This month, our CEO, Jay Judas, talks to Samita "Sam" Malik, Chief Insurance Officer, Arta Finance. The pair discuss Sam's path from working in health insurance to consulting to insuretech, the potential that data offers in life insurance distribution, and our most extensive restaurant recommendations section ever (with 5 countries represented). Read on to learn more!
JAY: This month, I think I can confidently say I am joined by a pioneer in the tech-enabled life insurance space. Sam, you recognized early on that instead of trying to get a life insurance prospect’s attention focused on life insurance, that it would be more efficient to bring life insurance to where a prospect was focused. Fortunately, I know you are going to cover what this means when we talk about how life insurance and technology are integrated and what that involves for all the parties involved in issuing a policy. First, tell me about Arta Finance and your role in the organization.
SAM: Thank you for including me in the Tier One Interview Series, Jay. Arta Finance is a digital family office with the mission to unlock the financial superpowers of the ultrawealthy to the world. We integrate AI, machine learning and human expertise to provide solutions across the full range of financial needs of a household, from investments to taxes and insurance. I have built and led the insurance brokerage business at Arta for 3 years, essentially since inception.
JAY: When you and I spoke recently, you said your career started in insurance but not life insurance. Where was that?
SAM: I started my career in health insurance after graduate school and, after an MBA and a consulting role at Bain, came back to insurance when I was recruited by MetLife in their New York headquarters. I knew early on that technology should and would have a huge impact on this traditional business, so I started in Technology and Operations to learn the legacy world of policy admin systems.
I then took an expat assignment to build a digital business for MetLife in Hong Kong - the
first of its kind there back in 2013. It was incredibly challenging to integrate e-commerce and a digitally enabled agent salesforce into how the business had always been run, so I turned to partnerships with tech companies in the region as a bridge to help catalyze change. Over five-plus years, I had the good fortune to work with several fintechs and superapps in the region like Alibaba, PingAn, Tencent, GRAB, and Flipkart to name a few and to launch insurance solutions on their ecosystems in partnership with MetLife, Aviva and Aegon.
JAY: You clearly learned a lot from your Hong Kong posting about technology and the applications of that technology you would later build on in the United States. For those who might not be familiar with how technological ecosystems like WeChat, Alibaba, FlipKart, Grab and Tencent operate and what that can mean for a product like life insurance, maybe you could shine some light on this?
SAM: The Asian tech giants are true superapps - they combine social, e-commerce, ride sharing, payments and search all into one seamless platform which essentially powers the life of billions of consumers in that region daily. For a product like life insurance it means two things: first, there is massive amounts of data available about an individual which can be used to price and develop tailored products and, second, there are multiple contexts available in which to place and promote those products, often in real-time, without having to rely on “push” sales, as it has traditionally been done.
JAY: Consumers are often wary of giving out information to a life insurance company but liberally share all sorts of personal information when using their mobile apps for food delivery, ride shares, fitness and others. You just said that this data is valuable for both life insurance companies and clients. Can you elaborate on some of the unique opportunities for product development and marketing?
SAM: Yes, in the Asian context, we were able to use data from the superapp ecosystems to develop some interesting contextually relevant insurance solutions. From obvious use cases like using travel booking data to market travel insurance, to more nuanced use cases like using shopping data on clothing size as a trigger for health checks. In another example, we used food delivery and shopping data to triangulate relevant locations for priority hospital admissions and highlighted those in the marketing of a critical illness product. The United States has a highly fragmented app ecosystem and much tighter data privacy regulations, so many of these experiments wouldn't be relevant here. However, the broader point of using non-traditional data in pricing and risk assessment is one that is transferable.
JAY: Let’s turn to how Arta Finance is quickly applying technology to the life insurance space. Who is Arta’s target client and what would you consider to be a successful client outcome to be?
SAM: Arta’s target client is a tech or finance professional who is an accredited investor, with financial needs that are too sophisticated for robo advisors but a net-worth that is not yet in the desired range for most private banks or family offices. For us, a successful client outcome is when we can assess their life insurance needs in the broader context of their overall financial plan, explain it to them in simple terms that they understand, and then provide access to products and services that meet those needs. The client does not have to manage the process of working with a life insurance broker, an investment advisor and a lawyer separately.
JAY: We first met at a PPLI event in Southern California, and I will admit that it was difficult for me to wrap my mind around a tech-enabled experience in purchasing something as flexible as private placement life insurance. It is also a product with a lot of different parties involved and is not known for lending itself well to a defined process. Walk me through how Arta differentiates itself from the brokers in the PPLI space.
SAM: We differentiate ourselves along several fronts, some technology related and some not. For starters, we integrate PPLI design and solutioning as part of an individual's overall portfolio or estate planning and manage the entirety of that purchase process. This also allows us to be extremely competitive on price as there aren’t two or three different parties taking a bite out of commission or the AUM-trail pie. Secondly, we do not compensate the insurance team on commissions to try and minimize conflicts of interest in product recommendations, something I believe that really plagues the overall life insurance industry, and, in particular, hampers the growth of PPLI. Nor do we partner with or have volume-based commercial agreements with any one specific life insurance company.
On the technology side, where we really shine is our user experience around discovering and learning about something obscure and complex like PPLI. And on the backend, we provide access to policy and fund performance data on a quarterly basis, again in a simple and beautiful format.
JAY: From what I have seen, Arta is delivering on what you have described. I want to hear a bit about your life outside of the company. When you are not busy working in an early-stage start-up, how do you spend your time?
SAM: Between building Arta and raising three kids in the Bay Area, there isn’t much time to spare! On the professional side, I like to advise pre-seed start-ups in the Insurtech space, and on the personal front, you are likely to find me in the gym doing strength training. As a family, we love traveling, playing board games and exploring Oakland neighborhoods.
JAY: Thank you for participating in the Tier One Interview Series, Sam. My mind is racing and spinning thinking about all the ways life insurance distribution can be more efficient. You have made it to our restaurant question, and I know you will be pulling options from a broad geography. Without naming a steakhouse or a steak dish, what are some of the restaurants you recommend and what should someone order when visiting?
SAM: Here in the U.S., in New York, I love going to Red Rooster in Harlem for fried chicken and ABC Kitchen for farm-to-table.
In Hong Kong, I recommend Mott 32 for elevated Chinese, Chom Chom for Vietnamese, Samsen for Thai street food and Maxim’s Palace for dim sum.
If you make it to Colombo, you cannot skip eating at Ministry of Crab for curry or pepper crab.
In New Delhi I never miss eating at Bukhara for Northwest Frontier cuisine. Order the leg of lamb.
If you get the chance when visiting Bangalore, head to Farmlore for farm-to-table courses.
For lovers of BBQ ribs, go to Naughty Nuri’s in Bali. You will not be disappointed.
You will be surprised by the fluffy pancakes served during brunch at Flippers in Tokyo and if you have a sweet tooth, visit Karabina in Niseko and order the baked cheesecake.
Finally, closer to home in Oakland, my family enjoys going to eat at several places, including Bombera for Mexican, Joe’s Modern Thai for elevated Thai and Sequoia Diner for brunch.
Since its inception, Life Insurance Strategies Group has solely focused on the individual high net worth life insurance market. We do not sell products. This allows us to offer unbiased, pragmatic advice. Visit us at www.lifeinsurancestrategiesgroup.com.