After exhibiting as a vendor at the 2018 IASA Conference in Nashville TN, one big takeaway for me was the alignment with the Nashville, TN, venue selection.

Today, Nashville is evolving rapidly with immense growth and opportunity on the horizon. The same goes for the P&C insurance industry. At this year’s IASA conference, it was evident to me that the changes and shift in traditional thinking about delivering and servicing insurance products is starting to take hold.

Specifically, I noticed three areas that continue to evolve that enable significant improvements in the way insurance products and services are delivered to market:

Technology - With the now massive Insurtech movement (however one defines insurtech), it is clear there is a technology revolution taking place in the industry.
Partnerships - One way to enable fast, focused, and meaningful change is to develop and leverage strategic partnerships. Until now, the insurance industry (and vendors that support the industry) have been mostly averse to a partnership model. That is starting to change. This year, as a vendor at IASA, we had as much discussion with potential partnership opportunities focused on business development as we did engagement directly with carriers.
People - One of the key drivers around being “open to new ways of doing things” is being driven by new leadership at CEO and other C-level positions within the carriers. This is the right place to be driving change, especially in the mid-market, mutual, and regionally focused P&C insurance carriers.

So Nashville aligned very well with the focus of IASA 2018. There is a rich history in both P&C insurance and in Music City. But, there is also a fundamental shift in thinking taking shape to enable a future way of growth that is very different than the way things are being done today.