Jeremy LEACH Jeremy LEACH

A Dynamic Leader with Resolute Qualities

Originally trained as an accountant in the UK focusing on the offshore finance sector, Jeremy Leach went back to school to do a Master’s in International Development. This enabled a shift to a focus on emerging markets with stints at DFID (now UKAid) and a think tank FinMark Trust before drilling down on the insurance sector, which is the financial services vertical he felt was the furthest from the tipping point of the profitable scale.

After leadership roles at Hollard, an international insurer, and BFA Global, a management consulting firm, Jeremy founded Inclusivity Solutions with the aim to take the lessons learnt to drive scale in emerging markets. While bruised from fundraising challenges, starting up a company against dominant brands and challenging conservative thinking—under Jeremy’s leadership as the Founder & Executive Director Inclusivity Solutions reached over 1,4m clients across 6 countries.

Inclusivity Solutions was born out of the need to transform access to insurance in emerging markets where penetration is typically between 2-5% of the adult population.

Jeremy shares, “We do this through providing a worldclass platform supported by expert skills to delight our partners. This reflects in our ‘north star’ where Inclusivity Solutions exists to build a sustainable global business by providing appropriate, affordable, and accessible financial solutions to enable the underserved and vulnerable to manage their risk and well-being and which delight customers and stakeholders, thereby providing responsible returns to shareholders.”

In an interview with CIOLook, Jeremy shares valuable facts highlighting his professional tenure and his journey in the dynamic InsurTech niche.

Enlighten us on how you have impacted the InsurTech niche through your expertise in the market.

I cannot think of a better way to answer this than to let one of our valued partners answer this on our behalf:

“I had heard about Inclusivity Solutions but had never worked together till I joined my current organization. They are omnipresent in all the touch points of my business, a fact that I attribute to their high-caliber workforce.

They are agile, sensitive, and responsive and have been extremely helpful not only in technology but other aspects of the business. Inclusivity’s 360-degree view of the business is fantastic. Choosing them as a partner is one of the decisions, I will pride myself on, for a very longtime.”

Dennis Victor Wafula, Head, Insurance, and Invest-

ments/Airtel

Money/Airtel Africa

Describe in detail the values and the work culture that drives your organization.

Our team is driven by a desire to transform access to insurance, which is typically poorly trusted and understood, so a passion for impact is critical for us. Equally, impact within the team is hugely important and we are an incredibly diverse team representing 11 nationalities and ensure that we support each other professionally and personally.

Ÿ Since Covid 19, we have also gone completely remote, which the team has delighted in, whilst ensuring we regularly reconnect online or in person.

Ÿ In terms of our values, they encompass the following:

Ÿ We are a global company that believes in consumerfocused, locally rooted solutions that are socially impactful and financially sustainable.

Ÿ We operate with integrity and professionalism. We think deeply, act quickly, work efficiently, and deliver high quality in all we do.

Ÿ We listen to and respect each other, delighting in our unique backgrounds and supporting each other professionally and personally.

Ÿ We take smart risks, innovate, and remain agile to evolve our company and the industry over the long term.

Ÿ We seek out partners who share and support our values. We support their growth, solve their challenges and deliver on their aspirations.

Undeniably, technology is playing a significant role in almost every sector. How are you leveraging technological advancements to make your solutions resourceful?

Technology underpins all we do. We are particularly delighted to have launched the Public API to our platform, ASPin, which means any partner has easy access to our end-to-end digital insurance platform and can spin up products with ease.

ASPin supports full omnichannel policy acquisition from basic SMS to WhatsApp chatbots, partner’s apps, as well as call centres and agents right through to paying the claims directly into the account.

Our data warehouse enables partners to leverage machine learning and AI to support segmentation and risk modelling leveraging best practice. Beyond technology, we also support our partners with data analytics, product development and pricing, amongst other capabilities.

What, according to you, could be the next significant change in the InsurTech sector? How is your company preparing to be a part of that change?

We are now in the hype of embedded insurance 2.0 where technology simplifies customers getting access to insurance at the time, they most need it. We have built the capabilities to do this and to delight our partners and end customers.

We expect this to continue to be a focus of the sector, but more importantly, we expect players will need to ensure that customers are better informed and engaged with the insurance offerings; otherwise, we expect a regulatory backlash if regulators find customers do not understand the products, do not know they have them or feel they are being mis-sold.

Over the decades, we have seen this play out and are invested in ensuring clients positively engage with insurance.

Where do you envision yourself to be in the long run, and what are your future goals for Inclusivity Solutions?

We see Inclusivity Solutions continuing to innovate and to continue disrupting insurance in emerging markets across continents with the potential to do the same in developed countries when we are ready.

What would be your advice to budding entrepreneurs who aspire to venture into the InsurTech sector?

One of our toughest lessons is that, whilst we were built for scale from the start, one needs to be willing to experiment with small players until one gets the model right, even if the economics does not appear right. In that way, Eric Ries’ Lean Start-Up has it right - experiment rapidly until one gets the model right and then is positioned to scale.