Amrit Santhirasenan: Delivering Dynamic Pricing Decision Intelligence

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Amrit Santhirasenan, Co-founder and CEO of hyperexponential (hx). With a unique blend of actuarial expertise and software engineering, Amrit has spent over a decade in the Lloyd’s of London market, shaping the future of insurance analytics.

We'll delve into the world of insurance pricing for complex risk decisions and explore the transformative potential of decision intelligence.

Amrit will share insights on how hx Renew is revolutionising how pricing models are built and deployed, offering an unparalleled user experience.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

I was one of the few idiots who graduated at the time of the dot com bubble bursting in software engineering and thought it would be a bad time to be a software engineer. I found myself in insurance and I’m a huge maths nerd as well as a technology nerd, so people said I should become an actuary, and I found that I loved it.
I love insurance, I’m an insurance nerd, I think insurance is a huge societal pillar; There are no rockets launched, large buildings built, planes taking off without insurance. Without the mechanisms by which we can absorb risk, we can’t take it. When we take risks we reap the rewards of those risks and society moves on.
Insurance is a fascinating sector that intersects technology, mathematics and human judgement in a way that’s very unusual. You have people that are tasked with working out how risky something is. By definition, if it’s perfectly predictable, it’s not risky. You analyse risk in lots of different way with tools and techniques and it’s a wonderful place for people who love solving hard problems in a variety of different ways.
The essence of ‘decision intelligence’ has been around for a really long time. It’s important to distinguish between decision intelligence as a mindset and a way of solving a problem, and the technology side. The area in which hx has been novel is in crafting a technology solution around obtaining or applying decision intelligence to the problems that you’re solving.

BEST MOMENTS

‘I tell everyone who comes to work at hx that they have to love insurance: Come for the fun opportunities, stay for the insurance.’

‘We’ve crafted the technology to take away the boring database manipulation or building algorithm container and webforms to let our clients focus on the problem they actually care about.’

‘The past isn’t meaningfully a guide to the future for emerging risks in the same way that it has been for more established risks, like fire.’

‘In a competitive landscape, the best thing you can do is increase the amount of information to make the decision, that’ how markets become fairer, more effective, and more efficient.’

ABOUT THE GUEST

Amrit Santhirasenan is the Co-founder and CEO of hyperexponential (hx), a pioneering analytical technology firm revolutionizing decision-making within the financial sector, particularly in specialty insurance pricing.

With a background as a qualified actuary and computer science graduate, Amrit brings extensive expertise in reserving and capital modelling, specialising in pricing and the integration of modern techniques and technology to create practical, impactful pricing systems.

Amrit remains deeply engaged with the insurance community, addressing the broader challenges of developing superior pricing solutions in an increasingly data-centric and technological landscape.

ABOUT THE HOST

Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers, accelerated over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner.