LIC Board Chair Joan Cleveland, President and CEO, SWBC Life; Dean Lambert, Executive Director, LIC

Maria Ferrante-Schepis is a published author, consultant and established thought leader for insurance and finance professionals and executives. Her Amazon bestselling book, Flirting with the Uninterested: Innovating in a “Sold Not Bought” Category, co-authored with Mike Maddock, explored challenges and opportunities in the insurance industry. Her second book, Unfair Comparisons: Nuancing the “Sold Not Bought” Category, continues this insightful journey, exposing 21 subtle and not so subtle nuances that will help the industry make further progress. In her keynote address, she will help leaders from various disciplines (e.g. executive, innovation, marketing, distribution, customer experience, product design, underwriting, technology) understand how these nuances specifically apply to their work and offer specific guidance on how to apply them. 

Matt Clifford is an insurance veteran who helps mid-market insurers align senior leaders on the few bets that matter, match growth opportunities to real capabilities, and install execution plans that stick. His involvement has resulted in helping companies move faster, cut execution waste, and free up operating expense to fund their plans. He will lead audience discussion and Q&A on insights from Maria Ferrante-Schepis’s presentation.

Life insurance claims are the industry’s most powerful moment to build trust and long-term loyalty. In this session, Angel Nichols will share how Empathy, a leading technology company transforming the way the world plans for and navigates life’s hardest moments, partners with carriers to extend value beyond the payout — combining human care and technology to support families when it matters most. Drawing on Empathy’s work with many of the largest insurers — covering more than 45 million lives across the U.S., Angel will explore how carriers of all sizes can differentiate, deepen beneficiary relationships, and turn a one-time claim into multigenerational loyalty.

Angel Nichols is a seasoned business development leader with over 15 years of experience driving growth, strategic partnerships, and go-to-market innovation across the insurance, financial services, and health-tech sectors. As Vice President of Business Development at Empathy, Angel leads carrier and financial institution partnerships that help organizations support families through loss while unlocking new engagement, retention, and revenue opportunities. She is passionate about creating meaningful experiences for families, strengthening organizational value propositions, and helping institutions deepen trust with the people they serve.

A practical discussion around talent seeking for smaller companies with limited resources, including recruiting/evaluating, training, motivating, and retaining top talent.

Small- to mid-size insurers are being forced to make increasingly consequential go-to-market decisions — often under constraints and with less margin for error than larger peers. New products, distribution strategies, partnerships, and technologies create opportunity, but they also introduce execution risk when organizations lack the time, capacity, or alignment to absorb change effectively.

In this session, we’ll explore how disciplined change management serves as a practical execution and risk-reduction capability. You’ll learn how leadership teams can align around the external case for change, focus limited capacity on what matters most, and move from functional activity to enterprise execution — using a right-sized framework that helps turn strategy into measurable market progress.

Get your professional photo updated! LIC will have a photographer on hand before and during the pre-banquet reception.

LIC’s traditional Annual Banquet is a chance to enjoy fine dining, develop old and new friendships in the industry, and mark the occasion as the LIC leadership is handed off to the new incoming board for 2026. All LIC Annual Conference attendees come together at the banquet for more great networking plus a celebration of LIC’s membership, mission, and importance in the insurance industry.

Dierdre Woodruff, Senior Vice President, Puritan Life Insurance Company of America

Learn how to implement a process that connects customer insights to the business, transforming feedback into business actions that will continually elevate customer experience. Join in the discussion on how smaller companies can make good on the customer expectation of an excellent experience.

Dr. Dahms is a change management leader specializing in Customer Experience (CX) for the insurance and finance sectors, and brings over a decade of expertise in data analysis, research, and strategy. His experience spans CX/UX strategy, journey mapping, and analytics, working alongside C-suite leaders, sales, marketing, and finance teams to align business activities with strategic goals. From launching AI-driven insights platforms to redefining marketing strategies and customer journeys, he’s focused on delivering measurable impact.

We've all heard “knowing your customer” is important to engaging and building customer loyalty, but too often we get stuck on seeking relationships with customers that approximate the policy owners we currently have. This strategy can lead to missed opportunities with emerging prospects. With the right data, insurance companies can understand likely behaviors, needs, and outcomes based on analyzing current behaviors. Learn how this data can help you find your best customers, reach them, and serve them what they want in the way they want it.

Learn about GBU Life’s experience incorporating value-added member benefit services with Epoq/LawAssure.