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Scouting for Growth

The App Era Is Over: Wallet-Native Insurance & the Agentic Frontier — Marc Lampe × Ernesto Suarez

Scouting for Growth

Sabine VanderLinden

Business:entrepreneurship, Business, Entrepreneurship, Technology

4.835 Ratings

🗓️ 28 May 2026

⏱️ 73 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The App Era Is Over: Wallet-Native Insurance & the Agentic Frontier — Marc Lampe × Ernesto Suarez In this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine VanderLinden sits down with Ernesto Suarez and Marc Lampe to explore why the future of insurance is moving beyond apps and into wallet-native, AI-ready experiences. The conversation begins with a powerful reminder of why customer experience matters: a traveler stranded abroad, unable to prove they had insurance in an emergency. From there, the discussion unpacks the hidden friction embedded across the insurance journey — especially in claims, servicing, and customer engagement. Ernesto shares how Gigasure was designed as a digital-native travel MGA focused on mobile-first engagement, instant gratification, and removing the traditional “handoffs” that frustrate policyholders. Marc explains how Wallet Studio, developed by Miss Moneypenny Technologies after nearly a decade of experimentation, enables insurers to create dynamic wallet-based insurance experiences that sit directly alongside boarding passes, payments, and loyalty cards. Together, they reveal how the partnership rapidly launched over 50,000 digital wallet cards in just a few months, achieving remarkable customer engagement and demonstrating that insurance can become proactive, contextual, and genuinely useful. The episode also dives into parametric claims, embedded insurance, MGA innovation, AI-enabled customer journeys, and why ecosystem collaboration — not disruption alone — is shaping the next era of InsurTech.   KEY TAKEAWAYS What struck me most in this conversation is how both Ernesto and Marc are solving an issue the industry has talked about for years but rarely fixed: making insurance truly accessible and useful at the exact moment customers need it most. We often talk about “customer experience” in insurance, yet too many journeys still rely on PDFs buried in inboxes, disconnected claims processes, and handoffs between providers. This discussion showed what happens when founders design around real human behavior instead of legacy systems. I was particularly fascinated by the simplicity and power of wallet-native insurance. Consumers already use wallet technology every day for boarding passes, payments, loyalty cards, and transport tickets. Integrating insurance directly into that ecosystem feels obvious once you see it in action. The results speak volumes: more than 50,000 wallet cards issued within months and exceptionally high customer engagement rates. That tells us customers are ready for insurance experiences that are frictionless, visible, and mobile-first. Another important insight is how the MGA model is evolving. Ernesto highlighted how modern MGAs are increasingly powered by specialist InsurTech enablers rather than trying to build every capability themselves. The future is less about disruption in isolation and more about intelligent collaboration, integration, and speed to market. This partnership demonstrates how insurers, MGAs, and technology providers can create far more value together than separately. Finally, I loved the honesty around AI and the “agentic frontier.” Both guests acknowledged that technology alone is not enough. The real challenge is guiding customers through increasingly complex ecosystems in ways that remain trustworthy, intuitive, and human-centered. The winners in this next phase of insurance innovation will be the companies that combine intelligent automation with seamless customer trust.   BEST MOMENTS “The era of the app, as we have known it, is over.” — Marc Lampe “88% said they have trouble finding their documents.” — Ernesto Suarez “Insurance has never been tangible. And I feel like this is a little piece that we can give customers for what they’ve purchased.” — Ernesto Suarez “The solution is not to build the perfect AI-driven functionality, but to deliver that actually to the customer.” — Marc Lampe “We’re all very good at selling, but it’s the post-sale se

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Imagine this. You are lying in a hospital bed, in a country you do not live in. You are bleeding,

0:24.8

and the doctors will not begin treatment until you prove that you have insurance. And you

0:31.2

cannot find it. That story was told to me on this podcast by one of my guests, not as theater, but as the reason

0:40.1

this conversation matters. Welcome to Scouting for Growth. I'm Sabine Van der Linden, and this is

0:46.4

where we ask the founders rebuilding insurance how they actually do it. With me, Mark Lam, co-founder

0:53.9

of Miss Moneypenny Technologies, the team behind Wallet Studio,

1:00.0

22 insurers live on the platform, an $8 million seed round last April, and a thesis,

1:08.6

the era of the app, as we have known it, is over. And Ernesto Suarez,

1:15.0

founder and CEO of Gigashu, a digital native travel MGA, 28, 25 years in the insurance

1:23.8

industry, one exit back again in his words, because the first time, it did not

1:31.0

finish what he started. In the next 40 minutes to 60 minutes, the partnership that produced

1:38.6

35,000 wallet cards in under four months, what they built, what nearly broke, and well,

1:46.3

this goes when our agents start doing the building. Grab a coffee, this one I think will move you.

1:58.0

How are you, Mark? How are you, Ernesto? So good to see you today on the Scouting for Growth podcast. Welcome. Mark. Thank you very much.

2:07.3

You just had a little bit of a trip across London. Welcome. Yes. I saw the different face of London this morning with a strike and a two hours, two hours

2:19.8

ride in the city.

2:22.0

So, yeah, interesting.

2:23.5

And Ernesto, so pleased to see you again.

2:26.3

I understand you said we met in 2012.

2:28.9

Gosh, that is a long time ago.

2:32.2

It is a very long time ago when and during my first venture.

2:36.7

So totally different, I think, parts of our career.

...

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