🎙️ On #InsurTechTalk Episode 142
From Dynamite to Reinsurance Tech: The Wild Origin Story Behind INTX Insurance Software
In this episode, we go on an unexpectedly fascinating journey — starting with coyotes and foxes, moving through African farming and UK wildlife, and ending in the heart of what this conversation is really about: insurance, reinsurance, and building modern core systems for carriers.
Our guest, Robert Lewis, has one of the most unique backgrounds in the insurance world:
🧨 8th-generation insurance lineage
His family first entered the industry because they *couldn’t get insurance* for transporting dynamite into South African mines — so they built their own mutual group, which ultimately grew into a Lloyd’s syndicate.
🌍 From Mozambique to London to Austin
Robert and his brother bought an insurance company in Mozambique 25 years ago. After struggling to find good software, they hired a young developer and built their own system — which eventually evolved into the modern platform that became Intx.
💻 Rewriting over 1 million lines of code
Intx has since been rebuilt for the U.S. market on a Microsoft stack (SQL, C#, Blazor) to avoid proprietary coding traps and make it easy to hire local developers without dependency on offshore or legacy languages.
🧾 What Intx actually does
In this episode, we dig deep into policy admin, reinsurance software, assumed/ceded reinsurance, treaty management, facultative placements, loss corridors, retrocession, regulatory reserves, claims integration, and why Excel is still the “core system” for 55% of insurance professionals.
📉 Why legacy core systems are failing
We break down:
* Why siloed systems (claims separate from underwriting) break the data chain
* Why implementations cost carriers tens of millions
* Why external integrators drag timelines for years
* Why Intx is offering zero implementation cost and using its own insurance-literate team
🏗 The new cohort of core system challengers
We talk about the Austin ecosystem (Guidewire → legacy, Duck Creek → aging guard, Socotra → modern competitor) — and how Intx differentiates through architecture, economics, and reinsurance depth.
✔️ Family origins in South African insurance
✔️ Building an 8-generation insurance legacy
✔️ Starting an insurance carrier in Mozambique
✔️ Building and modernizing core insurance software
✔️ The difference between proprietary vs. Microsoft stack tech
✔️ Reinsurance: ceded, assumed, treaties, facultative, loss corridors
✔️ Retrocessions and capital markets
✔️ Why Excel is still dominant in the industry
✔️ Why most core system implementations never end
✔️ The economics of modernizing a carrier
If you're an MGA, reinsurer, carrier, or investor in insurance infrastructure:
This episode gives a rare, insider look at the technical, financial, and operational pain points inside the core systems world — and how the next wave of challenger platforms are approaching it.