ℹ️ Tip: To filter for Insurtech companies just use Insurance subindustries of Fintech, as in the insurtech ecosystem.
What is Insuretech?
Insurance is a complex industry, therefore it’s recommended to view The State of European Insurtech 2021 which gives a good overview of Insurtech.
Insurtech is the intersection between insurance and technology. Insurance as an industry touches many other sectors mobility and real estate (car and home insurance), health (health insurance) etc, for a basic overview see Insurance ecosystems. This does not mean that every startup in telemedicine which works with an insurance company or a generic enterprise software solution used also by insurers are considered insurtech. Insurtech need to have a predominant part of their business strictly related to insurance, also just offering insurance as part of a marketplace does not make them insurtechs.
A good example is the distinction between Alan and players such as Kry. Both offer telemedicine services, but Alan does that coming from health insurance and adds those services as add ons and expansion of their offer, while Kry is a telemedicine provider which partners with insurers. Alan is, therefore, an insurtech and tagged under insurance in fintech, while Kry is not. For startups related to insurance but that are not insurtech there is a tag “Insurtech related”, this is only indicative and used mainly to highlight startups that have already disclosed partnerships with the insurance/insurtech industry.
The insurance value chain is complex and the industry has its own jargon. The basic insurance value chain is shown in the image below.
Reinsurers, like SwissRe, have the role of transferring risk from the insurers, they are basically the insurers of the insurers. Insurers are the ones who carry the risk and are therefore referred also as carriers.
Insurtech division by value chain:
The main processes involved in insurance are reinsurance, product & pricing, underwriting, distribution & brokerage, claim management.
Reinsurance: these startups focus on optimizing reinsurance processes or acting as a bridge between reinsurers and insurers/insurtechs. For instance, acting as risk transfer marketplaces. Examples: Nayms, RYSKEX.
For an overview of startups working on product & pricing, underwriting and claim management visit this landscape. These startups offer SaaS to insurance companies to improve these key processes.
Insurtech product and price: these startups help insurance companies optimize the definition of their products and their pricing, often enhancing the role of actuaries in the insurance industry. Examples: Akur8, Quantemplate.
Insurtech underwriting: underwriting is the process in which the insurance companies evaluates the risk profiles of the customer and decide if to establish a contract with him and which is the level of risk of the client. The process is highly data-driven and requires also to detect potential frauds. Examples: Concirrus, Cytora.
Insurtech claim: the claim is a process that goes from the notification of a loss from the client to the analysis of its validity and entity of the damage and its internal workflow processing. Startups in this field offer either workflow management solutions for the claims handling or solutions based on IoT, computer vision, satellite imagery etc to assess the claim remotely and automatically. Example: Omni:us, Tractable.
Insurtech distribution and brokerage: startups with this tag offer either solutions to improve the distribution process to insurers, or act as marketplaces, comparator websites and brokers selling policies themselves. Example: Xempus, Gocompare, Clark
A very important trend in distribution is Embedded insurance, more in this landscape.MGA: Managing General Agent or Managing General Underwriter (MGA/MGU) are startups that do not have an insurance carrier license, so are not insurers, but establish partnerships with insurers/insurtechs who are licensed and give them the permission to carry the risk. So MGAs act in front of the customer as full insurers while not being it. Example: Bought by Many, Luko, Inshur.
This is a rather difficult distinction to make, also startups often transition from being just distributors to acting as MGAs and then as full insurers as discussed in the upcoming insurtech report. This landscape elaborates this transition more in-depth.Challenger insurance: challenger insurance refers to the insurtech startups which have a license and are so independent to create products and underwrite risk for clients. Example: Lemonade, Alan, Root insurance.
Full stack insurance: refers to insurtech who as the challengers have a license and cover the whole value chain but do not sell directly to customers or businesses but provide insurance as a service (IaaS) and white-label solutions to other players which then offer the insurance service. Example: Element Insurance, Qover.
Insurtech division by sector:
Insurance is primarily divided into two branches: Life and Health (L&H) and Product and Casualty (P&C).
L&H insurance (LandH insurance) is composed of Health and Life and Annuity (L&A).
Pension insurance: insurance segment which provides savings products with a certain guaranteed return. Example: Vantik, Brand New Day
More about life and pension insurance in this landscape.
P&C insurance (PandC insurance) covers losses in the form of damages to assets. It is composed of several segments usually divided into Commercial lines (B2B) such as: general commercial insurance (liability etc), cyber insurance, property insurance and Personal Lines (B2C) such as car insurance, house insurance, pet insurance, product insurance.
House and property insurance: insurance segment which covers damages to properties such as private houses and commercial buildings, including solutions for underwriting and claims management such as mobile, drone or satellite image capture and analytics. It includes also insurance of objects inside the house, rental insurance and title insurance. A more granular subdivision can be found in this landscape. Example: Luko, Urban Jungle, Hippo insurance, Hover, Cape analytics
Climate risk: indicates insurance services related to weather and climate events such as wildfires, floods, hurricanes, often referred to as Catastrophe insurance. It includes also farming insurance which can be filtered with the food industry. Example: Floodflash, Wetterheld, Pula advisor, Understory
Parametric insurance: refers to insurance products where the premium and payout is automatically calculated based on index parameters, when the parameters reach a certain level (such as water depth or wind speed) it triggers the payments. The claim process is therefore automatic and transparent. It has been mostly been applied to the Catastrophe industry, but other applications include cyber&business continuity, cargo transport etc. More in this landscape. Example: Floodflash, Exante, Parsyl, Previsico
Car insurance: insurance segments for car vehicles, includes also telematics solutions for insurance
Example: Prima.it, Snapsheet, Concirrus, Marshmallow, By miles, Root insurance,
Vehicle insurance: adjacent sectors to car insurance such as Ridesharing and food delivery (Example: Zego), truck insurance (Example: HVDI), bike insurance (Example: Laka), drone insurance (Example: flock)Product insurance: insurance segments covering product warranties, strongly related to e-commerce and retail. Example: Simplesurance, Extend
Cyber insurance: insurance that covers damages from cyber attacks, mostly for businesses. It sees many cybersecurity specialists establishing partnerships with insurtech/insurers. Example: Coalition, Kovrr, Cybersmart. It includes also solutions for crypto assets and other digital assets. Example: Nayms, Coincover.
Commercial insurance: includes insurance covers such as General Liability, Workers' Compensation, Professional Liability, Commercial Auto, Tools & Equipment for businesses (especially SMEs, freelancers, contractors, entrepreneurs). Example: Next insurance, Pie Insurance, InsureQ, Tapoly
Travel insurance: it is composed of either products more related to P&C lines such as flight delay and luggage damages/loss and related to L&H such as medical coverage during travel abroad. Example: Battleface, Koala insurance
Pet insurance: insurance products for pet ownership, can include veterinarian and health coverage as well as liability insurance. Example: BoughtbyMany, Pawlicy Advisor