Novum founder takes tech-led approach

Industry veteran Christopher Longo founded Novum Underwriting Partners in 2019. As CEO, he recently led the company to its fourth year of exponential revenue growth and has seen its proprietary online insurance marketplace attract more than 7,000 retail agents.

Longo’s success in the industry recently led to his inclusion on Insurance Business America’s 2024 Hot 100 list, which recognizes professionals whose innovation and excellence are shaping the insurance industry.

At Novum, Longo drives the company’s tech-led approach to problem-solving through data-driven decisions and artificial intelligence.

“Novum is focused on modernizing a problem that has been around for years – how do you digitally transact commercial insurance business in the most efficient way possible?” Longo told IBA. “Our solutions are product-agnostic and can be used in any segment, but we have chosen to initially focus on commercial insurance.”

Prior to forming Novum, Longo was COO and CIO of AmTrust Financial. He said the change in scale from AmTrust to a startup can be jarring.

“The biggest challenge relates to the size of our current platform,” Longo said. “This progress is incredible, but it can be challenging, if not frustrating, to go from a company the size and scale of AmTrust to a much smaller platform.

“What we do to overcome this challenge is to be exceptionally efficient at prioritizing what ideas and opportunities will have the greatest impact on the current company,” he said. “You must have a thick skin when it comes to ideas, as we are brutally honest with each other behind closed doors. I’m happy to report our process is working very well and the biggest challenge we have is being patient.”

While serving at AmTrust, Longo helped the company integrate more than 70 firms through acquisitions across the globe.

Being an effective leader, he said, requires “being able to quickly reduce large-scale, complex problems into smaller, digestible, actionable items, understand the order in which they need to be executed, and how to attract the right talent to the project with the appropriate structure needed for success.”

Check out the rest of the IBA Hot 100 here.

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