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A Zinnia Podcast

The L&A Hub

Welcome to The L&A Hub — where life insurance and annuities get put to the test. Host Paul Tyler sits down with leaders from carriers, distributors, partners, and startups to break down the experiments, decisions, and systems driving real change. What worked, what didn’t, what they learned — and what’s next. New episodes weekly. Brought to you by Zinnia.

Hosted by Paul Tyler

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All Episodes

  1. AI Doesn't Know How to Do Your Job. You Do.
    S1E15
    37:08

    AI Doesn't Know How to Do Your Job. You Do.

    Jane Vevea spent 20 years in life insurance before anyone would have called her a tech person. She started at Prudential in 2006 running a retention call center, wholesaled through the bank channel at PNC, got laid off, and made a sharp left turn into insurtech. That detour took her through White Swan, then Atidot — where she was predicting lapses, surrenders, and upsell opportunities using AI before most carriers had even thought to ask the question — and now to xAI, where she works as a finance domain expert on large language models.

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  2. Made by Distribution, for Distribution — How AmeriLife's Actuary Builds Products That Actually Sell
    S1E14
    51:17

    Made by Distribution, for Distribution — How AmeriLife's Actuary Builds Products That Actually Sell

    Ryan Hinchey has one of the more unique résumés in the annuity business: actuary, Amsterdam expat, Silicon Valley insurtech veteran, and now SVP of Product Innovation at AmeriLife — one of the country's largest distributors of annuity, life, and health products. In this episode, Ryan walks through the three models AmeriLife uses to partner with carriers on product development — exclusive, leverage, and proprietary — and why the best ideas increasingly come from the IMO level, not the home office.

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  3. Who Owns the Workflow? The Organizational Problem AI Actually Exposes
    S1E13
    44:17

    Who Owns the Workflow? The Organizational Problem AI Actually Exposes

    Wei Chen is an Associate Professor at the University of Connecticut School of Business and co-leader of the Digital Frontiers Initiative. His central argument: every serious conversation about AI and the workforce stops at the task level — which tasks AI can automate, which jobs are at risk. But tasks are only the bottom tier. The level that actually determines whether AI transforms an organization is the workflow: the connected chain of tasks that produces a business outcome. And the piece nobody's building is ownership — a named human who's accountable for the whole workflow, with the authority to stop it when something goes wrong.

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  4. "ROI Now Means Reliability of Income" — The Retirement Income Optimizers on Retirement's New Math
    S1E12
    37:47

    "ROI Now Means Reliability of Income" — The Retirement Income Optimizers on Retirement's New Math

    A three-guest roundtable on what's actually changing in retirement planning — and what isn't. Joe Jordan frames the demographic crisis (longer retirements, Social Security cuts coming, more U.S. centenarians than any country on earth). Ted Rosedale (RSSA) explains why Social Security is the biggest financial asset most Americans have and the most misunderstood. George Bain makes the case for home equity as the missing leg of the retirement stool.

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  5. "You Can't Just Slap AI On It" — Brian Poppe's Four-Phase Test for Carrier AI Adoption
    S1E11
    38:02

    "You Can't Just Slap AI On It" — Brian Poppe's Four-Phase Test for Carrier AI Adoption

    Brian Poppe — SVP of Life Insurance Solutions at Mutual of Omaha — has been an actuary, the entire innovation department, the Chief Data Officer, and now a P&L owner. In this episode he walks through his four-phase AI adoption framework, gives an honest read on where Mutual of Omaha actually sits (phases two and three), and explains why a memorial-book partnership he loved had to be killed because the timing of the offer was wrong.

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  7. "The Revolution Will Happen in the Workplace" — The Generational Comeback for Carriers in 401(k)
    S1E10
    38:17

    "The Revolution Will Happen in the Workplace" — The Generational Comeback for Carriers in 401(k)

    Ramsey Smith — former Goldman Sachs life insurance banker, Genworth board director, and Founder/CEO of ALEXIncome — argues that the next great wave of guaranteed income won't come from agents or RIAs. It will come from the 401(k) default option. He breaks down why fixed deferred is winning the in-plan annuity race, why a $140B market is just the beginning of a $5–15T total addressable market, and why this is the most important generational opportunity carriers have to take back ground they relinquished decades ago.

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  8. "A Garage Full of Mac Minis" — AI, Angel Investing, and the Next Wave of L&A Innovation
    S1E9
    42:27

    "A Garage Full of Mac Minis" — AI, Angel Investing, and the Next Wave of L&A Innovation

    James Wong built a massive IMO from scratch, sold it to a Fortune 500, and then launched The Founder's Chair — an insurance-focused angel investing platform that has funded 17 companies and deployed $11M+ in two and a half years. He breaks down what AI is actually doing to startup teams right now and shares his unfiltered read on the LPL-Anthropic deal and why it overnight made the biggest firms every startup's competitor.

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  9. Why Half Our Company Are Engineers: Reinventing the IMO
    S1E8
    33:21

    Why Half Our Company Are Engineers: Reinventing the IMO

    Patrick Kelly, Co-Founder and CEO of Signal Advisors, breaks down his IMO 4.0 thesis — the idea that modern IMOs should implement best practices through technology, not just teach them. From founding RepPro to building an AI-native IMO in Detroit, Patrick shares what it took to create features like One Click Annual Review, TruePay, and Pay Later Marketing that are changing how advisors run their businesses.

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