The Ever Changing Cyber Environment with Ryan Dunn, Episode #247

In this episode of The Power Producers Podcast, David Carothers and co-host Kyle Houck interview Ryan Dunn, Director of Insurance at Trava. Ryan discusses the importance of being proactive with cyber insurance, how to leverage cyber to earn new business, and how Trava is enabling agents to collect internal infrastructure data and provide it to carriers for cyber underwriting.

Episode Highlights:

• Ryan shares that he has been in the industry for eight years and has seen a correlation between worker’s comp and cyber, where worker’s comp used to be a massive door opener opportunity and now cyber is becoming a major opportunity. (2:19)
• Ryan mentions that you don’t have to be a cyber insurance expert to make the conversation valuable if you have the data to make it valuable. (4:46)
• Ryan explains that delivering the coalition report proactively instead of reactively makes a huge difference. (9:51)
• Ryan discusses the need for carriers to access internal data on modern cybersecurity infrastructure, including cloud environments, web apps, and third-party applications, to properly assess risk and prevent significant losses in cyber insurance. (12:54)
• Ryan explains that Trava is changing the dynamic of cyber underwriting by creating an agency platform that allows agents to collect internal infrastructure data and pass it off to carriers, rather than having carriers scan clients directly. (15:56)
• Ryan explains that their agency platform is a multi-tenant platform that simplifies the process of accessing data for carriers and provides an insurance readiness report to help clients prepare for the renewal period. (17:38)
• Ryan mentions that Trava’s product is designed to drive more revenue to the agency. (22:33)
• Ryan discusses the trend in cyber insurance towards more in-depth underwriting and how it will impact pricing and coverage for clients. (31:13)
• Ryan shares that investing in product solutions to bring more value to clients is key to winning against larger agencies. (39:14)
• Ryan believes that changing the mindset from reactive to proactive is essential in the insurance industry, particularly in cyber insurance. (50:59)

Tweetable Quotes:

• “If we give the agents the power to be able to collect the proper information from that internal infrastructure, and then pass it off to the carrier, that’s where the W is. So we’re working with some larger agencies and some of the very well-known carriers in creating that connection.” – Ryan Dunn
• “We are big believers in education…we constantly are training our partner agencies. We do in-person training, we do internal webinar training as well. And we do that on an ongoing basis.” – Ryan Dunn
• “We actually recently just changed our pricing like last week, but we wanted to change it so that it could mold with any size agency and grow with the agency, right? At the end of the day, the point of our product is to drive more revenue to the agency.” – Ryan Dunn

Resources Mentioned:

• Ryan Dunn LinkedIn
• Trava
• David Carothers
• Kyle Houck
• Florida Risk Partners
• The Extra 2 Minutes