David Levenson (Photo: Allison Bell/TA)
LIMRA's 2018 annual meeting in New York often looked like an insurtech event — and that was on purpose.
LIMRA is a nonprofit, member-owned group that helps life insurers and other financial services companies conduct market research and other types of research, and to use that research to create educational materials and other tools,
Robert Kerzner, who has been LIMRA's chief executive officer since 2004, is retiring from the CEO post. He helped organize an annual conference with many general sessions and breakout sessions focused on technology, and he also discussed insurtech during his own presentations.
LIMRA gave the meeting the title, "Reclaiming Relevance."
The group's leaders talked often here about the need for life insurers to understand, and respond to, all kinds of change, including technological change.
On Monday, Kerzner cited companies like HavenLife.com, the web-based life insurer, and MeetFabric.com, a company that sells instant accidental death and dismemberment and term life policies through the web, as examples of the kinds of companies that are reshaping the life insurance industry.
"None of these companies existed even 10 years ago," Kerzner said.
On Tuesday, Kerzner said the pace of change has forced him to rethink how someone should run an organization like LIMRA.
Originally, he said, "I wanted to develop a sustainable business model… I realized that's not a realistic objective."
The LIMRA board has picked David Levenson, a principal at Edward Jones and former Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. executive, to be LIMRA's next CEO.
Levenson also emphasized the importance of recognizing and embracing change.
"If you don't like change," Levenson said, "you'll like irrelevance even less."
LIMRA is a nonprofit, member-owned organization, and Levenson he'll take a membercentric approach to managing LIMRA.
"You have to immerse yourself in the reality of your customers," Levenson said.
