Meet Ants Jakob Luhaäär, Insly’s Product Owner

We had a chat with Ants Jakob Luhaäär, Insly’s Product Owner. He describes his role as being a translator between customers’ requirements and Insly’s product development. Ants says that experience separates Insly from the rest, combined with an international customer base and the development of a low-code solution. He believes us to be in the best possible position to provide customers with not only fast deliveries, but also best practices on how to achieve the most effective business results.

What has your journey been like at Insly?

I joined Insly back in April 2017 when I was barely 18 years old. I started working in more labor-intensive fields at a very young age and I guess I was looking for a change in pace. Since then, I have been part of different projects and taken various responsibilities.

I started as a Customer Support Specialist, helping our Estonian brokers with their questions, requests, or problems. At one point, I was offered an opportunity to lead product development for one of our MGA customers. From then on, I have shifted my focus to new projects through product ownership.

You work at Insly as a Product Owner. As simple as possible: what’s your job like and how does that help customers? 

In the simplest way possible, one could argue that I am a translator. I gather customers’ requirements, analyse and translate them to fit into our product, and send them to development. There are obviously a lot of aspects to product ownership, such as budget and timeline management, etc., but the specificity and complexity of the insurance market requires me to be really “multilingual”.

What makes Insly different from other insurtechs?

I would say that experience is what separates us from the rest. We have customers from all over the world, and I believe this provides us with the insight that there will never be a “one size fits all” type of product.

Our focus has shifted towards a low-code solution. Combining it with our experience, I think we are in the best possible position to provide our customers with not only fast deliveries, but also best practices on how the business can and should be conducted to achieve the most effective results.

Describe Insly in three words.

I would describe Insly through knowledge, speed and flexibility, and customer satisfaction. These qualities apply to both our product and in-house aspect.

  • I have never had a question left unanswered by our team. If you put that into the product context, it runs like a Swiss watch when it comes to meeting our customers’ expectations.
  • Flexibility and speed translate into our team working together towards a common goal, while everyone has a specific responsibility. From the company’s perspective, it allows people to have a flexible schedule and deliver solutions to your customers in a speedy manner at the same time.
  • I believe that all of the above is a mandatory prerequisite for customer satisfaction.

Can you point out some of the most interesting projects you have been involved in?

I guess the most memorable project has been the one for an Austrian-based customer Bsurance, who worked alongside UNIQA, delivering a 100% online travel insurance product. It’s pretty impressive to think that I played a part in creating this fully web-based customer journey while sitting behind my office desk 2,000 kilometres away. I hadn’t been involved in such a technically demanding project before which is why it probably intrigued me the most.

 

Don’t forget to read our previous interviews with Eero Link, Risto Rossar, Pamela Raestu, Hammad Mirza, Kaspar Ilves, Märtin Kosk, and Ott Kell. Stay tuned for more stories introducing team Insly!