InsiderTech Live 2021 Conference – Incumbents & Insurtechs
CGI was privileged to be the gold sponsor of the “InsiderTech Live 2021” conference, expertly chaired by Catrin Shi. The conference gathered some of the brightest minds to discuss how the technology revolution is reshaping the insurance sector. The topics ranged from distribution, embedded insurance, reinsurance, or financing and investing in InsurTechs, through to optimising the value chain.
The common thread of the discussions was how the incumbents and InsurTechs can partner together to combine the InsurTechs’ rapid technological innovation with incumbent’s experience and scale. We heard interesting perspectives from start-ups, incumbents and investors, not always agreeing with each other;
Alex Maffeo from Boost described a long and thoughtful (or torturous?) journey to building an embedded insurance platform “the hardest part was finding (re)insurance partners who were willing to work differently with us, in an industry that is risk-specific we wanted to be a horizontal platform”.
Christina Hopper from AON did define embedded insurance for us: “meeting the customer whoever they are, with the product they need at the time, and experience they deserve, through the brand they trust”.
Martha Notaras from Brewer Lane gave away the secret recipe for successful InsurTech investing: “Team, TAM, Tech, and Trajectory”. TAM stands for total addressable market, in case you wondered, as I did:)
James Livett from LIIBA reported on the current status of broking technologies: “existing broking administration systems are just ledgers and glorified word processors – InsurTechs can add advanced functionality like gateways, analytics, dashboards, sanction-checking, or KYC – there is a huge scope for start-ups to engage with the market”.
Artur Niemczewski from Anthemis, tried to help incumbent CIOs: “if you are a CIO of a broker or insurer the problem is choice, there are too many new technologies to choose from – there is a race to build yet another newer, better data-analytics tool”. Luckily, he also gave away his secret 1-2-3 recipe – how one can discern which company is genuinely building a better mousetrap: “1) have your best practitioners’ test the new tech in battle, 2) ask the tech firm about their future-proofing plans 3) ask for references”.
Finally, our own Chris Carney posed the question we all feared was coming: “are we motorising a horse and cart?” here is link to Chris’s interesting thoughts; https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/christopher-j-carney_insidertechlive2021-innovation-londonmarket-ugcPost-6801214375693709312-PYc9
Reflecting on the theme of the conference I wondered why so little was said about lessons learnt elsewhere, in particular from the co-operation between the banking sector and Fintechs or indeed in the UK GI sector. As very relevant experience can be drawn upon. This might be a missed opportunity as we have numerous examples of successful tie-ups between incumbents and Insurtech / Fintechs
I would be interested in views of some of friends and peers in the market who I know will have views in (the subject of) integrating and forming strategic alliances across insurtechs and the incumbent players...
For those who may be interested, here is a link to my follow up after this session. https://www.dhirubhai.net/pulse/ditribution-insurtechs-incumbents-legacy-data-kirstin-duffield-fbcs
CEO - Eurobase Banking & Insurance Solutions
3 年Paul, interesting discussion which gets to the heart of a key topic for the industry. New tech companies (insuretechs, fintechs, start-ups etc) bring opportunities to all of us in the market. For existing technology providers they bring a great opportunity to collaborate and partner. Most fintech companies we’ve engaged with recognise the value of working with established providers to assist their growth and also vice versa. Interestingly the majority of the fintech companies we‘ve engaged with, and some of which have now become partners, consider existing providers as their primary avenue to market, some will not even engage an end customer directly and for valid reasons. Partnering with existing providers gives access to an established customer base, significant domain expertise, greater pools of resources, proven credibility, financial strength, brand familiarity etc.?In return they bring emerging/niche technology expertise and an ability for us established providers to more quickly embrace these and, together, identify and ultimately deliver real market value.
Creating digital as the new normal for MS Amlin Underwriting Ltd
3 年I can definitely see the next few years being very exciting for both existing LM vendors and InsureTech firms who can operate in an API connected ecosystem using well-defined data standards as the common language between systems. It won’t all be about F@L but initiatives such as the CDR (aka Common Core Record for us oldies ??) and our collaboration with ACORD should help drive that consistency ??
Executive Chairman of InsTech
3 年Great report raising some interesting issues. We InsTech London have spent a bunch of time looking at Embedded insurance. No where in the broader ecosystem will insurtech and incumbent partnerships be more important than in that space for the not inconsequential reason that incumbents can’t do it on their own! Sorry to hear about Boost in that context. Like the point about learning from others - plenty of insights available from those embedded finance. I wonder why the insurance industry has so little curiosity about what is happening outside our bubble?
Award Winning Founder & Managing Director at LMF | Insurance Professional | Chartered Insurance Practitioner | Experienced Host & Speaker | Award Winner | Mentor | Industry Adviser | Qualified Insurance Mediator
3 年Thanks for sharing Paul. I think that collaboration is the name of the game here and I would encourage InsurTechs to come closer to the "centre" and build rapport and understanding. Established providers in the Market often have deeper domain knowledge and strong relationships, built up over decades whereas InsurTech firms can sometimes be more agile. The Market is definitely making acquisitions from both types of firms, although some InsurTechs tell me they find it a "difficult" Marketplace to navigate and understand. It's taken many of us three decades and we're still working it out!