A Journey of Innovation and Industry Transformation

Over the course of my 21 year career at Americo Financial Life, I didn’t just witness change — I initiated it. My journey started at the ground floor, processing agent applications and appointing agents while juggling everything from commission schedules to answering agent questions (yes, even those "fun" commission adjustments). I learned every inch of the producer world, from administration and compensation to collections.

As my experience deepened, so did my role. When I became a project manager, I streamlined processes and worked on enterprise software implementations that touched nearly every corner of the organization. Those projects taught me that in insurance, "good enough" is never really good enough. I then stepped up to lead the Producer Compensation & Collections departments. My team successfully navigated tremendous growth in our business, including a 600% increase in producer count and revenue. But my biggest challenge — and my biggest reward — came when I was asked to be the Director of Producer Services. Under my leadership we implemented a game-changing onboarding solution and dove into multiple RFPs for a modern commission system. Spoiler alert: no single solution ever quite hit the mark.

Navigating the insurance tech landscape felt like a quest. The perfect platform — one that integrated producer onboarding, producer management, commissions, and collections — was always just out of reach. Each search ended in a compromise, and each RFP process felt like a trade-off. We were forced to choose between outdated, insurance-specific software or modern, industry-agnostic platforms that couldn’t handle the complexities unique to our industry — things like intricate hierarchies, retroactivity, advances, chargebacks, and stringent regulatory requirements. The result? We found ourselves having to manage multiple vendors, leading to a complex web of contracts, projects, and points of contact. This approach not only heightened operational risk but also introduced inefficiencies, with vendors often pointing fingers at each other whenever an issue arose.

Today, the insurance industry stands at a pivotal moment. Carriers must decide whether to stick with outdated systems or to adopt newer technologies that cannot fully address their specialized needs. What is urgently needed is a modern solution that is optimized to handle the industry’s complexities. Such a platform would offer faster implementation, built-in flexibility with proper guardrails, and a robust ability to adapt to the ever-evolving regulatory landscape. I believe Chestnut is that solution.

It was during my last RFP process for a new producer compensation solution that I encountered Chestnut. From our first interaction, I was captivated by the team’s vision for the Chestnut platform; it was everything I had long believed the industry needed. They understood the complexity of insurance, having previously been at another insurtech. They were building a solution on the most modern technology that could scale to the millions of transactions that need to be processed every day. Their software looked like the modern software we are used to seeing in our everyday lives like with Apple, Google, and Amazon. The leadership team’s experience and commitment to success resonated with me, and I knew they had the potential to make a significant impact. We stayed in touch over the following months, and when the opportunity arose, I made the decision to join Chestnut.

In my role as Head of Customer Success, my top priority is to exceed our customers’ expectations consistently. I’ve been in the shoes of those who will work in our system every day, and I know firsthand the impact a system outage or error can have on an organization and its salesforce. Anything less than 100% accuracy is unacceptable. As I work with the team on building our product, I am thinking about staffing models and what processes require the most time/FTEs to ensure that our solution is optimized to reduce the time spent on the most critical and highest volume tasks. I am thinking about how we can most effectively surface the information needed so that when a rep is on a call with a producer they can provide information as quickly as possible. And I am thinking about how we can granularly process and track transactions to power analytics and to incorporate into incentive compensation programs. Our solution is being built with the perspective of someone who has lived it for over two decades and who has experienced every pain point along the way.

One of my proudest accomplishments at Chestnut thus far has been establishing the Insurance Advisory Council (IAC). This council, which consists of nearly a dozen professionals from various insurance carriers, has been meeting regularly for almost a year and serves as a dynamic forum for discussing industry challenges and collaborating on innovative solutions. We've delved into such critical topics as processing just-in-time contracting and appointments, navigating commission rate adjustments, addressing hierarchy complexities, managing debt balances, and handling retroactivity. This council has not only provided valuable insights but has also fostered strong relationships among industry peers who face similar challenges in their roles. (Don’t worry — I plan to write about my learnings and perspectives in future posts, so stay tuned for those!)

Some told me I was crazy to leave a stable position after 21 years, but for me, it was one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever made. The market was ripe for a new vendor to bring innovation to this space — as it has been for a long time — and I have full confidence in my industry experience and the rest of the Chestnut leadership team to deliver. Now, after more than a year at Chestnut, I can confidently say that I made the right choice. The vision I saw in Chestnut continues to come to life, and I am proud to be part of a team that is revolutionizing the industry.

We are always open to adding new members to the IAC. If you are interested in joining, please reach out to Greg Baker at greg@chestnutfi.com. Together, we can shape the future of our industry.