Insurance & Technology Names Werner Kruck to Elite 8 IT Leaders

Werner Kruck, chief operating officer for Florida-based Security First Insurance, has been recognized as one of the Insurance & Technology (I&T) Elite 8 insurance technology leaders of 2014. Kruck is the first honoree from a Florida domestic property insurance company to receive this award. (Tweet this)

He was chosen for this honor based on his ability to identify emerging trends and aptitude for using technology to develop solutions that continually help Security First Insurance improve the customer experience.

Security First Insurance is the first company to develop a social media communications system designed to improve disaster response. The system automatically prioritizes and routes incoming communications from social media and email allowing multiple employees to manage thousands of incoming requests efficiently and effectively. In 2009, Security First Insurance was the first homeowners insurance specialist in the U.S. to launch an iPhone app. 

Now in its 16^th year, the Elite 8 spotlights insurance company IT leaders who have made an outstanding contribution to their company’s success while demonstrating leadership, insight and innovation within their organizations. Elite 8 honorees are chosen by I&T's editors and a semi-formal advisory board of top industry analysts after a several-months-long process of collecting and reviewing hundreds of nominations. I&T’s Elite 8 nominations are comprised of senior IT leadership from all insurance lines of business (property & casualty, life/annuities, health and reinsurance), and are generally submitted by industry analysts, vendors or other colleagues. Past winners include insurance IT executives from carriers such as Allstate, Amica, AXA Equitable, Chubb Group, MetLife, Nationwide, New York Life and USAA.

"We’re proud to select Werner as one of the 2014 Insurance & Technology Elite 8 for using technology to create solutions that put Security First Insurance in an excellent position to mitigate existing – and emerging – issues." Kathy Burger, Insurance & Technology editorial director

“The old, traditional thinking would have been that in such a scrutinized, high-risk and heavily regulated segment of the business, it's too risky to use emerging technologies such as mobile or social,” said Kathy Burger, Insurance & Technology editorial director. “Werner deserves a lot of credit for recognizing the opportunities to use those kinds of tools specifically because of the nature of the property insurance industry. We’re proud to select Werner as one of the 2014 Insurance & Technology Elite 8 for using technology to create solutions that put Security First Insurance in an excellent position to mitigate existing – and emerging – issues.”

Kruck received the award at a special ceremony during I&T’s 2014 Executive Summit, “The Agile Insurer: Speed, Insight, Engagement” on Nov. 10. The Executive Summit is two intensive days of networking and analysis where senior-level insurance executives can learn about industry-leading approaches to big data, customer experience, new operational models, and leadership. This year’s event covered several areas of technology including the importance of evolving the corporate culture to align with customer experience objectives and emerging technologies, analytics, and collaboration.

I&T editors and other Executive Summit speakers provided powerful presentations highlighting key concepts such as uncertainty is the new normal, and the industry must prepare for a future with increased sensorization for real-time monitoring that’s either implemented by insurers or endemic to the products.