Reflections from ITC 2025: Care as the New Competitive Advantage
This week at InsureTech Connect (ITC) in Las Vegas, one message echoed across panels, meetings, and hallway conversations alike: the insurance industry is shifting from coverage to care. You could hear it in sessions about AI and modernization, and feel it in how leaders spoke about trust, partnership, and human connection. For Empathy, that shift has been our foundation since the beginning.
This week also marked a defining moment, with two milestones announced alongside ITC: the launch of Empathy’s newest product, Leave Support, and the appointment of Susan Neely as Chair of the Empathy Alliance. Together, they represent a broader evolution of our mission to support individuals through life’s most challenging moments, in partnership with the industry’s leading financial institutions.
It was, in every sense, a big week for our company, and for the future of how insurers and employers support their people.
On Stage, in Lockstep with Partners
Our Co-Founder & CEO, Ron Gura joined Jay Kaduson, CEO of Workplace Solutions at Voya Financial, one of our valued partners, and Natasha Alexander, Director of Benefits at Crash Champions, to explore how group life can evolve from a product that pays out to a platform that truly shows up. The conversation brought the full ecosystem to life: from Voya as the carrier, to Empathy as the technology partner, to Crash Champions as the employer delivering that support to its workforce. It was a powerful snapshot of what embedded care looks like in action.
As Ron put it during the discussion, “Employers don’t need another vendor. They need partners who can turn moments of loss into moments of real support, seamlessly, and without adding complexity.”
That’s exactly what insurers, carriers, and employers across ITC said they’re looking for: integrated, trusted solutions that extend care. At Empathy, that’s the vision we’re building toward: supporting individuals through the full spectrum of life’s hardest moments. From planning ahead with LifeVault, to navigating loss through our flagship Loss Support, to guiding employees through a Leave of Absence with our newest product, Leave Support—we’re uniting these experiences into one connected platform for compassionate care.
We were also proud to be in excellent company alongside leaders, underscoring how central these conversations have become across the industry. While Empathy is a technology company, our mission lives squarely in the human layer of benefits—helping insurers and employers raise the bar from coverage to care. Engaging with industry leaders in these discussions, whether as hallway conversations or on panels, always sparks new ideas and fresh energy for the work ahead.
What People Were Really Talking About
There was plenty of buzz about AI (of every flavor) throughout ITC, but at the heart of it, it’s always about utilizing technology to improve the human experience at the end of the line:
Trust and transparency. Leaders emphasized that digital experiences only work when people feel guided, not left to figure it out alone.
Human + machine, not human or machine. Sessions for agents, brokers, and benefits leaders focused on augmentation: using automation to remove friction while preserving the compassion and accountability people expect.
From claims to care. The conversation is shifting from how fast you operate and provide payouts, to how well you support. The bar is getting higher.
Two Announcements That Move the Standard Forward
This week, in conjunction with ITC, Empathy made two significant announcements.
Empathy Leave Support is here
We launched Leave Support this week. This new product offers insurers and employers a product to guide employees through a leave of absence: a common and highly disruptive event that millions of employees experience every year. Leave Support provides care that reduces disruption at work and at home, ensuring continuity for both the employee and the organization, and is launching first with our partners at Metlife.
The Empathy Alliance’s first Chair, Susan Neely
The Empathy Alliance brings together carriers, employers, advisors, and industry leaders to advance compassionate technology across benefits and insurance. We’re honored to be welcoming Susan Neely as the Alliance’s first Chair. Most recently, Susan served as President & CEO of the American Council of Life Insurers (ACLI), where she led an industry representing more than 90 million American families. During her tenure, she championed initiatives to expand financial and retirement security, strengthen public trust, and close coverage gaps for underserved communities, including policy efforts like the SECURE Acts. In this role, Susan fostered collaboration among the industry’s largest carriers, and we are confident that Susan’s leadership will help the Alliance align standards across the ecosystem and accelerate a forward facing movement towards compassionate technological innovation.
Why This Matters Now and What’s Next
If you listened closely at ITC, the question behind every AI and modernization roadmap or conversation panel was the same: Will this make life better for real people?
That’s our north star. Technology should make the complex navigable, the bureaucratic humane, and the lonely less so.
To everyone we met this week: thank you for the candor, conversation, and challenge. We were proud to host so many productive meetings in our Empathy suite, where industry leaders came together to share insights and shape what’s next.
To every employer and carrier leaning into this new standard: we see you, and we’re building with you.
Coverage is now table stakes. Care is the strategy. Together, let’s make it the industry norm.