Why Insurance Still Struggles with Slow Payments and How Diesta Is Fixing It | Diesta | Ep. 376

Insurance payments are still slow, complex and inefficient. Why does it take months to settle premiums, and what would it take to fix the system?

In this episode, Robin Merttens is joined by Julian Schoemig, CEO and Co-founder of Diesta, to explore why settlements remain one of the industry’s biggest unsolved problems. From misplaced payments and manual reconciliations to billions in unallocated cash, the current system creates avoidable friction and systemic risk.

Julian shares how Diesta is building the financial plumbing to help insurers, brokers and MGAs move money with greater speed, clarity and control. Drawing on his early experiences in engineering and his time at Munich Re, Julian explains why business isn’t done until the cash hits the bank and why now is the time for vertical, API-first infrastructure in insurance.

Key themes include:
Why payments and settlements remain inefficient across intermediated insurance
How Diesta connects policy systems, bank accounts and remittances into one source of truth
The volume problem: why insurers move seven times more money than is written in premium
How unallocated cash and overpayments disrupt financial operations
Why legacy reconciliation tools fall short for modern finance teams
The case for a purpose-built financial subledger for insurance
What API-first, vertical finance infrastructure looks like in practice
How Diesta is helping insurers and brokers gain speed, clarity and control over cash flow


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Continuing Professional Development

This InsTech Podcast Episode is accredited by the Chartered Insurance Institute (CII) – https://www.cii.co.uk/. By listening, you can claim up to 0.5 CPD hours.

Learning Objectives:
Specify the technological and structural reasons why insurance payment flows are more complex than in other industries.
Explain how Diesta’s payment operations layer integrates with existing systems to streamline cash flow.
Define the concept of a financial subledger in the context of intermediated insurance.

To help us measure the impact of the learning, please complete our short feedback survey:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FA...

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00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:59 Julian's Background and Career Journey
03:25 The Problem with Insurance Payments
12:19 Founding Diesta: The Solution
15:56 Diesta's Progress and Future Plans
24:17 Final Thoughts and Conclusion

#insurancepayments #insurtech #insurancefinance