The National Alliance for Insurance Education & Research
50 episodes listed below
Practical risk education for insurance professionals.
Alliance NOW! is a practitioner-facing risk and insurance series built around education, operational judgment, and specialty coverage questions. Episodes move between environmental liability, AI workflows, restaurant risk, E&S placements, carrier partnerships, and the changing insurance workforce.
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Alliance NOW! is a risk and insurance education series built for people who already speak the language of coverage, exposure, underwriting, and operations. It is practical first. The show moves across several Alliance formats, including Alliance Insights, Streamlining Insurance, and the Environmental Strategist podcast, but the common thread is professional judgment. Episodes often begin with a plain business question and then work through definitions, consequences, examples, and next steps. Environmental coverage receives serious attention. Recent conversations explain environmental financial assurance, site pollution policies, contractors pollution liability, unknown preexisting conditions, emergency response costs, transportation pollution liability, and the role of endorsements in tailoring coverage to a specific insured. The series also tracks the industry's technology shift. AI appears as a tool for underwriting, claims, insurance operations, strategy, HR planning, startup investment, and carrier partnerships. The treatment is neither alarmist nor glossy. Guests describe where language models and automation can help, where they cannot replace human judgment, and how insurance organizations are adapting. Specialty risk is another recurring lane. Restaurant risk management is framed as a real operating challenge for the restaurant space, while E&S discussions cover hard-to-place homeowners, farms, small aviation, and drones. The show keeps people in view, too. Interviews often include career paths, agency backgrounds, startup roles, executive search experience, and the relationships that shape the industry behind the policies. Its best moments come when technical detail connects to business reality: a coverage form becomes a risk management decision, a software trend becomes a workforce question, and a specialty placement becomes a lesson in knowing the market. Alliance NOW! suits listeners who want insurance education with current examples and enough specificity to be useful at work. It is not a beginner's glossary. It is a working professional's briefing room, rotating through coverage issues, emerging tools, specialty markets, and the practical demands facing agencies, carriers, brokers, and risk managers.
Made for: Built for insurance professionals, risk managers, brokers, underwriters, agency staff, and industry-adjacent leaders who want usable context on coverage, markets, operations, and technology. It assumes familiarity with insurance work and rewards listeners looking for applied judgment.
What sets it apart: The series combines continuing-education discipline with current industry conversations, moving from policy language and exposure analysis to AI, startups, workforce planning, and specialty placements. It stays close to operational consequences rather than broad trend commentary.
The Alliance NOW! Risk & Insurance Podcast Series provides listeners with rich, nuanced conversations that deepen learning and promote the successful completion of Risk & Insurance Education Alliance programs.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Insurance becomes an operating discipline here, explained through coverage choices, loss data, professional judgment, and the systems that move policies.
Alliance NOW! turns the working machinery of insurance into guided conversations and presentations, with practitioners tracing how decisions move from risk assessment to coverage and claims.
Loss triangles meet AI boardrooms, so you can modernize insurance without misplacing the fine print.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A practical map of EFA, the main coverage split, and the policy details that shape risk.
The episode treats environmental financial assurance as a practical way to manage risk, not as a policy abstraction. Brooks Blumberg and Chris Blumberg explain why EFA matters for risk insurance, contracting, law, real estate, and other work tied to environmental exposure, then…
A grounded AI discussion that keeps judgment ahead of automation.
An insurance-centered discussion about AI that keeps coming back to the same useful tension: how much judgment leaders can hand over before the human part starts to thin out.
A practical discussion of trust, hindsight, and ethics in insurance and risk.
This episode keeps its attention on ethics and trust in risk, using Gallup's 2023 honesty and ethics poll as the backdrop for how insurance professionals are viewed.
Insurance distribution is framed here as a cleaner, more operational commerce problem.
The episode treats insurance distribution as a commerce problem, showing how carriers, brokers, agents, and other channels move premium when the digital workflow is cleaner.
A practical guide to using actuarial reports for cost savings, risk reduction, and carrier negotiations.
The piece frames actuarial reports as working tools for cost control and risk reduction, not as paperwork to file away. Marsha Linton and Tim Wander make the case by linking loss development, exposure data, and development triangles to the real work of estimating ultimate losses…
A practical hurricane briefing that makes flood coverage a required agency conversation.
The review frames hurricane planning as an operational discipline and keeps the guidance focused on what matters before, during, and after a storm.
Insurance talk with the machinery exposed.
Practical risk guidance for working businesses.
Episode number two gets into EFA and environmental liability coverage.
This episode explores how artificial intelligence is transforming insurance operations through automation, analytics, and language models, featuring an interview with Robin Spaulding, Head of Insurance at Roots.
This episode features a panel discussion with insurance industry experts Adam Kerr and John Jacobin, exploring venture capital investing, startup innovation, and carrier partnerships in the insurance technology sector over the past year.
This episode features an interview with Jay Gates from Gallagher's Restaurant Practice, discussing restaurant risk management and promoting a new certification program.
This episode introduces a new podcast series on environmental and pollution risk, featuring experts Chris and Brooks Bundery, who discuss its importance for business and insurance professionals.
William Holt opens the conversation by introducing Dan Chupakoff and sketching a career across Google, McKinsey, another company, and Reinvention Labs.
An interview with Debra Green-Bettner about her career in insurance, starting as a child in her father's agency to becoming a personal lines underwriter.
A panel discussion on how HR departments in insurance can prepare for the future workforce impacted by AI, automation, and digital transformation.
Tyler Jensen explains how business owners can use life insurance for key person coverage, buy-sell agreements, and other business financial strategies.
An interview discussing targeted acquisitions and strategic investments in the insurance industry, focusing on M&A activity to grow divisions and premium.
An interview with a high school program graduate about her career in insurance.
An interview with Jack Elliott about his career in the insurance industry and his role as chair of the Academy Board.
Alliance Insights opens with ethics and trust in risk work.
Buddy is introduced as a digital operating system for insurance commerce.
Marsha Linton and Tim Wander explain how actuarial reports turn claims history into practical risk guidance.
Connor Jones and Angela Sivley discuss the basics and emerging risks in marine and energy insurance, focusing on the upstream sector of the oil and gas industry.
This episode features an interview with John Barbagallo, a strategic advisor at Samba Safety, discussing his career in insurance and how he joined the company to help organizations manage driver risk.
Charlotte Hicks walks through hurricane preparedness as a practical conversation about readiness and coverage.
An interview with a newly certified insurance professional discussing her journey and the CIC designation.
Host Darren Blumfield discusses AI and automation in the insurance industry with David D.
Introduction to the Risk Pro Series, a new certification program for insurance professionals, with a fun word-identification game.
Patrick Hardy discusses disaster management and recovery strategies for natural catastrophes like wildfires, hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes.
The CEO and CXO of the Risk and Insurance Education Alliance discuss the meaning behind their duck mascot and teamwork philosophy in a live broadcast.
An interview with insurance professional Kathy Fraley about her career and helping neighbors with claims after a wildfire.
Host Noelle Cataspati interviews Amber Carver about her recognition as a Business Insurance Woman to Watch and her career in the insurance industry.
Host Destin Bryant interviews Ivan Hudson about the Insurance and Risk Management program at the University of Central Arkansas.
An interview with risk management professional Vince Staub discussing his career journey, CRM designation, and insights into risk management education.
This episode features an interview with Stephen Weiss, chair of the Houston Marine and Energy Insurance Conference, discussing his career journey and insights into marine and energy insurance.
This episode discusses the Redbird Challenge, a competition to attract talent to the insurance industry, featuring interviews with educators and winning teams.
John Barbagallo discusses his background in property casualty insurance and Samba Safety's cloud-based risk management solutions for fleets.
The episode discusses the rebranding of the National Alliance for Insurance Education and Research and its podcast, with introductions from the CEO and a board member.
This episode discusses pet insurance, covering common myths, claims experiences, and advice for clients with pets.
The hosts discuss the rollout of Alibot, an AI chatbot for the insurance industry, and plan to demo its capabilities.
This episode features an interview with Matt Cashin, an expert with over 35 years of experience, discussing his work in educating and raising awareness about surety bonds in the insurance industry.