ON-DEMAND ROUNDTABLE

The Power of Partnerships

In 2026 women still face a 21.1% pay gap and a $1.26 billion weekly deficit in superannuation.
 
This indicates a systemic stability problem for insurers, pension systems, and financial markets.
 
For decades, the industry has approached women’s financial security through product design; niche policies, add-on coverages, and targeted marketing. But the next phase of insurance evolution requires something different.

A shift from payer to partner.
 
 

Watch the session to understand how more financially resilient female population reduces systemic risk for the entire insurance sector.

A sobering reality

The risk is structural… and growing

 

Despite decades of financial innovation, the structural challenges facing women remain profound:

  • 21.1% gender pay gap

  • $1.26B weekly deficit in retirement savings

  • $28,000 average underinsurance gap

  • Up to 8x higher risk of homelessness for women over 55

For insurers, these aren’t abstract statistics.

They translate into:

  • Higher long-term claims volatility

  • Greater retirement system strain

  • Increased longevity and care risk

  • Growing protection gaps

And yet the industry continues to treat women’s financial security as a product segmentation problem. Our panelists argue the opposite.

 

The panel

SPEAKER


Victoria Smith

Managing Director – Stella Insurance

Victoria leads Stella Insurance, the digital-first, purpose-led challenger brand redefining insurance design for women across motor, travel, pet, life, income protection, and home loan products. A qualified accountant by background, she has built Stella’s multi-line ecosystem on the premise that products designed around women’s actual life journeys — including menopause, fertility, financial abuse, and career gaps — create more resilient, more profitable portfolios. Stella partners with Women and Girls Emergency Centre and integrates 24/7 digital health access directly into its life products.

SPEAKER


Lucy Kough

 

Founder – Tap The Gap

Lucy founded Tap the Gap to intervene structurally in the superannuation gap — not through education campaigns, but through behavioural engagement at the point of purchase. Her platform connects retail shopping to micro-superannuation contributions via round-up technology and brand bonuses, turning the spending patterns women already have into a wealth-building mechanism. Tap the Gap reframes Open Finance for everyday women and has become a case study in friction-free financial product design. Lucy brings a background in advertising, behavioural economics, and direct experience of financial separation.

HOST


Nigel Fellowes-Freeman

Founder & CEO – Kanopi

Kanopi is a modular insurance orchestration platform built to drive revenue growth and simplify insurance distribution. Designed to improve speed-to-market without compromising compliance, Kanopi enables the kind of cross-industry data interoperability that makes the partnerships in this roundtable commercially executable — not just conceptually appealing. Fast. Compliant. Infrastructure-grade.

Key takeaways

This session goes beyond social impact narratives and explores operational frameworks insurers can act on today.

How partnership ecosystems redefine insurance distribution

  • The emerging API economy of insurance

  • Why fintech collaboration is becoming a core strategic capability

How AI will reshape financial inclusion

  • The role of Agentic AI in personalised protection

  • Using AI responsibly to close protection gaps without introducing bias

The governance challenge ahead

  • Ethical frameworks for AI-driven insurance decisioning

  • Designing transparent and accountable AI systems

How insurers shift from payer to partner

  • Embedding insurance into everyday financial journeys

  • Creating new value through embedded and contextual insurance

The business case for women’s financial resilience

  • Why closing protection gaps is not philanthropy

  • How it improves portfolio performance and long-term stability