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InsTech - insurance & innovation with Matthew Grant & Robin Merttens

Jack Miller, Co-founder & CEO: nettle: Reinventing risk engineering with AI (384)

InsTech - insurance & innovation with Matthew Grant & Robin Merttens

InsTech

Entrepreneurship, Business, Investing

4.951 Ratings

🗓️ 7 December 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Introduction In this episode, Robin Merttens is joined by Jack Miller, CEO and Co-founder of nettle, to explore how generative AI is being applied to one of insurance’s most complex and resource-constrained challenges: risk engineering. Jack shares how his work at McKinsey, leading AI transformations for insurers, exposed him to the inefficiencies in assessing commercial property risks and how that inspired Nettle’s founding. From mass retirements of risk engineers to the reality that most properties are never physically assessed, Jack outlines why the status quo is unsustainable and how AI can help underwriters make faster, more informed decisions without sacrificing depth or judgement. He explains how nettle is already working with insurers like Allianz to roll out configurable, production-ready tools that reduce manual burden, unlock previously inaccessible insights and integrate directly into existing underwriting platforms. In this conversation, Jack shares: Why risk engineering is facing a capacity crunch and how that affects underwriting quality The surprising statistic that sparked nettle’s creation: 97.5% of properties are never visited How generative AI can enhance, not replace, expert judgement in high-value underwriting Why depth, not breadth, is the key to building meaningful AI solutions in insurance Lessons from building a product insurers can implement in weeks not years The importance of involving underwriters in AI adoption from day one What most insurers get wrong about pilots, procurement and “proper” GenAI strategies How nettle’s partnership with Allianz helped shape a scalable, enterprise-ready product Why commercial P&C is the perfect proving ground for next-generation InsurTech If you like what you’re hearing, please leave us a review on whichever platform you use or contact Jack Miller or Robin Merttens on LinkedIn. Sign up to the InsTech newsletter for a fresh view on the world every Wednesday morning.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello, welcome, or welcome back to the Instech podcast.

0:13.1

Zoya here, and this week, Robin is joined by Jack Miller, the co-founder and CEO of Nettle.

0:20.4

Jack's one of those rare voices who's seen insurance from

0:22.9

every angle, from leading AI transformations at McKinsey to now building technology that's

0:28.0

pushing risk engineering and commercial property underwriting into the Gen AI era.

0:33.0

In this conversation, he shares why he walks away from the consulting fast track, while he learnt from speaking

0:38.1

to hundreds of risk engineers and how nettle is already reshaping how carriers assess complex risk.

0:44.2

So why is risk engineering facing a talent cliff? How can underwriters access deeper insights without

0:50.5

ever stepping on site? And what happens when Gen AI meets a trillion-dollar commercial

0:54.9

lines market? All that, plus one surprising insight about scaling AI and insurance, is coming up.

1:01.1

So lean in, pour yourself for coffee and enjoy the conversation.

1:08.3

Very well welcome to this week's intertech podcast. We've got another founder story for you this week,

1:14.7

because I'm joined by Jack Miller. He's the co-founder and CEO of Nettle. And he's going to tell us a little bit about himself and the company he founded. Jack, welcome.

1:24.3

Thank you very much for having me, Robin. Let's start right at the beginning.

1:29.0

Tell us a bit about your antecedents.

1:33.3

It's always interesting to find out about where people came from and how they got into insurance.

1:34.4

What's your story?

1:38.7

Prior to starting Nettle, my background was at McKinsey and Company. So I spent about six to seven years in McKinsey.

1:42.4

And a large bulk of that time was leading AI or analytics back

1:46.8

then transformations in insurance. So everything from machine learning for pricing and motor

1:53.1

insurance through to claims, triage and fraud detection in health insurance. I would always

1:58.6

quite interested in analytics, prediction, machine learning,

...

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