InsTech - insurance & innovation with Matthew Grant & Robin Merttens

Introduction In this episode, Matthew Grant speaks with Rachel Delhaise, Chief Sustainability Officer at Convex, about what climate sustainability really looks like inside a modern insurance business. While attention may have shifted elsewhere, the underlying challenges have not gone away. Rachel offers a clear view of how insurers are continuing to respond through underwriting decisions, risk modelling and long-term investment thinking. Rachel joined Convex in the early stages of the business to build its sustainability approach from the ground up. Her role spans three core areas: identifying opportunities in the transition, strengthening how climate risk is understood and managed and supporting cutting-edge carbon science research. Together, these reflect a broader shift in how insurers are positioning themselves as active participants in enabling change. The conversation explores how insurance is supporting emerging technologies such as carbon capture and storage, where underwriting plays a critical role in making projects viable. Rachel also shares how the industry is approaching increasingly complex risks, from wildfire to flood, in a world where historical data is no longer a reliable guide. Drawing on her experience across underwriting, investment and industry collaboration, she explains why the fundamentals of risk still matter, even as new tools and models emerge. She also highlights the growing influence of insurance thinking across the wider financial system, as banks and investors begin to grapple with physical climate risk in more sophisticated ways. At the heart of the discussion is a simple but important idea: insurance has a unique ability to enable progress, but only if it is brought into the conversation early and used intelligently. In this conversation, Rachel shares: Why sustainability remains a core strategic priority, even as public attention fluctuates How insurers are supporting the transition through underwriting and investment, not just policy statements What it takes to insure emerging areas like carbon capture and storage Why pricing, rather than capacity, is often the real constraint in renewable energy insurance How insurers are adapting to climate risk with limited historical data Why understanding exposure and vulnerability is still fundamental to modelling future risk What the protection gap reveals about global resilience and economic stability How insurance expertise is shaping how banks and investors assess climate risk Why involving insurers earlier can significantly improve the success of large projects Rachel’s recommendations Podcast: Fossil vs Future Book: The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson If you like what you’re hearing, please leave us a review on whichever platform you use or contact Matthew Grant on LinkedIn. Sign up to the InsTech newsletter for a fresh view on the world every Wednesday morning.

In this episode, Robin Merttens speaks with Sasha Haco, CEO and Co-founder of Unitary, about how AI is being applied in practical, high-impact ways across insurance operations. Sasha’s route into the industry is far from typical. With a background in astrophysics and no prior experience in insurance, she set out to build something tangible using AI, focusing on real-world problems rather than theoretical ones. What began as a mission to make the internet safer has evolved into a fast-growing platform that automates some of the most manual and time-consuming processes in insurance. From bordereaux handling to claims and policy administration, the focus is on removing repetitive work without requiring insurers to overhaul their existing systems. Drawing on her experience building Unitary from the ground up, Sasha shares a clear and practical perspective on where AI is delivering value today, how insurers can get started quickly and what it takes to stand out in an increasingly competitive market. At the heart of the discussion is a simple idea: meaningful progress often starts with tackling the most overlooked and operationally painful tasks. In this conversation, Sasha shares: Why coming from outside insurance can unlock new ways of solving entrenched problems How virtual agents can replicate human workflows across legacy systems without integration Where insurers are seeing the fastest returns from automation today Why speed to ROI is becoming a defining factor in AI adoption How trust and customer outcomes are emerging as key competitive advantages What it takes to build and scale in a crowded AI landscape Why the biggest barrier to automation is often mindset, not technology If you like what you’re hearing, please leave us a review on whichever platform you use or contact Robin Merttens on LinkedIn. Sign up to the InsTech newsletter for a fresh view on the world every Wednesday morning.