By R. Christopher Haines, President and CEO
There have been a lot of good feelings lately, at least for me. Seeing our entire staff at the same time, in the same place, for the first time in over 15 months was a big deal for me. Being a person who traveled every two or three weeks for years, the strange feeling of booking business travel and registering for upcoming, in-person, conferences for the first time in almost a year-and-a-half felt great. Being in an airport and on a plane last week, after such a long hiatus, seemed almost surreal.
And while all these feelings were wonderful, that isn’t exactly what I was going for with the title of this post. It’s really more about the momentum that seems to be building in insurance technology after everything we’ve all been through. Activity seems to be everywhere.
Sure, people looked at new systems, or adding new functionality to existing systems, between March 2020 and now. Some companies even moved forward with these projects. But a large number of companies seemed to take a wait-and-see approach, hoping for some sign that things might someday look similar to the way they did before the world locked down.
Since Marias lives in a place somewhere between carriers and vendors, we get to hear a lot about what’s going on. We get contacted by carriers, not just those that are our customers, to get our opinions on a wide variety of topics. The same goes for calls and emails from vendors reaching out to us to get a handle on what we may be seeing. And the pace at which these inquiries are increasing tells me everything I need to know about the rumble that’s growing in insurance technology.
I’m excited that Marias plays a small role in this industry and am really looking forward to seeing where things go for all of us in the next 12 months. We all survived selling our products to prospects and serving our clients via video conferencing software. But very few of us would say that was ideal. Once the conferences really get rolling later this year, and we all get back to visiting prospects and customers in person, it’s hard to imagine the limits of where this momentum takes us.
And maybe if I’m lucky, our paths will cross somewhere along the way.