How DutyAdvisor Is Reinventing Advisory Relationships in Insurance Distribution

Built From the Field, Designed for the Future

Most startups begin with technology. DutyAdvisor began with experience.

The company finds its roots in the day-to-day reality of Stéphane Margand, an insurance professional with more than thirty years of field experience. Throughout his career as a general agent and entrepreneur, he observed the progressive complexity of advisory obligations, the fragmentation of customer data, and the growing gap between the way insurance professionals work and the way most systems are designed.

Over time, one conviction became increasingly clear to him: insurance distribution is fundamentally about understanding people, yet most tools remain structured around contracts.

In 2022, while attending an Executive Master at HEC Paris, Stéphane decided to formalize this reflection through his thesis, exploring a simple but ambitious question: could the duty of advice become not only a regulatory obligation, but also a driver of better client relationships and stronger business performance?

It was during this period that he met Philippe Greco, entrepreneur, marketing expert and long-time lecturer at HEC Paris, who was accompanying and challenging this thinking from a strategic and methodological perspective.

What started as an academic reflection progressively evolved into a shared entrepreneurial project.

Rather than trying to disrupt the industry from the outside, Margand and Greco chose a different path: building a solution from within the profession itself, alongside intermediaries, based on real usage and operational realities.

In February 2025, they officially co-founded DutyAdvisor.

Stéphane brought the original vision and deep operational understanding of the insurance business. Philippe contributed his expertise in go-to-market strategy, product structuring and business development. Together, they adopted a highly pragmatic approach: test rapidly in the field, listen continuously to users, and build only what creates immediate value for professionals.

DutyAdvisor was not born from theory or speculation. It emerged from the profession itself.

A Missing Layer in Insurance Distribution

Insurance distribution has evolved through successive layers of tools, processes and regulations, each responding to specific operational needs. Yet one essential element has often remained fragmented: a unified and actionable understanding of the client.

Client information exists across multiple systems: CRMs, document management platforms, emails, spreadsheets and insurer specific tools. Each contributes part of the picture, but very few solutions organize this information around the person behind the contracts.

At the same time, advisory expectations have become increasingly important across the industry. Intermediaries are expected to provide clear, relevant and traceable recommendations, while maintaining fluid and high-quality client relationships.

As Stéphane Margand explains:

“When someone walks into an insurance agency, they are not simply a contract number. They are a person, with a family, a professional life, projects and responsibilities. The challenge is to reconnect the advisory process with that reality.”

DutyAdvisor was designed precisely to address this challenge.

Structuring Advisory Around the Client

DutyAdvisor acts as a unified client intelligence layer connecting existing systems and reorganizing information around what matters most: the client.

The platform consolidates personal, professional and household information, risk exposure, coverage gaps, interaction history and advisory elements into a single structured environment.

During conversations, advisors capture information naturally and progressively, directly within the flow of the interaction. At the end of each exchange, the platform automatically generates a clear advisory summary aligned with regulatory expectations while remaining understandable and useful for clients.

The objective is not to replace existing insurer or intermediary systems, but to complement them and create continuity between data, advisory processes and client interactions.

This structured approach helps intermediaries better prepare meetings, identify relevant opportunities, improve traceability and strengthen the overall quality of advisory relationships. The result is a more fluid, more coherent and more client-centric experience for both intermediaries and insured customers.

Strong Early Momentum

Only a few months after launch, DutyAdvisor is already experiencing strong traction.

More than 200 users are actively interacting with clients thanks to the platform, with monthly growth exceeding 30 percent. Early users report a significant increase in detected commercial opportunities as well as substantial time savings when accessing and organizing client information.

The market opportunity is considerable.

France alone counts approximately 12,500 general agents and more than 19,000 brokers, within a broader ecosystem of over 70,000 insurance intermediaries. Across Europe, the addressable market represents close to 500,000 professionals.

DutyAdvisor estimates the long-term market potential at approximately €1.5 billion.

Building With the Industry, Not Against It

One of DutyAdvisor’s distinctive characteristics is the complementarity of its founders.

Stéphane Margand contributes deep operational expertise and intimate knowledge of intermediary workflows acquired over decades in insurance distribution. Philippe Greco brings entrepreneurial experience, strategic structuring and business development expertise developed through multiple leadership and consulting roles.

Their shared approach remains deeply grounded in operational reality. From the beginning, the founders chose to validate the project directly with professionals in the field.

As Philippe Greco recalls:

“We told ourselves: let’s give it six months. Either there is a real market need, or it remains an interesting academic idea. The answer came much faster than expected.”

Early conversations with brokers and agents immediately confirmed the relevance of the concept. Before the platform was fully developed, professionals were already asking how quickly they could start using it.

Since then, development has followed a disciplined and iterative approach, continuously shaped through direct feedback from intermediaries and users. DutyAdvisor positions itself as a partner to the insurance ecosystem: carrier-agnostic, intermediary-centric, and designed to integrate naturally within existing workflows and environments.

The ambition is not to oppose existing actors, but to help the entire distribution chain evolve toward more structured, efficient and meaningful advisory relationships.

The Next Phase

DutyAdvisor is now entering a new phase of acceleration. The company is expanding its commercial deployment in France while preparing future development across several European markets with similar advisory and regulatory dynamics.

To support this growth, the founders are currently raising a seed round between €500,000 and €700,000. A particularly strong signal has emerged during this process: a meaningful portion of the round is being subscribed by existing clients and professionals already using the platform.

For the founders, this reflects the strongest possible validation.

Their ambition is clear: progressively establish a new standard for structuring advisory interactions in insurance distribution, transforming regulatory complexity into better client experiences, stronger advisory quality and sustainable business performance.

Meeting Stéphane Margand and Philippe Greco quickly makes one thing obvious: DutyAdvisor is not simply building software. They are helping an entire profession structure itself differently around what has always mattered most: the client.