Insurance government relations veterans are helping to start a new insurance technology advocacy group.
Jack Friou and Thomas Mays are two of the people helping to bring the American InsurTech Council to life.
The Washington-based group will "serve as a dedicated, independent advocacy organization that advances the public interest in InsurTech through its commitment to ethical, technology-driven innovation in insurance," organizers say. "AITC will pursue the public policy interests of InsurTechs, insurance carriers, and other InsurTech stakeholders by providing advocacy, policy research, education, outreach to regulators, other policymakers and the general public, across all lines of insurance."
AITC will help member organizations that are interested in insurance technology work with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and the National Council of Insurance Legislators as well as with state and federal policymakers, organizers say.
The Co-Founders
Friou worked at Aflac from 1973 through 2009, and he served as the company's director of government relations for about 20 years. He then started Tangent Point Solutions, a public policy consulting firm.
Mays started out as mayor of Huntington Beach, California, and then as a member of the California Assembly. He went on to serve as vice president of government relations at Pacific Life Insurance Company from 1993 through 2019.
The other AITC co-founders are Scott Harrison, Teri Hernandez and J.P. Wieske.
Harrison promoted a shift to principles-based for years.
Wieske worked for the Council for Affordable Health Insurance and later, from 2011 through 2019, was the deputy insurance commissioner in Wisconsin. In 2019, he went to work as a vice president at Horizon Government Affairs.
Hernandez runs a strategic planning and advocacy firm based in San Francisco and Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
AITC is now based in Horizon Government Affairs' office in Washington.
The History
Although AITC is having its official launch now, Harrison has been working on setting it up since October 2019. Mays and Wieske have been on board since January 2020.