Forging relationships and accelerating smarter customer acquisition - with Joel Samen, Head of P&C Demand, MediaAlpha

The Insurance Coffee House

“We're forging relationships with our partners to help push their business forward, which benefits us as well”, says Joel as he charts his transition from Liberty Mutual to joining MediaAlpha, an online acquisition channel for digital insurance agencies.

Joel shares, “Our primary vertical is property and casualty, but we also have health, life, medicare and travel,” and how the 160-strong team is using best-in-class analytics to help clients be smarter about acquisition and focus on lifetime value.

He highlights the benefits on offer to both clients and end policyholders as well as the challenges ahead as MediaAlpha continues to scale.

“Right now we're stuck in this hard market but we’ll accelerate out of it relatively soon. The biggest challenge for us is once the acceleration starts happening, we need to make sure we have the right people in place to help our partners.”

Joel shares MediaAlpha’s culture and values, the value insurance knowledge brings and the extensive hiring process to ensure there’s a fit on both sides.

“I can't tell you how many interviews I went through. I think we really put people through the wringer. It makes it sound negative but it really gives them a taste of what we are and we try to get a full feel for who they are.”

Joel concludes by emphasising the foundations needed to scale an insurtech and what advice he’d give to executives looking to transition from insurance incumbent to a tech-driven business.

"Having that alignment between culture and values between somebody joining the company and the company itself, is just huge.”

Connect with Joel on LinkedIn or find out more about MediaAlpha

The Insurance Coffee House Podcast is hosted by Nick Hoadley, CEO, Insurance Search, the Executive Search Consultancy for growing Insurance and Insurtech businesses across the globe.

To discuss identifying & attracting the very best talent to your team or being a podcast guest, reach out to Nick via [e-mail] or connect on LinkedIn

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