30 January 2026

From incumbent to unicorn: Rob Schimek on the future of protection

On the Reinventing Insurance podcast by Oliver Wyman, bolttech Founder & Group CEO Rob Schimek shares how his journey – from Deloitte to AIG to building a global insurtech – shaped his mission: closing the world’s widening protection gap.

Rob highlights three forces driving this gap:

Demographic change: bigger, older populations with growing exposure.

Climate risk: more frequent catastrophes creating affordability and availability challenges.

Technology: fastevolving risks like cybercrime and AIdriven threats that outpace traditional insurance models.

He explains how customer expectations have shifted beyond claims payout to service, immediacy and prevention, especially in digitalfirst markets like Asia. This is where bolttech’s ecosystem approach comes in – enabling partners across industries to deliver embedded, accessible protection at the point of need.

Rob emphasises bolttech’s role as an enabler, not a disruptor, working with incumbents through joint KPIs, continuous innovation, and customerbackwards product design. From the US insurance exchange quoting US$75bn annually to embedded device protection across Asia, bolttech’s model is built around collaboration and scale.

Looking ahead, Rob sees AI transforming the entire value chain – but as an augmenter of human capability, not a replacement. And for talent entering the industry, his advice is to become students of the problem and skilled users of new tools, rather than builders of every solution.

He closes with a reminder of balance in business, ambition and life: “Don’t build just one strong bicep. Build both.”

To explore these themes in full, listen to Rob’s complete interview via the Spotify player below, or access the episode on Apple Podcasts here: https://podcasts.apple.com/hk/podcast/episode-23-from-incumbent-to-unicorn-ceo-and-where/id1669527410?i=1000747043099