Blog & News

Cookhouse Lab hosted its second annual Hackathon which challenged participants to find solutions to move from passive risk takers to active risk managers. The Hackathon had twenty-four participants which included professionals from various organizations including CAA, Gore Mutual, Munich Re, and Jauntin. These professionals also had the chance to work with thirteen talented students from the University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt (FHWS).

Check out the recap below to discover the problem being tackled, solutions created and methodologies used to ensure a successful experience.  

Toronto Based Insurance Innovation Lab Gears Up to Debut in Bermuda to Tackle Regional Insurance Challenges

Based in Toronto, Cookhouse Lab is a one-of-a-kind open collaboration space that allows thought leaders and industry experts to come together to solve the toughest issues facing the insurance sector. By joining one of its accelerated innovation sprints, participants from different companies share insights through guided exercises in design thinking and lean startup methodologies to develop a business case and a Minimum Viable Product, the scale of which will depend on the project length.

Cookhouse Lab is gearing up to host its second annual hackathon. To prepare for it, we connected with Diana Chang, Logistics Team Lead with Hack the North, to find out why hackathons provide such a unique forum for collaboration for hackers (hackathon participants). Check out our interview with Diana below and don’t forget to sign up for our second annual hackathon.

A diverse community of insurance professionals convened in Munich in May 2018 to explore industry disruption from unlikely players – the world’s tech giants. The group came together to use new approaches and unlock methodologies to help navigate the future of the industry in our collaborative 2-day session. 

In the life insurance industry, there are many processes we encounter daily that have the potential to be modernized and made more efficient. The current underwriting process is no exception, with outdated rules, blanket questions that don't allow for personalization, and long customer wait times  that can take up to four to six weeks. This is a process that is ripe for disruption and last month, Cookhouse Lab invited underwriting professionals to try their hand at disrupting it in just 48 hours. 

Every hero needs a villain, right? Similarly, every great idea, solution, or invention always needs a problem. And while the solution is often what gets all of the glory and attention, how we deal with said problem is just as, if not more, important. As Albert Einstein once said, “we can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them”.

As we near the 500-day mark for Cookhouse Lab, we thought it would be fitting to take a trip down memory lane. Join us as we explore highlights from our first 500 days in a new blog series titled: 500 Days of Innovation. Each installment will explore a different aspect of Cookhouse Lab that has played a key role in our journey so far. First up is 'Minimum Viable Product; also known as 'MVP'.

The Cookhouse Lab experience is centered around an accelerated Minimum Viable Product (MVP) creation journey.  On average, project MVPs have been completed between a two to four week period, which is a combined effort of project teams and Cookhouse Lab design and technical teams. So what exactly is an MVP?

Don’t Wait for Disruption

According to the CB Insights Quarterly InsurTech Briefing published in January 2018, a recent innovation survey revealed that 75% of 600 (re)insurance respondents believe their company is “moderately” or “extremely” at-risk of disruption. Nearly 72% of the allocated resources focused on incremental technologies (and not disruptive) and almost half of these (re)insurers described their innovation philosophy as ‘ad-hoc’.

"Insurers are not prepared to seamlessly integrate with the future of transportation."

This was one astounding conclusion that our project team came to at the end of our 4 week sprint. Through 16 days, 11 participants, 5 companies, and 4 partnerships, we inferred that the auto insurance industry needs to move quickly to adapt to the shifting change in risk.

A brand new year means a brand new list of conference opportunities! And with all kinds of technology advancing in the insurance world, how can you be sure which InsurTech conferences are the ones to attend?