Not looking a gift horse in the mouth is generally accepted as a good idea, but it’s not always easy to recognize the gift horse. With that famously accurate hindsight, it’s easy to see that Grinnell Mutual Reinsurance Co.’s opportunity to get in on the ground floor of the Global Insurance Accelerator (GIA)—an incubator for innovative insurance technologies—was that proverbial gift horse. Executive SummaryInvesting both money and sweat equity into the Global Insurance Accelerator is a big part of Grinnell Mutual’s insurance innovation story, according to CFO Dave Wingert. Here, he explains why the company decided to participate and resulting benefits of creating a more forward-thinking corporate culture and promoting an entrepreneurial state of mind in employees.
When the idea of launching the GIA in Des Moines was floated to our company back in 2014, it was already obvious that big changes were coming to the insurance industry. Having a chance to become one of the GIA’s original insurer investors was the opportunity to support growth and innovation in central Iowa’s insurance community that Grinnell Mutual’s leadership had been looking for. And, it offered a chance to consider questions that need to be answered sooner rather than later: