Although we have accomplished a lot in a short period of time, we feel that we have only just begun to scratch the surface of what we can achieve: Christopher M. Longo of Novum Underwriting Partners

“Novum holds a unique position in the Insurtech sector, given that our platform offers a state-of-the-art user experience seamlessly integrated with top-tier insurance products and personnel, all without compromise on either front.”

Novum Underwriting Partners is renowned for its innovative approach in modernizing commercial insurance transactions through technology and data-driven decisions. Since its inception in 2019, Novum has seen exponential growth, developing a proprietary online insurance marketplace that now serves over 7,000 retail agents. The company serves clients in the United States.

Novum Underwriting Partners is headquartered in Independence, OH.

The Silicon Review contacted Christopher M. Longo, CEO and founder of Novum Underwriting Partners, and here’s what he had to say.

Interview Highlights

Please tell us about the circumstances or events that led to the founding of Novum Underwriting Partners.

Christopher Longo: Prior to Novum’s founding in 2019, I was part of the executive leadership team at AmTrust Financial – serving as CIO since 2005, as well as COO since 2016. During my tenure, my core team successfully built multiple full stack enterprise technology systems for all AmTrust insurance operations, which helped enable our growth from startup to being invited to the Fortune 500, as well as integrating these systems with over 70 company acquisitions during that time. In 2018, AmTrust made the decision to go private, and after giving it significant thought, I decided to take the opportunity to exit the company and found Novum Underwriting Partners with several former AmTrust leaders, including Don Sellars who served as the President of Underwriting, and Matt Gillespie who was one of AmTrust’s main system architects.

With our experience operating at scale as a technology-leading carrier in the commercial insurance industry, coupled with our deep understanding of the key pain points faced by our retail agency customers, we believe we are uniquely positioned to capitalize on the current insurance market and provide a technology solution that works for both retail agencies and carriers alike.

Q. As a specialty MGA and wholesale brokerage, what are Novum’s key focus areas? 

Christopher Longo: Novum holds a unique position in the Insurtech sector, given that our platform offers a state-of-the-art user experience seamlessly integrated with top-tier insurance products and personnel, all without compromise on either front. In this industry, it seems many of the solutions are one or the other – either you get seasoned, established insurance products that have been around for many years and lack the innovative technology, or the new tech-focused companies that may lack the industry experience or be entirely digital with no way to speak to an actual real person. We deliver the best of both worlds.

Our wholesale division is partnered with over 60 of the leading insurance carriers. We are strategically adding new specialty insurance programs to our MGA division, and we are now expanding our technology into other segments – most recently an upcoming partnership to bring it to the employee benefits space. We currently serve over 10,000 users from over 7,000 retail agencies on Novum Online today, and since we deliberately over-engineered our platform to grow at scale early on, we are in excellent position to continue this exponential growth we are experiencing. 

Q. Can you introduce us to your services? What are their main features?

Christopher Longo: At Novum’s core is our insurance products, however these products are all rated, underwritten, quoted, and bound on our proprietary technology system called Novum Online. Retail agents can access Novum Online for free, and it is specifically engineered to require the absolute minimum number of keystrokes to rate their risks and compare quote options from our partner carriers. Our system matches each submission to the appropriate carriers using our eligibility guide as quickly as possible, and agents can bind the policy right through Novum Online and it’s really that simple. We have features such as a real-time status tracker for risks that need underwriting approval, so you can see the exact status at any given time just by logging in, where you can also communicate directly with Novum’s underwriting team. If you pull back the curtain, every interaction and keystroke is being logged in our timeline, and each step of the submission-to-policy lifecycle has stages which we break down into manageable tasks, and these tasks are constantly being systematically monitored by our bots and AI to ensure that our employees workload is manageable and everything is prioritized and being worked in the most efficient way possible. It continues to be a major key to our rapid growth and success.

Q. Can you provide us with one or two success stories, detailing specific client challenges and how Novum’s solutions contributed to their success? 

Christopher Longo: Novum’s agent partners come to us for a variety of reasons, whether that be because they enjoy the speed and ease of working with us to obtain a quote, they are looking to access one or our exclusive MGA products such as LumberPro or DealerPro, or they had no direct carrier options and came to us to help them place that business so they didn’t lose their client. Having an efficient technological solution such as ours, makes working with us very easy from the outset, but I think one of the key things that sets us apart is that we have always retained the personal relationships on top of our technology. We have teams of account executives, underwriters, and salespeople to where you can pick up the phone and talk to real live person at any time, and I feel our agents would agree that having that capability goes a long way. I believe this is what has helped us grow to over 10,000 users in just a few years having these positive experiences.

Q. Will Novum be expanding, bringing on any new services that we should be aware of?

Christopher Longo: You will see us start to offer our capabilities that we have used for ourselves and our own success, as a SAAS solution for insurance distributors across Commercial P&C, Personal as well as Benefits Insurance.

Q. Is there anything you would like to add before we wrap up? 

Christopher Longo: Although we have accomplished a lot in a short period of time, we feel that we have only just begun to scratch the surface of what we can achieve. Most of what we’ve done to date is built the infrastructure necessary to sustain our rapid growth. As our platform grows it opens the door for more and more opportunities, which in turn continues to feed additional growth. It’s a nice feedback loop of success.

About | Christopher M. Longo

Christopher M. Longo is the CEO and Founder of Novum Underwriting Partners. With a background as COO and CIO at AmTrust Financial, where he played a pivotal role in integrating over 70 companies through acquisitions, Longo brings a wealth of experience and a visionary approach to Novum, focusing on efficiency, scalability, and the potential to disrupt the insurance industry by leveraging technology and artificial intelligence to solve longstanding problems.

“Our wholesale division is partnered with over 60 of the leading insurance carriers. We are strategically adding new specialty insurance programs to our MGA division, and we are now expanding our technology into other segments – most recently an upcoming partnership to bring it to the employee benefits space.”