Beyond Boundaries | Moving Insurtech Beyond Panels with Chris Luiz

Welcome back to the Beyond Boundaries interview series, where we speak with the people shaping how insurance innovation is built, scaled, and connected across the world.

In this episode, Sønr’s CEO Matt Connolly sits down with Chris Luiz from Scout InsurTech at the InsurTech America Symposium for a conversation about community, connection, and what it really takes to support early-stage innovation in insurance.

Chris shares how Scout has built a year-round ecosystem across the US, with local events in markets including New York, Chicago, Ohio, Detroit, Nashville and Atlanta. Rather than focusing only on one major annual conference, Scout is creating multiple points of connection throughout the year, helping carriers, startups, MGAs, reinsurers, investors and innovation teams stay closer to the market.

The conversation also looks ahead to Scout’s upcoming Columbus event, which is expected to grow significantly this year, with more early-stage companies on stage, more meeting space, and more opportunities for the ecosystem to connect in practical ways.

🎙 In this episode, you’ll hear:

• How Scout InsurTech is building a year-round insurance innovation community
• Why local events and smaller gatherings can create stronger connections across the ecosystem
• What early-stage startups need from carriers, investors and innovation teams
• How Scout’s Columbus event is evolving, with more companies, more meetings and more space for interaction
• Where Chris is seeing market momentum across AI, MGAs, parametric products, data centres and back-office operations
• Why carriers are still working through what their AI story really means in practice

📍 What you’ll also hear:

Chris reflects on the value of different formats, from smaller executive dinners to larger conferences, and why each creates a different type of interaction. He also shares his view on the importance of connecting people in a healthy ecosystem, whether that means helping founders find the right conversations or giving carriers a better view of what is being built outside their own organisations.

Why it matters

This is a conversation about the infrastructure behind innovation. Not the technology infrastructure, but the human one: the events, meetings, introductions and trusted communities that help the market understand what is changing and where the real opportunities are.

Chris’s view is clear. The most valuable ecosystems are not built around one moment in the calendar. They are built through repeated interactions, relevant conversations and a willingness to create the right spaces for different types of people to connect.

That matters because insurance innovation is moving quickly, but not always evenly. AI is creating new possibilities, early-stage companies are tackling specific operational problems, and carriers are trying to understand whether to build internally or partner externally. In that environment, community and access become more than nice-to-haves. They become part of how the market learns, filters signal, and moves towards better execution.

A huge thank you to Chris for joining us and sharing such a clear and practical perspective on what it takes to build a connected insurance innovation ecosystem.

📘 Explore the full Beyond Boundaries 2025 report → https://sonr.global/beyond-boundaries-2025/

📧 Want to get involved in Beyond Boundaries 2026? Reach out at [email protected]