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Chad Hersh
Head of Worldwide Business and Market Development, Life Insurance Industry at Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Chad Hersh is a seasoned professional with a wealth of experience in the insurance and consulting industries.
Currently leading the L&A/Group Benefits practice for Capgemini in North America, Mr. Hersh has held executive positions at renowned companies such as Majesco and Amazon Web Services.
With a background in IT and management consulting, he has contributed significantly to the strategic direction and growth of various organizations.
Mr. Hersh's expertise spans areas such as e-business, core systems strategies, emerging technologies, and risk mitigation strategies.
He is a sought-after speaker at industry events and has authored numerous articles in insurance trade publications.
His educational background includes a BA in Economics and Managerial Studies, a Master's degree in Accounting and MIS, and professional development at institutions such as Rice University and Columbus Academy.
Highlights
Are we already at that point? I’ve been talking for the last few months—very hypothetically—about the future when Generative AI would be able to pass the licensing exams for insurance agents. To benchmark how far off that might be, I fed Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 3.5 the first 60 or so questions of a practice test for the Texas life insurance agent exam. Now, full disclosure, it was a very poorly written test, and several of the questions were either simply missing words or were too ambiguous to definitively get a correct answer. Despite this, on a test that 53% fail on their first try—and an even higher percentage fail when repeating—and for which a passing grade is 70%, Claude got about 90% of the questions right (I say “about” because there was one question that was missing some words, which it understandably missed, and another that was poorly worded…but if we count those as wrong, it’s still over 90%; it might be closer to 95% if we cut it some slack).
Now, it did miss another question that I’m not convinced the “correct” answer was correct for, and maybe somebody reading this can tell me whether disability have the same two year contestability period as life insurance…the practice test says it does, but I’m not actually sure that’s right. As a result, Claude was mortified that it later answered that life insurance has a one year contestability period (actual quote from Claude: “I apologize for this error. It's particularly egregious because we had just discussed the two-year contestability period in relation to another question,” and it then went on to lecture me about the fallibility of AI, the importance of verifying these things with legal counsel, etc. which I found to be rather impressive!).
All that said, it’s very clear Claude could have easily passed the licensing exam with flying colors. It was also clear that its reasoning for the answers it gave was at least on par with a typical agent’s. And most importantly, this was not some fine-tuned, insurance-trained model. This was out-of-the-box Claude 3.5 Sonnet, with zero context provided beyond the initial prompt, and no regulations uploaded to supplement its knowledge. I believe that had I fed it the Texas insurance regulations it would have done even better.
That brings us to the point: Should a solution like Claude Sonnet 3.5 be allowed to provide the same kinds of advice an agent would give? Obviously it would need to be given proper system prompts and guardrails. It would need to be trained on carrier-specific products, and someone would need to provide it regular updates on laws and regulations. It would need to be given carrier guidelines around suitability, ethical practices, etc. But all of that is quite manageable. Will it still hallucinate? Absolutely. Will that hallucination likely be more than offset by its ability to access more-than-encyclopedic knowledge. Perhaps.
It certainly seems that we’re fast approaching a tipping point. Thoughts welcome in the commments!
I had the pleasure of speaking with nearly a dozen insurance CXOs--mostly CEOs with a few Chief Digital Officers--and I came away with a realization of sorts. While I often speak/write about the potential, risks, and rewards of Gen AI for insurers, I don't spend enough time talking about the most pragmatic bits. One of the group challenged me on "when is it the right time to build versus working on the big ideas." This was a fantastic point, and one with a fairly straightforward answer (that I'll try to articulate better here than I did without organizing my thoughts in person!).
Gen AI is in its infancy. Nobody--literally nobody--has much more than a one year headstart on anyone else, and for most use cases, if you see something that someone else builds and you want to mimic it, improve on it, etc., the build time is often weeks, maybe months, but never years. That means that today you can start building out all of the relatively simple, high value use cases (document ingestion and summarization for claims and/or underwriting, code assistant, agent chatbot, etc.), while working on developing your vision for (and organizing your data for) "big ideas."
So when do you build those big ideas? Simple...try building them today. If it's not reasonably straightforward to do now, wait a couple of months and try again. Gen AI and all of the tools being built around it are evolving incredibly rapidly, and nobody knows what things will look like 2 years or 5 years down the road. Jeff Bezos is fond of saying that you know with certainty that 10 years from now customers won't want higher prices or slower shipping, so you're always able to work on improving those things. Similarly, if you build things today that improve agent/broker and customer service, provide more accurate pricing/underwriting, reduce operating costs, etc. there's a very good chance you won't regret it. Other than Gen AI model builders, can you point to a company that has achieved a sustainable advantage with Gen AI? Of course not...it hasn't been around (practically speaking) for two years yet, so at best we can only speculate about what's sustainable. But a sustainable competitive advantage isn't inherently better about changes that benefit an entire industry through, for example, a better cost structure.
Lots of teams win championships with lots of base hits and not a ton of home runs; others win almost entirely with defense. It might not be as glamorous, but it gets the job done and done well. Similarly, if you leverage Generative AI now to solve challenges that have existed for decades, you might not win an innovation award, but you'll get bottom line results. Pragmatic use of Gen AI may not be a panacea, but it can certainly be a winning strategy. Of course, that doesn't mean you shouldn't think big...it just means you can work on the fundamentals while planning for your next big thing.
I look forward to your comments...I'm sure there will be mixed feelings about this approach!
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Mesh offers several powerful features including:
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Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
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Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
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User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.