An Interview With CEO Cole Snell

In an period the place technological innovation is remodeling industries at an unprecedented tempo, one sector that has been slower to evolve is life insurance coverage. Nonetheless, Cole Snell, Founder and CEO of Infineo, is on a mission to alter that. Infineo, a pioneering expertise firm, is main the cost in digitizing the $3 trillion life insurance coverage business via the strategic integration of blockchain and AI applied sciences. With a wealthy entrepreneurial background spanning numerous industries—from meals to fintech—Snell’s forward-thinking method goals to unlock international accessibility, streamline processes, and produce monetary certainty to people and establishments alike. On this unique interview with Blockchain Journal, Snell shares insights into Infineo’s groundbreaking work, the challenges of digitizing a centuries-old business, and his imaginative and prescient for the way forward for life insurance coverage within the digital age.

1. Are you able to share the journey that led to the founding of Infineo and the way your numerous entrepreneurial background formed your imaginative and prescient for the corporate?

The journey to founding Infineo was something however simple, nevertheless it was all linked in some ways.

I started my profession in naturopathic medication, operating multidisciplinary clinics. This was the place I first realized how carefully tied cash is to folks’s well-being. Sufferers needed to stay more healthy lives, however many couldn’t afford the remedies and even easy life-style adjustments like higher meals. This acquired me excited about the broader challenge—monetary safety.

From there, I made the pivot into the meals business. I based Provincial High quality Meals and began promoting artisanal cheese. I didn’t simply promote cheese, although—I informed tales. I believed that when you might join folks with the story behind what they had been shopping for, they’d see the worth in it. I constructed an organization round sourcing high-quality, artisanal meals, which turned an actual success.

However as soon as once more, I noticed the identical challenge. Individuals liked the thought of consuming effectively, however many couldn’t afford it.

That’s after I had one other realization: meals isn’t the bottom widespread denominator—cash is. You’ll be able to’t eat, and you may’t stay when you don’t have monetary stability.

This understanding pushed me into the monetary business. I noticed that life insurance coverage, particularly, was an enormous space the place I might make a distinction. It’s a trillion-dollar business, nevertheless it was caught previously with previous programs and outdated merchandise. Life insurance coverage is meant to be about certainty, however the way in which it’s historically been bought makes it inaccessible for therefore many individuals.

I noticed I might take the identical rules I utilized in meals—transparency, storytelling, and connection—and apply them to life insurance coverage. And that’s how Infineo was born.

Infineo is about extra than simply insurance coverage; it’s about offering monetary certainty to each particular person on the planet. We’re utilizing blockchain and AI to modernize an business that hasn’t seen significant innovation in many years.

2. The life insurance coverage business is historically seen as gradual to undertake new applied sciences. What impressed you to make use of blockchain and AI to digitize this $3T+ business, and what are the most important challenges you’ve confronted in implementing this transformation?

Whereas exploring the life insurance coverage house, it turned clear to me that the business, regardless of its large scale, was riddled with inefficiencies and lagging in technological innovation.

One key challenge I seen was that a whole lot of billions in life insurance coverage insurance policies are surrendered again to carriers annually, usually by policyholders who’re unaware of the true worth of those insurance policies as fixed-income options. These insurance policies, a lot of that are denominated in U.S. {dollars} and will function steady income-producing belongings, stay locked away from traders. This case not solely limits entry to a doubtlessly helpful asset class but in addition negatively impacts insurers via low coverage persistence, as they lose out on long-term premium revenues.

Tokenization via blockchain provides a solution to clear up this downside.

By turning life insurance coverage insurance policies into globally accessible, tradable belongings, we unlock liquidity, enabling fractional possession and giving traders entry to steady, income-generating monetary merchandise. This additionally helps insurance coverage firms enhance coverage retention and persistence charges by creating extra liquidity and suppleness out there, aligning the pursuits of each policyholders and institutional traders.

The answer turned clear: blockchain was the automobile to democratize entry to life insurance coverage insurance policies.

The mixing of AI was a pure development. Our proprietary Massive Language Mannequin (LLM), designed particularly for all times insurance coverage, enhances the shopper expertise by making coverage administration and interactions extra intuitive, customized, and cost-effective.

The most important problem has been overcoming the business’s conventional resistance to alter, however as the advantages of those applied sciences turn into obvious—each when it comes to operational efficiencies and creating new alternatives for insurers and traders alike—we’re seeing rising curiosity and adoption.

3. How does Infineo leverage blockchain expertise to unlock international accessibility to life insurance coverage insurance policies, and what particular efficiencies and value financial savings does this supply to stakeholders?

Infineo leverages blockchain via its Ledger on the Provenance Blockchain, offering a world, immutable document the place life insurance coverage insurance policies are securely tokenized and transparently managed.

This platform unlocks international accessibility, permitting policyholders, insurers, and traders to work together with insurance policies with out counting on outdated intermediaries. The transition to a digitally native ecosystem provides profound advantages at each step of the coverage lifecycle.

First, by digitizing present insurance policies, the Ledger addresses business inefficiencies, such because the $7B+ downside of unclaimed demise advantages, making certain beneficiaries are simply notified and geared up to say advantages. It enhances transparency for all stakeholders, decreasing operational friction between carriers, brokers, and policyholders.

For brokers and brokers, Infineo’s real-time Ledger supplies a verifiable guide of enterprise, streamlining administration throughout corporations and minimizing low persistence charges and chargebacks. Insurance policies turn into liquid belongings that may be transferred seamlessly throughout the ecosystem, making enterprise development simpler to handle.

The Ledger additionally units the muse for brand new capabilities, together with fractional possession, a secondary marketplace for insurance policies, and instantaneous lending towards insurance policies. This creates unprecedented liquidity for policyholders, empowering them to entry funds with out surrendering insurance policies.

Lastly, Infineo’s absolutely digitally native issuance eliminates handbook, paper-based processes, automating the whole lot from onboarding and coverage monitoring to claims processing. This leads to vital price financial savings for carriers, decrease premiums for policyholders, and quicker payouts. Blockchain’s tamper-proof information additionally construct belief, making certain accuracy and compliance all through the coverage lifecycle.

Infineo’s progressive use of blockchain and partnerships positions it to steer the life insurance coverage business right into a way forward for effectivity, transparency, and accessibility inside a peer-to-peer, digitally native surroundings.

4. You’ve developed a proprietary AI Massive Language Mannequin (LLM) particularly for all times insurance coverage, modeled after the work of Dr. Robert Murphy. Are you able to clarify the position of this AI in enhancing the shopper expertise and the way it integrates along with your product choices?

Our proprietary AI Massive Language Mannequin (LLM), “Dr. AI Bob”, is particularly designed to revolutionize the way in which prospects and stakeholders work together with life insurance coverage insurance policies.

Modeled after the work of Dr. Robert Murphy, a famend Austrian economist, the Dr. AI Bob system combines a deep information of economics and life insurance coverage rules with superior machine studying capabilities.

Many individuals discover life insurance coverage insurance policies advanced. Our AI simplifies this by providing easy-to-understand explanations and customized steering tailor-made to every particular person’s wants and particular coverage information. The AI acts as a robust software for brokers and brokers, offering their purchasers with on the spot entry to insights based mostly on Dr. Murphy’s financial frameworks. This enables them to ship higher, extra environment friendly service to purchasers, creating worth for everybody concerned within the life insurance coverage ecosystem, replicable on a world scale.

5. Tokenization of real-world belongings, like life insurance coverage, is gaining momentum. How does Infineo’s method to tokenizing life insurance coverage insurance policies differ from conventional DeFi or different blockchain initiatives?

We’re not simply digitizing any asset—we’re targeted on what we consider is the most effective real-world asset (RWA) use case on the market: life insurance coverage.

Life insurance coverage is basically totally different from different belongings like actual property as a result of its development could be very steady and uncorrelated, making it an excellent candidate for tokenization. What we’re doing is making a digitally native ecosystem, the place life insurance coverage insurance policies turn into accessible to traders at scale in a approach that hasn’t been finished earlier than.

Conventional DeFi initiatives are sometimes constructed round extra speculative belongings. What units us aside is that we’re unlocking entry to a way more predictable asset class, with a robust Sharpe ratio (3+), delivering regular, dependable returns.

We’re bringing actual utility and stability to the blockchain house by tokenizing life insurance coverage, which traditionally has been locked away, out there solely to the ultra-wealthy and establishments.

With our Ledger, we’re not simply creating digital twins, we’re remodeling life insurance coverage into a completely digitally native asset, providing a seamless, safe expertise for each institutional and retail traders globally.

There are few different RWAs that may be really digitally native.

6. Infineo’s use of the $SOUND token is a key a part of your ecosystem. Might you elaborate on the performance and advantages of the $SOUND token inside your platform, and the way it provides worth for each particular person and institutional purchasers?

The $SOUND token performs a vital position in Infineo’s ecosystem by offering each particular person and institutional traders with entry to life insurance-backed belongings in a digitally native format.

The token provides fractional publicity to the financial worth of a pool of life insurance coverage contracts, which makes it a beautiful, steady funding uncorrelated with conventional market volatility. This stability is essential in delivering superior risk-adjusted returns, with a Sharpe ratio exceeding 3.0, far outpacing standard choices like Treasury securities.

For traders, the $SOUND token introduces vital advantages. First, it democratizes entry to life insurance coverage as a monetary product, making it simpler for a variety of traders to take part in what was historically a fancy and illiquid market. Moreover, the token’s liquidity means holders can simply commerce, redeem, and even borrow towards their $SOUND with out dropping possession, offering flexibility and monetary safety.

By embedding this into our ecosystem, $SOUND enhances monetary independence for traders, enabling them to leverage life insurance coverage’s inherent worth via fashionable, frictionless blockchain transactions.

Additionally, learn – Revolutionizing Actual Property and DeFi: A Dialog with Mitchell DiRaimondo, Founding father of SteelWave Digital and CEO of e-Cobalt Investing

7. What do you envision for the way forward for life insurance coverage, notably within the context of blockchain and AI adoption? How do you see Infineo’s position in shaping that future?

The way forward for life insurance coverage lies within the fusion of blockchain and AI, enabling unparalleled transparency, accessibility, and safety. We’re pioneering this shift by tokenizing life insurance coverage insurance policies, remodeling them from advanced, conventional merchandise into versatile, simply managed digital belongings.

Blockchain secures the insurance policies on our Ledger, whereas AI enhances the person expertise by automating processes, enhancing buyer engagement and training, and optimizing coverage administration.

8. Infineo is creating friction-free entry to life insurance coverage as a steady asset. Are you able to clarify how your small business mannequin works to serve each people and establishments at scale?

We aren’t seeking to earn a living off the Ledger—that’s a free software we offer to the business.

It’s our approach of providing actual worth and modernizing life insurance coverage by bringing insurance policies right into a safe, digitally native surroundings on the blockchain. Our income comes by including further options to these insurance policies thereby empowering coverage holders to unlock the facility inside their coverage through staking, lending and buying and selling.

We unlock liquidity by lending towards these tokenized insurance policies. Individuals want entry to their capital, and we’re right here to verify they will faucet into that worth after they want it most.

And let’s not neglect in regards to the $SOUND Token— a real cornerstone of our ecosystem.

Managing $SOUND permits us to supply superior returns to our purchasers whereas creating a gradual, sustainable income stream. It’s all about creating an ecosystem that advantages everybody, from policyholders to traders, with out including friction.

We’re setting ourselves as much as scale by giving people and establishments friction-free entry to life insurance coverage as an asset class. The demand is there, and we’re prepared to satisfy it by offering the liquidity, safety, and stability that this market desperately wants.

Whether or not it’s via our market, staking and lending providers, or the $SOUND Token, we’re positioned to develop because the go-to platform for tokenized life insurance coverage.

9. Because the life insurance coverage business begins to embrace digital transformation, what units Infineo aside from different gamers out there? How do you keep a aggressive edge on this quickly evolving house?

To keep up our aggressive edge, we concentrate on staying nimble and adaptable.

Whereas conventional insurance coverage firms have challenges with inside channel conflicts and inbuilt forms that makes it tough to implement the required tech adjustments, we’re consistently evolving and enhancing our digitally native ecosystem. Our skill to swiftly implement new applied sciences from the bottom up, like blockchain and AI, permits us to outpace legacy gamers who’re caught in outdated programs.

We additionally hold this edge sharp by nurturing our robust partnerships with carriers, brokers, and brokers, making certain that we keep aligned with market wants.

Our collaborations with tech innovators like Provenance Blockchain and ProvLabs permit us to constantly push the boundaries of what’s doable. These partnerships, mixed with our neighborhood’s dedication, and the expertise of our crew, give us the instruments to scale globally, whereas staying forward of the curve.

We actively work to keep up our aggressive edge via innovation, collaboration, and community-driven development.

10. You had a profitable exit with Provincial High quality Meals in 2012. How has that have knowledgeable your method to constructing and scaling Infineo?

My expertise with Provincial High quality Meals formed how I take into consideration scaling a enterprise, particularly in industries that appear entrenched in conventional fashions.

Again then, it was about discovering efficiencies whereas delivering distinctive high quality and creating actual worth for patrons, and that’s precisely what we’re doing at Infineo.

With Provincial, I discovered methods to develop shortly and sustainably, and I noticed that success comes from simplifying advanced merchandise.

Life insurance coverage, like tremendous meals, may be misunderstood or inaccessible.

My method with Infineo is to make use of expertise to make life insurance coverage accessible at scale, remodeling it into one thing helpful for each institutional traders and people.

We’re not slowed down by legacy programs like conventional gamers – We’re capable of transfer quick and keep lean due to the foundational classes I discovered scaling Provincial High quality Meals.

That have taught me methods to stability innovation with stability, and at Infineo, we’re doing simply that—making a friction-free ecosystem whereas making certain the identical excessive requirements that helped me succeed earlier than.

11. Life insurance coverage insurance policies may be advanced for a lot of people. How does Infineo make sure that prospects perceive and belief these tokenized insurance coverage merchandise, particularly these unfamiliar with blockchain?

Life insurance coverage has at all times been this misunderstood product—seen as difficult, buried in paperwork, and infrequently ignored by individuals who may benefit from it.

We’re right here to alter that narrative.

Training and story-telling is essential, and we be sure that everybody, whether or not they’re seasoned traders or simply getting began, understands how highly effective life insurance coverage may be as an asset.

We begin by breaking it down – displaying folks how life insurance coverage isn’t nearly a coverage—it’s a steady, long-term asset that may be leveraged in methods most individuals haven’t even thought of.

In the end it’s about giving folks monetary certainty in an unsure world. By tokenizing life insurance coverage, we’re stripping away the complexity and turning it into one thing clear and straightforward to know.

Our expertise does the heavy lifting, however we additionally concentrate on ensuring that customers get it—training is constructed into our platform and course of.

The extra you already know, the extra you notice the huge worth sitting in life insurance coverage, and we’re right here to be sure that worth is known and accessible to everybody.

12. Infineo goals to deliver monetary certainty to each particular person on the planet. How do you intend to scale globally, and what partnerships or initiatives are you pursuing to attain this imaginative and prescient?

We’re in an thrilling section proper now. We’re within the technique of closing our Seed spherical of funding, working with a few of the top-tier enterprise capital corporations which can be skilled in scaling FinTech companies to the following degree.

These companions deliver not simply capital however a wealth of expertise in rising firms like ours, and that’s invaluable as we transfer ahead.

On high of that, we now have some vital partnership bulletins on the horizon. These are going to assist us develop our attain and deepen our influence within the life insurance coverage market.

On the identical time, we’re not slowing down on product growth – We’re consistently enhancing the Ledger, making certain it’s much more streamlined and environment friendly for customers whereas including performance. We’re additionally pushing ahead with InfineoX Market and $SOUND Token—two key items of the puzzle that may deliver liquidity and entry to life insurance coverage as a real asset class.

The main focus is at all times on development, scaling, and ensuring we’re delivering worth to each people and establishments.

By relying as a lot as doable on AI and blockchain, we retain the flexibility to develop our capability with demand.

With the whole lot we’ve acquired within the works, we’re simply getting began.

Conclusion

Because the life insurance coverage business continues to evolve, it’s clear that Infineo isn’t just retaining tempo however setting a brand new customary for innovation within the house. With Cole Snell on the helm, the corporate is positioned to reshape how people and establishments entry and handle life insurance coverage, utilizing cutting-edge applied sciences like blockchain and AI to streamline processes and supply unparalleled monetary safety. Snell’s visionary management and dedication to leveraging digital instruments to empower folks globally supply a glimpse right into a future the place life insurance coverage is extra accessible, environment friendly, and adaptable than ever earlier than. At Blockchain Journal, we’ll be watching carefully as Infineo continues to interrupt new floor and revolutionize this vital business.