Global insurtech growth is driving job creation and bringing new talent to the insurance sector

#Insurtech funding in?Q1 2021 reached all-time?quarterly?highs?of?2.55?billion?USD (per?Willis Towers Watson ); preliminary Q2 figures indicate another strong quarter.?We expect this to continue?– read our previous?post ?to see why?–?and this ongoing?investment?is?propelling?two?trends?creating new opportunities for talent to move to?insurtech?from inside and outside the?insurance?sector.??

Insurtech scale-ups need to rapidly attract, retain and develop talent to support their growth rates?

The number of large insurtechs employing >100?people has increased dramatically.?Later stage?companies have significant?and immediate?talent needs:?on average, according to SCOR?P&C Ventures ?data,?insurtech?scale-ups?grow?their?human capital?by an average of 50% year-on-year.?Many companies are growing even faster: one of our partners has added more than 100 people in seven months.?

Most commonly, we see that three?different types of talents?are required?by these maturing companies:??

1. ?additional strengthening of the executive team, perhaps including an experienced CFO?or a Head of People?
2. scaling up claims?handling,?operations,?pricing,?and customer facing teams?
3. experienced data scientists, product managers and developers??

Insurtech scaleups benefit from the cross-functional insights that can arise from deep co-mingling of traditional insurance expertise and best-in-class engineering talent at scale. Scaling?insurtechs?are?increasingly establishing full-stack carriers, broadening the range of skillsets?required. Deep tech and deep insurance experience are both valued highly.

The?insurtech?equivalent of the ‘PayPal Mafia ’ is emerging??

Insurtech "alumni" from early?insurtechs?are now?leaving to?build their own businesses.?These new ventures?tend to be founded by top-tier talent that spent?the?previous few years working in senior positions and gaining operational expertise at successful?insurtechs.?Such businesses are well positioned to avoid some common past mistakes and grow quickly.?Interestingly, alumni start-ups are most often focused on different niches / lines of business compared to the?respective?founders’?prior companies. Below are just a few?recent?examples (by no means comprehensive!):??

This new wave of seed stage companies are looking for their first employees. First hires are usually expected to rotate across business functions – from product, to marketing, to customer ops. Consequently, we see that early stage insurtechs value mental plasticity and intellectual curiosity above all.

The pace of hiring is increasing

As a team, we connect with hundreds of early-stage insurtech companies each year. This provides some unique visibility into hiring trends and needs and, in turn, enables us to connect talent with insurtechs, whether it be with one of our partner companies or others.?

We see a direct translation of the twin demand engines of scale-ups and insurtech "alumni" into the number of open positions available at many of SCOR’s insurtech partners, with multiple, diverse job openings ranging from software development to finance to credit analysis. Based on a review of open positions available at just a few of our own partners, the top three areas of talent demand are (1) sales, marketing, and customer success, (2) operations and regulatory, and (3) data science / engineers. We found the following breakdown of job type across a sample of 8 start-ups and 171 listed positions:

Unsurprisingly, mid to late-stage start-ups appear focused on hiring to support growth, through sales and marketing roles and building out operations teams. While later stage startups also continue to hire for technical roles, demand for customer facing roles accelerates post product-market fit. By contrast, for early-stage start-ups (Seed – Series A) we see a focus on data science and marketing roles. Interestingly, there appears to be less demand for underwriting expertise in later stage companies. With the caveat that this is a small sample set, this may indicate that insurtechs view underwriting as a foundational skillset required by founders and / or early-stage team members.?

We provide below some example roles available at just a few of the early stage companies different SCOR (re)insurance teams work with.

Branch is a US-based full-stack insurer founded by Steve Lekas and Joe Emison providing an embedded solution to bring savings and ease to customers looking to bundle home, auto, and umbrella insurance. By embedding their insurance products directly into partner offers (e.g., the lender for a car or home), Branch is able to offer near-instant policies at attractive rates while driving down their own customer acquisition costs. Branch raised a 50m USD Series B fundraise in June and is rapidly scaling teams across several key functions, including sales, product and finance – see Branch’s job board here for the full list.?

Doma is a US-based company founded by Max Simkoff architecting the future of real estate transactions by delivering an instant, digital home ownership experience. Doma offers end-to-end software digitizing the mortgage process, online services for both purchasing and refinancing, and instantly underwritten title insurance through proprietary models and algorithms. The company, formerly named States Title, recently announced they will be going public via SPAC . Doma is hiring across nearly every job function – we encourage you to check out their openings here .?

Energetic is a US-based company offering trade credit insurance for commercial solar projects, founded by solar industry veterans Jeff McAulay and James Bowen . Through a novel, data driven approach, Energetic aims to unlock growth in the renewable energy industry. Their first product, EneRate Credit Cover, is designed to support commercial solar project development through covering counterparty credit risk. Most commercial electricity offtakers are unrated or below investment grade, which severely limits a developer’s ability to secure financing. Energetic solves this problem, linking insurers, financiers, and solar project developers. The company presents an exciting opportunity to join a team at the forefront of renewable energy insurance. They are recruiting several new roles (full list available here ), including a Business Development Manager (Finance) and an Underwriting Operations Manager .

Hokodo is a pan-European fintech startup founded by Louis Carbonnier , Sami Ben Hatit , and Richard Thornton with a mission to bring B2B commerce into the 21st century. Hokodo’s “Trade credit as a service” technology empowers B2B merchants to offer credit terms to their business customers instantly, even on their first purchase. In turn, customers benefit from additional payment terms through a frictionless checkout experience. Over 30% of B2B trade takes place on credit terms, with trade credit representing the largest source of business financing in advanced economies. Current processes for offering trade credit are often outdated and / or process heavy. Hokodo’s digital platform solves these issues by offering merchants a powerful set of solutions to manage trade credit and scale with confidence. Hokodo secured €12.5m in Series A funding in June this year and are scaling the business through a rapid phase of growth. They will be hiring across Tech, Product, Ops, Marketing, Data Science & Credit. With offices in London and Paris, Hokodo plan to grow from 30 to 60 this year and then to 120 FTEs by the end of 2022. You can check out their full jobs board here , which highlights open positions ranging from Credit Analyst (German speaker) to Backend Engineer (Python) .

Marshmallow is a UK-based digital motor insurer founded by Oliver Kent-Braham , Alexander Kent-Braham , and David Goaté . Marshmallow began in 2018 with a product targeted initially at expats. UK insurers typically assess a driver’s UK record when determining premiums, but that means if you are an adult who has moved to the UK from abroad your history doesn’t come with you. Marshmallow has built an assessment algorithm that incorporates global data, using a wider set of analytics and a simple mobile and web-native interface to target underserved segments of the market. Marshmallow is a rapidly scaling business, having raised a 30m GBP Series A financing round in December 2020 , and is hiring across nearly all teams. Check out their jobs board here .?

Senseye is a leading machine health management company headquartered in the UK and ?founded by Simon Kampa , Robert Russell , Alexander Hill and Daniel Reid . Senseye offers cloud-based SaaS solutions that enable predictive maintenance at scale. Through domain expertise and world-leading predictive maintenance technology, Senseye helps industrial and manufacturing companies reduce maintenance costs and unplanned downtime by identifying machine failures before they occur. SCOR and Senseye recently announced the launch of ROI LOCK , a product guarantee that protects manufacturers' investments in deploying predictive maintenance technology. Senseye is currently hiring for numerous roles, including a Partner Director – full job list is here .?

Snapsheet is a US-based company founded by Brad Weisberg and CJ Przybyl that provides simple and fast claims processes and experiences for insurance carriers, TPAs, insureds and vendors. Snapsheet’s pioneering virtual appraisal software has evolved into the leading end-to-end claims management platform that digitizes and automates the entire claims process – from electronic FNOL to investigation to reserving and payment. Snapsheet has processed millions of claims and more than 7 billion USD in appraisals for more than 100 clients, while adding >17 new software clients since 2020. In May 2021, SCOR announced a partnership with Snapsheet whereby SCOR clients can benefit from special access to Snapsheet’s claims management platform, digital payments platform, motor virtual appraisal offering, and a comprehensive set of third-party integrations. Snapsheet is hiring across multiple teams – example roles include Sales Executive and Product Marketing Manager - and a full list of jobs is available here .

Square One is a Canada-based insurtech founded by Daniel Mirkovic , Jason Vander Zalm and Dejan Mirkovic that offers digital online homeowners and tenant insurance. Square One offers an end-to-end digital experience for customers, with an option to speak to a real person in the event of a claim or question. Customers love Square One as well, as evidenced by 4.7 / 5.0 reviews from nearly 25,000 customer reviews and an A+ rating with the Better Business Bureau. Square One is one of the fastest growing insurance distributors in Canada and is hiring for a variety of agency, product / underwriting, and software roles. Current open positions include (Damage Insurance Agent (Quebec) ), Licensed Insurance Agent (British Colombia, Alberta, Ontario) , a Product and Underwriting Specialist , and Full-stack software developer . Their full jobs board is available here .?

Understanding key hiring trends and best practices ensures we can provide useful support and connect talent to our partners, only a few of whom are highlighted above. We would welcome the opportunity to discuss these trends in more detail – reach out if you’d like to do so.

Coauthored with?Will Bird , Meghan Loose , Dana Cullen , and Randy Liu