Last week, we had the opportunity to attend the InsurtechLive25 conference in Sydney, hosted by Insurtech Australia. This event was a fantastic platform for GiveMore and for us to connect with industry leaders and explore the transformative potential of insurtech.
The event underscored the significant contributions of smaller insurance solution & platform providers, whose innovative approaches and interoperability with larger players present exciting opportunities for future collaboration and growth.
Our participation not only allowed us to engage with key stakeholders but also uncover where we’re likely to see the innovation benefits of insurtech across the industry.
During the conference, we had the pleasure of meeting many innovative insurtech companies that are making significant strides in the industry, demonstrating true innovation and motivation to improve the industry for all involved. A few examples:
- Entsia : A business we have worked with closely over the last 10 years. Alistair McElligottand team have developed an end-to-end digital insurance platform that helps insurers and underwriting agencies simplify their technology landscape and scale their business.
- Kanopi : A data-driven insurtech that connects insurers and digital platforms so they can provide the right insurance to their customers. It is a modular, full-stack insurance platform that allows insurers to launch and scale insurance products quickly, across various channels.
- myVal: The successful winners of the pitch contest at the conference – congratulations! myVal created an app, which empowers individuals to protect their assets by providing a secure, user-friendly platform for documenting, tracking, and managing valuable items. It simplifies insurance management by leveraging AI-powered tools to provide accurate valuations, eliminating manual effort and guesswork. Ultimately it gives customers a better chance of achieving a favourable insurance outcome in the event of a claim.
- Raindrop: An AI-powered software platform that helps insurance professionals decode, analyse and compare insurance policies. Its platform includes standardisation, policy meaning analysis, visual comparisons and regulatory updates.
So, what do Insurtechs bring to an already crowded arena?
Key opportunities
- Enhanced Customer Experience: Insurtechs have identified real-world use cases of customer pain points through the Insurance value-chain, often through personal experience of founders or partners. By leveraging solutions like AI and big data, insurtechs are tailoring their offerings to address sub-optimal customer experiences and offer personalised insurance products, more efficient processes and flexible solutions, leading to more engaging and satisfying customer experiences.
- Fraud Prevention: Advanced technologies like blockchain and AI are being used help detect and prevent fraudulent activities, ensuring more secure and trustworthy transactions.
- Better Risk Assessment: Real-time data from various sources, such as Internet of things (IoT) devices and wearables, allows for more accurate risk assessment, helping make pricing policies more competitive and fairer.
- Flexibility and speed to market: Insurtechs, because of their size, are naturally nimbler than the incumbent insurance businesses. This enables them to quickly pivot and create innovative insurance products, such as on-demand insurance and peer-to-peer insurance, catering to modern consumer needs and lifestyles.
- Product innovation: Most of the insurance products that we buy today were imagined decades ago, and not all of them are as relevant as they could be with the changing environment and technology landscape. What Insurtech’s have been able to do is take advantage of this by offering new products and services that more closely address current requirements, whilst being able to apply rapid updates and respond to market demand more quickly than legacy insurers.
The Challenges
Undoubtedly, the biggest challenge for insurtech’s is their access to scale and penetration into an already saturated market. What Insurtech Australia does well is it brings together traditional insurers and insurtechs.
However, in talking to many of the insurtechs there is a plethora of red-tape and it’s hard to find the right people to engage with in what can sometimes feel like behemoth organisations.
It begs the question, how do larger insurers tackle the Build/Rent/Buy approach around innovation and technology delivery. Certainly, for the smaller incumbent insurance players (including broker groups), the opportunity, because of their scale, to innovate and build themselves is reduced. Therefore, it does increase their opportunity to realise innovation and speed to market benefits by working with insurtechs.
What next?
The four businesses mentioned above represent just a small handful of some of the remarkable innovation happening right here in Australia. What it demonstrates is that the future of insurance lies in embracing innovation both from a product and technology perspective.
By partnering with insurtech companies, insurers can unlock new opportunities, enhance their capabilities, and deliver exceptional value to their customers.
The challenge for all insurers is to determine how and when it makes sense to partner with an insurtech versus building in-house.
We are excited about the possibilities and look forward to driving positive change in the industry.
At GiveMore, we are committed to bridging the gap between traditional insurers and innovative insurtech solutions. If you’re interested in discussing how we can collaborate to drive transformation in the insurance sector, please reach out and let’s explore the future of insurance together!