The Connected Podcast

The Connected Podcast is the audio edition of the Digital Connected newsletter, an insurance and InsurTech news digest credited to curators Alan Demers and Stephen Applebaum. Alison Harris hosts. Each episode starts with the newsletter's date and then goes through the issue story by story, with plain transitions like 'turning to international headlines' or 'in business acquisition news'. The link to the newsletter is literal. One opening even stops for housekeeping: a platform problem had disrupted email delivery of the newsletter, and Harris points listeners to the searchable Connected archives. An issue covers a lot of ground. One edition puts reinsurance strategy next to marketing news. It covers a Munich Re and Ergo technology report on artificial intelligence, cyber resilience, climate analytics and emerging liability risks, along with The General's new role as WWE's official auto insurance partner, with Rhea Ripley fronting the campaign. Geopolitics gets the same treatment. In another edition, a two-week ceasefire with Iran sends oil prices down 12% and lifts stock markets, but Lloyd's of London responds with restraint. The explanation is concrete. After the strikes on Iran by the United States and Israel, war risk premiums surged and pushed tanker traffic down by more than 80% before any physical blockade of the Strait of Hormuz was fully in place. A ceasefire cannot undo that at once. This is the show at its most useful, showing how the insurance market sits behind a market headline. Figures come thick and fast. One edition cites Verisk and the APCIA on a net underwriting gain of about $63 billion for private U.S. property and casualty insurers in 2025, up from $23 billion the year before, and links the result to an unexpected drop in catastrophe activity. Underwriting technology keeps coming back. Alex Backart of Feathery is cited on using AI to rethink submission intake, long one of the most labor-intensive parts of underwriting. Elsewhere the show makes a broader case: AI should be judged less on cost savings than on whether it lets insurers cover risks once seen as uninsurable and changes the insurance business model. Deal news rounds things out, including Sentry Insurance finalizing an acquisition. The episode titles show the same range, from 'A ceasefire won't reopen the insurance market – not yet' to 'Severe Convective Storm Losses Hit $208 Billion Over Three Years as Hail Emerges as Top Claims Driver'. For reinsurance and emerging risk, 'AI, Cyber, and Climate Top Strategic Themes for Reinsurers' is a good place to start. For how world events move insurance markets, start with the ceasefire edition.