Earlier this month, the inaugural InsureTech Connect Conference took place in Las Vegas with a staggering 1500 people in attendance. You could feel the electricity and excitement. With countless hours of meticulous planning under their belts, the organizers, Jay Weintraub (founder of Grow.co, Leadscon, and Contact.io) and Caribou Honig (QED Investors), did a fantastic job leading the event.

Team Bold Penguin was there in full force. We savored every minute of conversation and information available - thank you Caribou for the Bold Penguin shout out at Day 1. Our peers were friendly, insightful, inspiring, and brilliant. One thing was very clear–the future of insuretech is full of new players.

Together we've learned a lot and there are still questions to be answered......

Is it InsureTech or InsurTech? A mere few years ago this term didn’t even exist. Now, it has exploded to the point of having its own hashtag (#ITC2016).   So, how the heck do you spell it?  Being a social media group, Bold Penguin would really like to nail that down. We suggest trying to to go with insuretech.

Do agents have a future in the space? There are multiple conversations happening immediately after InsureTech Connect. Some praised the agent force. Some couldn’t wait to crush it into nothing. We honestly have no idea which side is right.  Bold Penguin is betting on the future of insurance with an expert in it. Sure, in some lines, a human isn’t needed. Everything can be done interactively on a device like a phone. But when things get complicated, a human touch isn’t optional, it’s necessary–even to millennials.

Was there innovation? “To in·no·vate - /inəˌvāt/ - make changes in something established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas, or products.” If insurance was invented in the digital age, we'd be seeing something completely different today. But it wasn't and we’re all focused on finding more modern day ways of working in the complex jungle. Some seemed to push the boundaries while others seemed to put lipstick on the same old.

Are we closer to travel or real estate? Fintech investors come to look at insurance and draw parrallels to what they know. However, in travel, Kayak and similar businesses made the travel agent nearly obsolete. Consumers were more than ready to search for deals on their own–almost like a game. It’s thrilling and cost effective. But in the case of real estate, realtors are not gone. Take a look at Zillow and the way they empower the local agents. People shopping for homes go about it their own way but in the end from time to time they see an agent.

We live in a time where a lot of new things are happening - nothing has jumped out ahead of the rest. We’d love to hear your thoughts.

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Some Highlights:

- Bold Penguin CEO and Founder Ilya Bodner shared the stage with Jay Farber of F-Prime Capital, Allan Egbert of AskKodiak, Snejina Zacharia of Insurify.com, and Joey Giangola during one of the sessions titled “Building Agent 2.0”.

- Converhound CEO Keith Moore announced the launch of CyberPolicy.com.

- Lemonade co-founder and CEO Daniel Schreiber shares thoughts on future of P2P and the first 48 hours of their launch.

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