Christie Downs Wood: About handdii

On this episode of Scouting For Growth, Sabine VdL talks to Christie Downs Wood. A self-made entrepreneur and problem-solver who founded handdii with her co-founder, Kathryn Wood. After working as an executive in the construction industry, building deep experience and broad industry relationships, Christie saw an opportunity to use technology to improve how customers connect with contractors when making property insurance claims. This is how Handdii was born as a three-way digital platform that combines insurance, construction, and contractors, enabling contractors to easily connect, engage, and promote their businesses. KEY TAKEAWAYS I am a high-energy business leader who loves solving problems and creating exciting solutions that transform people's lives. After working as an executive in the construction industry, building deep experience and broad industry relationships, I saw an opportunity to use technology to improve how customers connect with contractors when making property insurance claims, making it quicker, faster, and cheaper for insurers, clients, and tradespeople. We’re just at the starting line; there’s so much opportunity ahead. I think the early innovation in our sector has been pretty straightforward. How do we buy faster, make things convenient, streamline processes, and save cost? Quite a lot of separate practical solutions. For example, right now, there are many inspection tools and solutions an insurance company would use – virtual inspections, drones, AI, and they might actually use various tools all at once. Our vision is to make small property claims amazing. The industry has a cumbersome process for property claims, involving multiple people and approvals, designed for large losses. This process is not designed to fast-track small claims, and, moreover, the major suppliers to the insurance industry would prefer not to handle them. So, my Co-Founder and I set out to change that! Handdii is a really practical solution to a common problem. Any Claims leader can see the opportunity in their portfolio to improve how small claims are managed. We’re really focused on our niche, and when we partner with an insurer, we make it easy to work with us. Our team has a solid property claims background, reflected in the product and program we have built. This makes it easy for the insurer to work with us because we speak their language and understand their challenges, while having the speed and the money to be an innovative partner, creating solutions for them. BEST MOMENTS ‘My experience also includes being Executive of Carlton Football Club as the General Manager of Business Development, introducing unique revenue streams, the creation of Carlton Respects program against family violence, and Blue Skies program supporting diversity and inclusion in the inaugural year of AFLW.’ ‘I think the future of innovation will become more and more integrated into our lives, activities, and systems. Bringing all of these different solutions together, then once that efficiency is achieved, we’ll look to bring innovation to achieve more purposeful outcomes around sustainability, inclusion, and prosperity.’ ‘COVID has made some things much easier and others more challenging. For example, onboarding contractors via video rather than in person has streamlined how quickly we have expanded our contractor network across multiple states this year. Whereas meeting new insurance companies is more challenging, we are certainly happy that the in-person conferences are kicking off again now.’ ‘When working with large enterprises, be patient, be persistent, be astute commercially – if you’re bringing great value, hold your line on your cost.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Christie (Downs) Wood: I am a high-energy business leader who loves solving problems and creating exciting solutions that transform people's lives and work. After working as an executive in the construction industry, building deep experience and broad industry relationships, I saw an opportunity to use technology to improve how customers connect with contractors when making property insurance claims, making it quicker, faster, and cheaper for insurers, clients, and tradespeople. I made the leap to entrepreneurship in 2018, starting Handdii with Kathryn Wood. Handdii is a three-way platform where contractors can easily connect, engage, and promote their businesses, insurers experience reduced cost, and customers find their property insurance repairs are easier and cheaper to organize with better results. My core career experience of 10 years was as group sales director and board member of the national construction company, Johns Lyng Group, ASX-listed as JLG. I played a lead role in the national expansion and exponential revenue growth of the group, from $12 million in 2004 to $350 million in 2015. During this experience, I saw firsthand the problems people had getting repairs done, often after stressful situations, and I met fantastic contractors who ran great businesses. My experience also includes serving as the Executive of the Carlton Football Club as the General Manager of Business Development, introducing unique revenue streams, creating the Carlton Respects program against family violence, and launching the Blue Skies program supporting diversity and inclusion in the inaugural year of AFLW. I am passionate about contributing to society and was Chair of the Starball Committee Sydney for 3 years, raising more than USD $1 million for Starlight Children’s Foundation. I love to share my experiences and learnings with #public speaking on the value of diversity and inclusion, starting your own venture, and how the insurtech industry is evolving. About handdii: Having worked as a Director of a Construction company in the Insurance industry for 10 years, I know customer satisfaction in property claims is very low. This is because the traditional fulfillment process is complicated and takes an average of 60 days to repair a property. Yet 80% of property claims are small and require only 1 or 2 trades. For this, Handii dramatically improves the customer experience by pairing customers with the trade they need to assist in claim determination and complete work immediately. Cutting claim life from 2 months to 1 week. handdii makes workflow easy for trades through pre-agreed rates, opt-in scheduling, automated processing, and payment. Minimizing these friction points empowers the trades to focus on providing quality work and an awesome customer experience. For insurance companies, handdii can provide claim lodgement and allocation, save 25% in claims cost, and enable digital transformation for property claims. A significant positive impact on customer satisfaction (NPS) will drive new customer acquisition and open up further product opportunities. ABOUT THE HOST Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet. If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights. And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at [email protected]