June 30, 2017
In NYC this week, CB Insights held its second annual Future of Fintech conference. The InsurTech buzz is that wave 2 is emerging. Many more individuals with a background in insurance are moving into the startup space, blending their experience with innovation from outside the industry.
As a result we are seeing a shift from customer front-end engagement ideas to a greater focus on using analytics for enhancing core insurance processes, such as claims, and driving efficiency gains through automation.
Check out this short medium post of snippets from the conference through the eyes of a recent business school grad as well as the deck from the “InsurTech rising” panel.
What We’re Reading
Wellthie Announces Partnership with Conference Associates
The partnership will provide all of the general agency’s brokers with access to Wellthie’s cloud-based e-commerce platform to help support its small business clients with a modern insurance shopping experience.
InsurTech Startups Join FCA Sandbox
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has unveiled the list of firms that were successful in their applications for the second cohort of its regulatory sandbox. Five of the 24 firms that are ready to begin testing shortly are doing projects focused on the insurance sector. In the first round of the project, which started in November 2016, only one insurance organization took part.
American Express Backs Next Insurance
This brings total funding raised to $42 million year-to-date. Note, Next Insurance is in early discussions with Amex on a possible partnership, given the credit card company’s large customer base of U.S. businesses, Next Insurance Chief Operating Officer Sofya Pogreb said in an interview.
Founded by veteran investors Dave Miles and Matt Kinley, ManchesterStory Group is a Des Moines-based venture capital firm targeting early to growth stage startups in fintech and healthcare, with a particular interest in technologies core to the insurance industry including customer engagement, telematics, “big data” customer analytics, cybersecurity, regulatory technology, digital distribution, underwriting and claims processing.
Startup Decisely: Insurtech ‘For Brokers, By Brokers’ Targets Small Business Benefits
Insurance Journal just came out with this overview of what Decisely is doing to date and breaks down their relationship with EPIC.
World’s First Blockchain Insurance Marketplace To Launch Ambitious Initial Coin Offering (ICO)
The world’s first blockchain-based insurance marketplace, InsureX, is set to launch an ICO July 11. London-headquartered InsureX intends to use the funds to create a trading platform specifically for insurance products. In addition to finding products themselves, InsureX will offer a secure exchange of confidential documents and other data on the platform, which operates in the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) format.
Who is Altumai, you ask? Altumai, led by former IBM and Infosys analytics execs, co-creates and commercializes IoT and analytics solutions for businesses within the insurance ecosystem.
Omada Health Raises $50M, Led by Cigna
As part of the expanded relationship, now eligible Cigna-administered health plan customers may have no-cost access to Omada’s digital behavioral counseling platform – aimed at reducing risk of chronic disease — as a fully covered preventive benefit.
13 InsurTech Accelerators & Incubators Supercharging the Evolution of the Insurance Industry
The accelerators and incubators listed do not comprise an exhaustive list; however, they include the leading ones The Council is monitoring if you add Plug and Play whose Silicon Valley-based InsurTech accelerator partners with Aon, Brown & Brown, Guy Carpenter, Willis Towers Watson, AIG, Zurich, Beazley, Munich Re, AIG, Westfield, EMC, Cincinnati, Travelers, The Hartford, AFLAC, Farmers Insurance, Swiss Re, Sunlife, Allianz, Markel and others via a 12-week program for early and growth stage startups.