There’s a simple idea that has guided Abel Travis as he rose to his current executive leadership position at a property/casualty insurance carrier and gave a platform to more than 100 InsurTech leaders at the same time.

“I believe our work should be selfless. When we have knowledge, we should share it broadly because it’s going to help advance the entire industry,” said Travis, vice president of Fundamental Underwriters, a division of AF Group, answering a question about his work in mentoring younger Black professionals who hope to follow in his footsteps.

The specific knowledge he was talking about toward the end of the phone interview with Carrier Management was his knowledge of people—relationships with other executives in the industry that he can leverage to make introductions. “It’s important to use my influence to elevate others, especially for people within the Black and brown community. While unfortunate, I don’t necessarily believe we have many workplace advantages. I’ve been able to cultivate a fairly extensive network with C-level executives. I feel it’s my duty to use my voice and my network in support of underrepresented communities,” he said.

Travis expressed the same idea when he responded to questions about one key step on his path to connecting with all those executives: launching and hosting his own podcast, “The Insurance Innovators Unscripted.” The self-assigned hosting gig, which saw him interview 106 startup founders, insurance executives and other members of the InsurTech community over the course of two-and-a-quarter years, made his name and expertise celebrated in those circles.

About a dozen years into his career in commercial insurance, Travis began hearing new information during one-on-one conversations he initiated about three things he loves: technology, innovation and insurance. But when he would talk to his colleagues about the new developments, he found they were unaware of the transformation taking place within the industry. “I saw there was change occurring in insurance,” he said, referring to the point when InsurTech started to attract serious attention and investment in the middle of the last decade.

“I believe that when you have knowledge, you shouldn’t keep it to yourself. You share that knowledge with as many people as possible, especially in an industry like ours. Knowledge sharing uplifts the entire industry, not necessarily just one organization. It enhances our ability to provide value to customers.”

The podcast was the result. “I was inclined to deliver that information to many people within the industry,” Travis said. “When I ended the podcast, it had reached roughly 600,000 streams with 7,000 consistent listeners.”

Changing the Face of the Industry

Travis, a 16-year veteran of the commercial insurance space who started his insurance career as a multiline underwriter for The Hartford, is also one of the handful of Black men whose name appears on the roster of P/C insurance executive leadership teams today.

Asked whether he envisioned that his podcast series might help him personally in an industry where Black men and women aren’t often recognized and promoted, Travis responded that the possibility was not a motivating factor when he launched it back in September 2017. In fact, the visibility gave him pause initially. “I had to ascertain whether or not to put my face to it or if I wanted to remain anonymous,” he said, noting that his decision to put his face on it did indeed create widespread visibility down the road. “That was actually Lisa Corless’ first introduction to me,” he said, referring to the president and CEO of AF Group. Travis noted that the CEO heard one of his podcasts and saw the extensive expertise he developed as a result of his work in innovation, as well as his accomplishments in his prior role as head of Commercial Lines Product Management at The Hanover.

“When I was younger, it was always a challenge to find executive leaders that resembled me. When I entered the insurance industry, I made it an objective to lead an organization and show other diverse talent from the Black and brown community that it’s not just an aspiration but an attainable goal.” — Abel Travis

“He didn’t get into the specifics, but you could insinuate the meaning of the comments,” Travis said, explaining that every so often some colleagues would refer to him as “‘The smart Black person.'”

Said Travis: “There are many extremely talented, smart, highly educated Black and brown individuals. While it may have been meant as a compliment, it’s a microinsult which diminishes the value added by what the Black and brown community brings to this industry.”

Another situation was equally jarring for Travis. At a previous employer, he recalled being introduced during a meeting as the unit leader there to present a key strategy he had developed. “There was someone new to the organization that said, “No. Him? He’s the head of this unit?” Reading behind the person’s outcry, it seemed as if she was saying, “Well, hold on. You’re telling me this, but I don’t believe you,” Travis said.

“During that meeting, no one else in the room saw fit to check what that person was saying. None of the other participants used their voice to lighten the burden too often faced by underrepresented leaders, to dissuade the microaggression. Instead of that person addressing me with questions about the strategy, they proceeded to address others, who in turn sent the questions my way to answer,” he recalled. “When situations like that occur, you just ask yourself why you aren’t equally perceived as the authority, based on the expertise you bring to the table, especially when it comes to delivering impactful and proven results in a large organization.”

One Black Man’s Journey

Travis has been successful at organizations that included Travelers, Chubb, The Hanover and now AF Group. He credits a combination of hard work, great teams, sponsors and mentors. It’s been a lifelong dream since his early childhood to go further—to lead a Fortune 1000 company or to build a large company from the ground up, according to a blog post he wrote back in 2017.

“That goal has slightly changed since I wrote that piece. Presently, I lead a brand within an insurance organization, though my longer-term aspiration is to lead the broader enterprise,” he said, going on to provide one motivating reason. “Low representation of leaders of color in insurance affects diverse candidates from entering the industry, given the perception of limited growth opportunities. When I was younger, it was always a challenge to find executive leaders that resembled me. When I entered the insurance industry, I made it an objective to lead an organization and show other diverse talent from the Black and brown community that it’s not just an aspiration but an attainable goal.”

Coming back to the idea later in the interview, Travis linked his love of the insurance industry with the goal. “It’s been a passion to use my expertise and cultivate talent to add value to the industry—and to also give other people that look like me the ability to see someone at the highest executive leadership level that doesn’t represent the dominant culture but instead is more closely representative of themselves. People of color tend to be promoted into leadership based on proof, while others based on potential. There’s an opportunity to cultivate intellectual curiosity and sponsor diverse talent in a way that highlights potential and leads to a more representative executive leadership across the industry.”

In fact, Travis has already been the CEO of a small company built from the ground floor—a university-sponsored business called Knight Popper. In his freshman year at Clarkson University, the undergraduate launched the company, which sold popcorn in megaphones, taking the name of the company from the mascot of the hockey team, the Golden Knight. When you finished the popcorn at a sports game, you could remove the base and start cheering for the Clarkson team through the megaphone, Travis said, explaining the product innovation. “That was my first introduction into understanding what it took to build different functions within a company, from product development to finance, accounting, marketing and so on. That’s really where I caught the leadership bug,” he said.

Why Insurance?

“I didn’t necessarily target insurance. I fell into the industry,” said Travis, who geared his studies toward a career as an investment banker. But a representative of The Hartford visited Clarkson and asked the future leader if he had thought about work-life balance in the banking sector, suggesting that if building a family was also in his future, he should consider insurance. Accepting the invitation to interview for a role at the carrier, Travis realized that the industry was made up of many different job types, including investment roles.

“I’ve never looked back. I thought it was one of the best career decisions that I’ve made,” he said, noting that he has worked in underwriting, catastrophe management, product management and development, all leading to his current role as VP and head of Fundamental Underwriters for AF Group.

Fundamental Underwriters is the growth and diversification brand for AF Group. “We’re looking to define opportunities to diversify beyond workers compensation, identify opportunities to create organic growth, and to build those capabilities in support of our partners and customers,” he said, noting, for example, a commercial trucking offering and the Jan. 1, 2021 rollout of a new primary non-owned auto product.

Travis said that he wasn’t actually looking to leave his last position as head of product management development and strategy for The Hanover Insurance Group, but someone at AF Group reached out to him, sharing the mission and vision of the organization and suggesting that as head of innovation, Travis could help AF Group accelerate forward in that direction. “They invited me to interview, and at that point, I still wasn’t sure.” But a meeting with Corless, in which she set out the vision of building an innovative, product-diversified future, tipped the scales.

“When you engage people about their work, they often tend to oversell their vision,” he said. But this was real. Corless described an opportunity “to influence the direction of AF Group, contributing to that vision through leading innovation. Subsequently, I joined the AF Group Executive Leadership Team.”

In addition to the primary non-owned auto product that’s being launched with an agent partner, Travis is also proud of the rollout of AF Group’s digital distribution product—a technology capability that enables agent partners to transform into digital agencies. “More than 120 agents currently use the platform,” he reported, also noting that AF Group, through digital distribution, is leveraging third-party data to automate underwriting processes for small business. “Many agents may not target this business, and this capability empowers them to more efficiently onboard SMB policyholders,” he said, referring to a partnership with InsurTech Convr (formerly known as DataCubes) to access third-party data.

The Road Ahead for Black Professionals

AF Group is a P/C insurance subsidiary of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, a healthcare organization, and the CEO is a woman—two factors that Travis agrees probably lend themselves to more diversity throughout the workforce, although he highlights Corless’ personal leadership style above anything else.

“She’s become one of the staunchest allies that I know for the Black community both within and outside of AF Group…She’s genuinely a people-first person who has made it a point to understand and become an ally in support of underrepresented groups. She is someone that actively uses her voice in support of and to advance many underrepresented communities…It starts with the leadership at the top,” he said.

“From that point, it trickles into the rest of the company. There’s a level of responsibility that’s required of leaders within an organization…They’re accountable for efforts surrounding diversity, equity and inclusion, ensuring that successful outcomes are achieved.”

In addition, he agreed that industry customers expect diverse representation from the organizations they do business with. “There are customers, both diverse and non-diverse, identifying with the trauma faced by the Black community, highlighted by the images of police brutality as an epidemic within that community. They expect fairness toward diversity, equity and inclusion. Customers are actually demanding that organizations are representative of the communities they serve.”

Still, Black men and women don’t have an easy road to the top rungs of the career ladders in this insurance industry.

“I started with and continue to deliver a lot of hard work…Early in my career, I often left the office at 2:00 in the morning to make sure we’ve successfully launched the next product or closed the next underwriting deal. Even the extracurricular effort taken to deliver the podcast to more than 600,000 listeners over a few years—it required getting up at midnight to speak to leaders in South Africa, England, Israel or many other international locations, to learn and deliver content about the value of InsurTech to the insurance industry.”

“I believe everyone should continue to put in the work,” he said, going on to advise that while young professionals should also seek out mentors, the search should include those that are also allies. When someone is an ally who “understands the Black and brown community, it supercharges their ability to be an effective mentor…Personally, I sought out mentors that I felt would understand me, allowing me to be open and direct—and just ask for their honest, straight feedback and opinions,” he said.

Sponsors who advocate for Black professionals—raising their names in influential rooms they’re not in—are also career boosters, he said.

Travis and other Black insurance professionals featured in this edition report that the industry still has a long way to go before photos on the executive pages of P/C carrier websites no longer depict an array of older white men, six months after many of those men vowed to lead change in the wake of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. (See related article, “Racism in Insurance: How Things Can Change“)

Given where the industry is today, would Travis still recommend insurance as a career for his children?

Absolutely, he said in a heartbeat. “I believe the industry is genuinely hoping to promote diversity, equity and inclusion, including the creation of a more diverse workforce led by diverse executive leaders…This is an industry that I love.”

“I believe that as we start to move forward into the future, we will have made significant inroads toward a more inclusive industry,” he said.