Eric Sondergeld - We Develop Products in Reverse Order

Eric Sondergeld — Managing Director at Greenwald Research, an actuary (ASA, CFA) who ran market research at LIMRA for years before moving to custom research across life, annuities, and distribution — opens this episode with the human cost of getting customer experience wrong. When his mother died in 2019, the life carrier bounced his claim between departments, sent a checklist of documents with an envelope too small to hold them, and never once expressed condolences. When his father passed this year, the same carrier had learned to say "I'm sorry" — but still mailed a cryptic claim form and, this time, no envelope at all. From that story Eric builds his central argument: the industry develops products in reverse order, starting with the distribution it already has instead of the consumer it's supposed to serve, then stopping before it ever reaches the customer. Along the way he dismantles the idea of "best practices," explains why the industry's real superpower is copy-and-paste, names the third customer nobody designs for (the beneficiary), and gives a research veteran's clear-eyed read on synthetic respondents and AI moderation — where they help, and where "just because AI can, doesn't mean you should." A grounded, occasionally moving case that the next edge in L&A is experience and evidence, not another me-too product.