Turning Inari into a verb

The so-called ‘Class of 2020’ (and 2021) will stand out from the Bermuda crowd thanks to the kit some of them will use to interpret data, says Frank Perkins, chief executive officer and chief technical officer of Inari.

But what exactly is the Inari tech? According to its developers, Inari offers a secure software-as-a-service platform with 360° access to a broad variety of datasets and types, providing automated ingestion, processing, and governance. Inari says this allows for bespoke and legacy business processes to be easily integrated. It’s a “risk-centric, data-first” digital solution designed for insurance operations from quotation to portfolio management.

To tech cavemen (and cavewomen), the difference between Excel and Inari is like having an iPhone while everyone else still thinks their Blackberry is a game-changer, Perkins said.

Perkins was attending the Bermuda Risk Summit with Inari’s chief commercial officer, Alex Pike. They were there, not to tout for business from scratch, they said, but to meet clients they already have on their books. These clients are among the new entrants to Bermuda re/insurance, from box-fresh startups to old-school firms ready to admit that emails and spreadsheets won’t cut it in the modern world of risk.

Cart before the horse

Traditional devotees of the latest tech often fall for buzzwords such as blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI), said Pike. That’s because they don’t know that real innovation comes before building technology. Inari’s approach is “sitting down with people to understand what’s required and solving real problems”, he added.

Perkins accepts that some in the industry may have the cynical view that a tech provider is “just another snake oil salesman”. Citing the late American astronomer Carl Sagan, he said: “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”.

“People have come in promising a miracle technology that does everything and is going to make you super profitable; in other words, giving an unrealistic set of expectations. Then the implementation of the technology overruns, because the nature of engineering is that it’s rarely on time.

“As a result, the technology becomes very expensive. That has happened time and again, and the result is scepticism. Truly innovative technology is less about machines and more about a mindset, and I think the re/insurance space has a very open mindset,” he said.

The industry has masses of data and needs to be able to make it “actionable”, Pike said. “There’s no point in stuffing a warehouse full of information if you can’t draw insights from it. The question is, how can you use data to make better decisions.”

Inari addresses the increasing need for speed in risk management, and offers data processing in minutes and hours, rather than the weeks and months a mere mortal normally achieves, Perkins said.

Keep the humans

A “negative vibe” around risk technologies is the assumption they are designed to replace brokers and underwriters, Perkins said. “With a lot of tech, there’s an obsession to remove humans from the equation, and often then it’s about the human serving the machine. The fact is that Inari doesn’t remove anybody—it supercharges everyone by giving them the tools, the visibility and support they need to focus on human tasks.”

The idea that technology is superior to the human brain is wildly exaggerated, he said, since “it’s actually very easy to collect petabytes of data”. Likewise, AI is “a bit of a misnomer” because it isn’t about intelligence, but is simply “very fast pattern recognition”.

“Inari enhances the human’s interpretation of that data because, after all, a machine can’t have a gut feeling. And that’s why you don’t want to remove a 30-years-of-experience underwriter because they’re the ones who can look at the information and make decisions based on it.”

The human side of Inari itself is equally important, Perkins stressed. The Barcelona-based company is a group of “insuregeeks” who haven’t taken the usual route of career technologists. Perkins was one of the founding members of insurer ANV Group, where he led IT infrastructure & applications, while Pike is a former British Army officer, whose military service included two operational tours of Afghanistan.

The wide range of backgrounds in the Inari team lends itself to open discourse, Perkins said, adding that he encourages them to challenge ideas, including his.

Last line of defence

Perkins said he had come to Bermuda, his first visit to the Island, because it’s “the last line of defence of the entire insurance industry”.

“It was a natural evolution to come here and to meet people because this market is sociable. We’re asking them about their needs, what gaps they have, and finding the solutions that have the most meaning for them,” he said.

The long-time custodian of cat re/insurance, Bermuda has built up a colossal amount of data over the past 50 years, he said, adding that Inari can enhance the decision-making capabilities in ways not possible before. That means being able to move statistical analysis to a portfolio perspective, by seeing whether their risk assessment correlates across datasets.

Pike stressed that Inari isn’t a data provider, but rather that the company’s platform enables its clients “to plug into different data sources very easily” and then “use what they need” from those sources.

“Today, a company receives submissions via email. They’ll do some underwriting and then they’ll print out the policy documents, take them from one building to another, have them signed, and take them back to the first building, where they’ll scan them and send them back to the broker.

“Why are they doing that in 2022? It’s been a slow process to adopt new technologies because there’s a nervousness about rocking the boat. The fact is however that the banking and other industries are already using technology of this century, while the re/insurance sector is lagging behind. What we offer that sector is transformational.”

The kids are alright

Rather than being “disruptive” for the sake of it, Inari’s platform is more a reflection of how the world is developing around the industry, Pike said.

“My kid tries to change TV channels by swiping across the screen. That’s because the way of using new technologies is already ingrained in the new generation. And, as with this new class in Bermuda that is using Inari, there will be no more searching for the remote control.”

He added: “It’s not trying to disrupt the industry; it’s about changing their way of thinking in order to be faster and more agile than they could otherwise be.”

Asked how they measure success, Pike said that Perkins has “bootstrapped the company”, by investing his own money in Inari. The company had secured clients before it had finished developing its product, so its work is “already being paid for”.

“We’re a private company so, at some stage, we’ll probably go and raise more money to help accelerate our growth,” he added.

For Perkins, success is semantic. “For me, it’s when Inari becomes a verb that everyone in re/insurance knows means managing risk efficiently, effectively and transparently.”