On this episode, Sabine VdL interviews Farron Blanc, VP, Brokerage Distribution & Strategy, Legal & General America where he works with an amazing team to drive growth leveraging technology to accelerate opportunities within the brokerage channels.

Farron is an entrepreneur too. He started Gerry, a concierge Service platform that used data and licensed Social Workers to help thousands of Americans navigate requirements and support for long term senior care. Farron and his team sold the company in 2021 which is when he made his move to L&G America.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• I’ve been at Legal & General for about three months, they’re the world’s 11th largest asset manager, but in the US it’s a really nimble business; we’ve invested so much in digital. One of the things I’m really passionate about is how to help the underserved get adequate, affordable protection – term life. You have to use technology to reach them and empower brokers to do that. I’m loving it!
• On the entrepreneurial side, in a venture-backed startup with $4, $10, &100million, money doesn’t solve anything because – until you’re Google or Apple – that money is an investment in the future and you will have to raise more capital in 12-15 months and the default mode is death because you’ll run out of money because you’re not profitable. Another thing people don’t understand is that when people give you that amount of money it comes with expectations, for some a $1billion exit isn’t big enough, even if they’re only writing a £2million cheque, they want to be in markets where companies can do £10billion exits. If you can understand those expectations as an entrepreneur you need to stay focussed and stay relevant while hitting all the milestones to get you there.
• Within a corporation the challenge is moving fast and nimble. You may have distribution, but you may not have innovation because you’re so efficient – you have processes, best practice committees, procedures and meetings that manage the process so it’s very efficient. Tech giants like Amazon, Netflix, Apple and Google do phenomenally well at attracting talent to be able to attack a problem internally and externally by buying companies.
• At L&G, we want to cover the most amount of families with affordable protection. The only way to do that is by using technology to digitise the process, personalise everything (rates, the experience, the journey that the policy holder goes through) both from applying to claiming the product. We’re probably the market leader on the application part but we still have so much work to do on the back end. You then have to work with partners in distribution. I’d love to be proved otherwise, but particularly in life insurance or mortality coverage, it is sold not bought. No one wants to talk about death. The best way to sell it is through independent distribution, reaching the customer how they want to be met. There’s no one magic bullet.

BEST MOMENTS

‘I’ve always been fascinated by problems and what’s the best way to solve them. Sometimes it’s a clean sheet of paper with no rules and sometimes it’s leveraging a 100 year old brand with a $40billion balance sheet.’

‘As long as you’re rapidly learning and re-assessing your challenges and assumptions, that’s the most enriching part.’

‘Within corporate venture you have a strategic return lens whereas financial VCs are purely gross IRR or total value paid in capital and multiples.’

‘The response to the global financial crisis of 2008 was to print more money to avoid a global depression. I think that worked, but it inflated asset prices and we were at a 0% interest rate environment for essentially two decades meaning long term contracts started to fall apart. What does the value of money mean now? It’s a debt obligation, but the rapid inflation we’re seeing means it’s going to be really interesting to see how we’re going to ride that out, how does being in an era of superabundant capital impact people’s subscriptions?’

ABOUT THE GUEST

Farron Blanc and his team help L&G America drive growth and leverage technology in the brokerage channel. Prior to that, as co-founder and CEO raised $3.75M of VC to start Gerry - a concierge service that used data and licensed Social Workers, helping thousands of Americans navigate long term senior care. We sold the business in the middle of 2021.

Farron was named by Digital Insurance as one of the 20 Insurance Innovators to know, as well as one of the top 35 young executives by Intelligent Insurer in 2017.

Farron is a recovering global reinsurer, corporate VC, life insurance carrier President, BCG Strategy Consultant, and insurance Chief Marketing Officer with deep Asian and North American startup and corporate experience.

Website: https://www.lgamerica.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/farron/

ABOUT THE HOST

Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, and commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers and accelerating over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner.

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