurance company or platform, should say, that's driving growth through own and partner MGA. So really, we're not an insurance company ourselves. We're an MGA of a insurance company. But if people want to reach out, learn more about Hippo, it's Hippo.com.

on the internet. I've got great information about what we offer, what we, some of the technology that we're using in our system, in our company, and just really what our trajectory is for the next two to three years.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (45:11.168)

I love it, man. I love it. And guys, for Eileen to get in touch with Smart Communications, it's going to be smartcommunications.com. Eileen is highly active on LinkedIn. then, guys, obviously, we will add these to the show notes. But Todd, Eileen, it's been an absolute pleasure having you folks on the CX Chronicles podcast. Huge thanks for sharing your story. And we'll look forward to chatting with you folks again in the near future.

Todd Breton (45:36.966)

Adrian, thanks for your time. Appreciate the invite and thanks a lot. Appreciate it.

Adrian Brady-Cesana (45:41.902)

Absolutely. Thank you.

Todd Breton (45:43.731)

Thank you.