How InsurTechs are redefining the “Next-Gen” Underwriting and Claims experience across Insurance industry?

With advent of AI and technology capabilities to mine unstructured data from several new sources and sensors, insurance industry is going through a significant disruption. With arrival of native digital millennials, digital workforce, the consumer centricity has become focus of every insurance. The commonality behind most insurtechs is that they use data at the core of their operations. Information is the lifeblood of insurance industry and insurtechs are helping keep the industry innovating and competitive.

·        House of Insurtech, a London-based software development company with a focus on the insurance industry, has launched a new underwriting-as-a-platform service “Insurforce”. Insurforce is a cloud-based platform that has been designed to cut administrative costs and enable insurers, brokers and managing general agents to act more flexibly. Insurforce delivers quotes to clients via the web, mobile apps or a specialized application-programming interface (API). Part of the appeal of the service, the designers believe, is that quotes can be given in a matter of days rather than weeks; it has also been built to be as responsive and flexible as digital technology allows, and the principle of a service-based platform means that operational workloads on in-house tech teams are much reduced.

·        Spire by Nationwide - Accessible from a phone, it will initially offer Nationwide's auto insurance products and then expand to other kinds of insurance and services targeted primarily toward millennials. The tool will allow people to apply for auto insurance coverage by scanning their driver's license and answering a questionnaire about things like driving habits and parking infractions. It's designed to allow people to apply for coverage in a minute. Spire's coverage features will be similar to traditional policies with an end-to-end digital format. It'll also let them manage coverage, file claims, monitor driving habits, provide proof of insurance and cancel policies. The platform will also help them earn rewards based on driving behavior.

·        Goji is a car insurance comparison engine that allows users to easily find best rates and policies. After inputting basic information about their car, users receive a short list of policies from which to choose in under two minutes. The tech company’s agents are licensed representatives of some of America’s top insurers and can write policies on the spot. The Boston-based company recently completed a $18 million investment from Brookline Venture Partners and Charles River Ventures. Comparison engines are a common business model for insurtech companies. Among Goji’s competitors are Coverhound, The Zebra, and Insurify.

·        Zhong An is China’s first online-only insurer. The company conducts all of its business, from underwriting to claims settlements, online without operating any physical branches. It was jointly launched in 2013 by Ant Financial Services Group (Alibaba), Tencent Holdings, and Ping An Insurance Company of China. Zhong An offers more than 100 insurance products including esoteric policies such as insurance against accidents caused by drones. The company covers business, property, cargo, liability and credit guarantee insurance. The company had underwritten more than 1.6 billion policies for more than 250 million customers.

·        Trov is mobile-only, on-demand property insurance. Users can insure just the object they care about for a specific time frame. For example, a college student going on a road trip with his friends can insure just his guitar for the duration of the trip. The application process in done completely through a user’s mobile phone and is completed by swiping insurance on products on and off. Claims are processed with the use of in-app chat.

·        Snapsheet enables car insurers to provide their customers with easy mobile claims processing. A customer can use the Snapsheet app to take a photo of his damaged car after an accident. The Snapsheet technology and team then work with insurers to ensure quicker cycle time for insurance adjustment and claims processing. Companies like Snapsheet often face regulatory hurdles when trying to make insurance more user friendly. In Pennsylvania, for example, the law required insurance appraisers to be present for all automotive inspections, which was prohibitive for tech firms. The law was amended in December 2015 to allow other forms of appraisals as well, including photos.

 ·        Habit aggregates and analyzes data from IoT devices, smart phones, and contextual data sources to extract consumer insights, which enable new services and data-driven decision making. Habit’s platform provides a full stack of real time data intelligence through our API’s & SDK’s.

·        Leaselock acts as a cosigner for renters and as a rent insurer for landlords at the same time. Qualified renters can easily apply online, pay a one-time fee and ensure they qualify for the apartment they want. Leaselock appeals to students, H1B workers and other people with good financials, but might have a hard time qualifying for an apartment by relying solely on their FICO scores and regular background checks.

·        Guevara is a London-based peer to peer (P2P) Insurtech startup providing car insurance. Upon receiving a quote, customers join either a private group with friends or one of 84 public groups (giving car insurance a socialist flavor that may or may not have received the approval of their revolutionary namesake). The premium is split between fees and a contribution to the group’s ‘protection pool’. Any claims made by group members are paid out of the pool, with the fees used by Guevara to purchase reinsurance cover. The split of fee vs. ‘protection pool’ varies by the size of group, e.g. 80% of the total premium for groups of less than ten members are fees.

 ·        Friendsurance: Friendsurance offers a series of innovative insurance solutions with the aim of making insurance more customer-friendly: as an independent digital insurance broker, the company serves nearly 150,000 customers and works together with 175 insurance companies. With the new brand Friendsurance Business, the company pioneers another mission: the digitization of insurance services for banks, insurance companies and their customers.

 ·        TrueMotion’s powerful AI and machine learning algorithms transform noisy smartphone sensor data into trips, events, insights, and more. It is built on more than five years of research, development, and deployments with leading insurers around the world. Progressive has the largest and most sophisticated telematics program in the world. It uses TrueMotion to understand driver risk and price appropriately.

Tags: #Insurtech #Insurance #Startups #Commercial

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