Santa Barbara, California – August 03, 2020 – When we talk about emerging technology tools in the insurance industry, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning are frequently the first words that come to mind. But the technology having the biggest impact on insurance today is probably Robotic Processing Automation (RPA), says Michael DeGusta, CEO of ClarionDoor. 

Michael DeGusta is CEO of ClarionDoor, a cloud digital distribution platform for insurance. A successful entrepreneur and    consistent innovator in the insurance software industry, Michael co-founded web-based policy administration pioneer Steel Card (sold to Insurity in 2006). In 1999, Michael co-founded and was Chief Technology Officer of eCoverage, a SoftBank/RRE/E*TRADE-funded startup that was the nation’s first online auto insurance carrier. A Stanford alumnus, Michael began his career as web production lead at Apple from 1996 to 1998.

You started your career at Apple in the late 1990s. What led you to the insurance industry?

After my time at Apple, I co-founded and was CTO of eCoverage, the first true online insurer, backed by E-Trade, E-Loan, and     SoftBank among others. Initially, we thought we’d just “web-enable” an existing insurance software package, but looking at the   archaic offerings on the market, it was clear that wasn’t possible. So, we built everything from the ground up, and it turned out to be a far more interesting and challenging project than what most of web programming was about in those days: content sites and shopping sites. While eCoverage was a victim of the dot com bust, it was clear there was an immense need for and massive opportunity to provide great technology to this industry that technologists generally overlooked.

For more information, please contact Spiro Skias, Director of Product Marketing for ClarionDoor, at spiro.skias@clariondoor.com, or visit the company website at clariondoor.com.