Insurance Trendreport 2023

TABLE OF CONTRACT

 Introduction - Erika Krizsan

 Top 7 Innovative Insurtech Companies of 2023

 How open insurance will reshape bancassurance?

 Executive Conversation with Dr. Alexander Bockelmann

 Executive Conversation with Lukas Herrmanns

 Executive Conversation with Mihaly Erdős

 InTa

 Insurance just got a whole lot smarter -Jacob GurmanSchatz

 Market dynamics combine to turn the screw on lossmaking entities

 How open insurance will reshape bancassurance?Indra Chourasia, Krishnakumar Gopalakrishnan, Prab Pitchandi

 KLIMBER: The Argentine ecosystem shows its potential

 MOI2023 06th & 07th Jun 2023

 The insurance platform of the future

 Why Insurers choose Instahelp for one of the most important health topics - Christiane Katschnig-Otter

 "Increase in extreme weather conditons: risks and opportunities for insurers - Dr. Michael Fassnauer "

 Constructions for the New Gold: Do you build it based on data or do you let data build it? -Peter Lieber

 Florian Graillot: Data on insurtech

CURIOSITY DRIVES INNOVATION!

How did change the motivation and curiosity of employees in the insurance industry?

In the current economic situation, with a war a broken out in Europe and a year after a tough epidemic. Health and safety became an utmost priority just as much as solidifying our living.

What kind of changes did the rise of home office opportunity brought with itself? What kind of innovative tools, supporting our comfort, appeared on the market?

Our latest Trendreport helps to envision, the tools available to us, how the changes in the world affects the industry and how can we come out in a positive manner out of these.

If we take health care, in the last 2 years everyone could experience the importance of personal healthcare through oneself or through connections. With regular screenings, investments in healthcare, whether through money or time, became valuable so did health insurance as well.

The appearance of newly developed technologies ease our everyday lives. I’m sure you heard of the rise of AI technology. InsurTech companies took advantage, by technologically advancing to automatize claim procession all the while filtering fraud.

Nowadays people’s curiosity is driven by innovation in any fields of insurance, which also made Insurtech companies prioritizing technological advancing to get a lead in the business.

Levelling up in technology also brought a tremendous amount of data with it, which needs to be collected, analyzed and processed. The amount of data also provides the possibility to make insurance as customer friendly as possible and to provide a whole new customer experience!

With the technological advancement a jump and focus also has been made to even more usage of handheld devices through applications and various platforms.

Let’s not forget to mention the importance of climate change and sustainability either. How does it affect Insurtech companies and how is it possible to use it’s effects?

#INTA Insury Talent Network helps in answering these questions and topics for you. Solution based minds, team spirit and the opportunity to grow. Join us!

Please enjoy the current edition of our Trendreport. Ask, learn, and grow with us!

Erika Krizsan Managing Director Insurance Factory Innovation Store

Top 7 Innovative Insurtech Companies of 2023: Detailed Guide

The insurance industry is heavily investing in digital transformation (see Figure 2) to:

 Automate regular processes

 Acquire a competitive advantage

 Deliver customers a better price and service.

Though some traditional insurance companies employ in-house models, insurtech firms conduct the majority of the sector’s innovative activities. Therefore, more than 80% of incumbents have invested in or partnered with insurtech firms.

On the other hand, some insurtech firms attempt to replace incumbents through superior technology by directly selling coverage to customers. Whether disruptive or compliant, the insurtech market is predicted to grow at a rate of more than 50% annually until 2025. Thus, sector executives should explore insurtech businesses’ new solutions that attract investment.

Therefore, in this article we present 7 innovative insurtech companies and their implementation of technologies.

Figure 2: Insurers’ investment areas in 2022.

1. Virtual i Technologies: Underwrite risk precisely and fast

The essential practice of insurance is risk pricing (underwriting). Underwriters have been manually interpreting data to determine risk for generations. However, currently 85% of customers expect fast/instant underwriting and greater availability of data makes manual underwriting useless. Thus, underwriters use AI models, particularly advanced analytics, to speed up the risk scoring process and interpret enormous data 7/24.

Virtual i Technologies assists insurers and reinsurers with their insurance as a service mentality underwriting platform. Subscribers of their cloud platform can benefit from advanced analytics to quickly calculate risk scores of their customers. Virtual i Technologies’ platform:

 Speeds up and automates the underwriting process.

 Calculates risk more precisely so it helps the risk management practices of insurance companies.

 Reduces human errors while performing underwriting.

Virtual i Technologies also supports claim adjusters. Their platform offers a secure video streaming channel for users. Thus, the platform makes remote examination of damage and remote filling of the first notice of loss (FNOL) document possible.

2. Etherisc: Transforms claims processing with blockchain

A traditional claims processing has 5 steps as shown in Figure 3. The primary goal of the initial claim investigation, and policy check steps, is to determine claim’s legitimacy. Each step, however, is time consuming and stressful for insureds, who are not fraudsters mostly and want a resolution following a catastrophic event.

Figure 3: Steps of Claims Processing.

4). For instance, when it rains as much as the milliliter indicated in smart contract, agriculture insurance automatically proceeds to the payment arrangement step, skipping the initial claim investigation and policy check. Because Etherisc has access to rainfall data from a third-party data provider, the data shows that the claim is not fraudulent.

To learn more about blockchain case studies you can read our 7 Blockchain Case Studies from Different Industries article.

If you think blockchain assists your business, our sortable/filtrable lists might guide you to find the best blockchain platforms and services.

3. Avinew: Utilizing IoT to measure real risk of driving

Another possible insurance area where technology can be effectively utilized is auto insurance. Smart and autonomous vehicles are becoming increasingly popular. Also, many smart gadgets, such as phones, can be interconnected with automobiles. As a result, IoT devices can offer insurers with more detailed information on drivers’ habits and vehicles’ condition since IoT provides instantaneous data flow (see Figure 5).

Figure 4: Automated claims processing of Etherisc.

Figure 5: New data sources available for auto insurers.

Some pioneers, such as Avinew, use IoT to obtain richer data for auto insurance underwriting. In return, Avinew offers lower premiums to drivers and car owners if:

 Car is self-driven (Avinew assesses whether the car is self driven or not by the help of an AI model).

 Drivers become risk averse (Reduce speed, acceleration, full breaks etc).

 Drivers pick safer routes (In 2019 Avinew acquired Better Drive to measure the risk of the route).

To learn more about how richer data flow from smart devices nudge users to behave better you can read our article on “Internet of behaviors (IoB)”

4. Bdeo: Enhance claims adjustment via AI models

Insurance businesses should have enough liquid assets to cover claims to avoid bankruptcy. Estimating the financial value of “reported but not settled claims” is one technique to effectively manage liquidity risk.

To estimate insurance companies’ liability, claims adjusters conduct an initial examination of the damage. Nowadays, a range of AI models can enhance claims adjustment.

Bdeo offers a platform for P&C insurance companies that offers different AI capabilities to improve various stages of claims processing as follows:

A NLP-based chatbot interacts with claimants via the Bdeo mobile app when damage happens. The location of the accident is extracted using the mobile app. Meanwhile, a chatbot instructs clients on how to photograph and videotape the damage and upload it to the system. If the customer’s upload does not meet the quality standards, the chatbot notifies them, and the uploading procedure begins again.

The Bdeo platform’s computer vision model and claims adjusters remotely inspect uploaded photos and videos. Claims adjusters can investigate more instances through remote investigation. Furthermore, implementing computer vision models reduces the likelihood of damage misvaluation and enhances insurers’ overall claims processing.

5. Dacadoo: Rewards insureds who have healthy life-style

In the US alone, the health insurance market is valued over a trillion dollars. Thus, it is worth investing in technologies that provide a competitive advantage. Health insurance firms can decrease their liabilities and improve their responsiveness and ESG posture by encouraging clients to live healthier lifestyles. At the same time, they can expand their market share by providing lower-cost services.

Dacadoo’s digital health engagement platform assists health insurers. Customers’ devices, such as smartphones and watches, are integrated via API. As a result, Dacadoo collects information about people’s habits and provides insurers:

 Real time risk scoring: Assesses mortality and morbidity risk.

 Loss prevention capability: Behavioral based point system rewards insureds according to their life quality improvements.

 Differentiate product: As we highlighted in our article on the use of digital twins in insurance, insurance is no longer just about compensating for financial losses. Customers want their insurance providers to provide assurance and loss prevention techniques. Dacadoo offers such leverage for health insurance vendors.

6. Celsius Pro: Provides scientific environmental risk management

The climate issue is one of the most significant challenges that businesses face, with 97% of enterprises affected in some way (see Figure 6). Extreme weather conditions, which are 5 times more common than they were 50 years ago, may have an impact on almost half of the businesses’ operations. Companies obtain natural catastrophes (Nat Cat) business insurance plans to protect themselves from the financial consequences of catastrophic weather disasters. More extreme weather events and higher demand for Nat Cat policies resulted in a 17% more loss of Nat Cat related insured items in 2021 compared to 2020.

Figure 6: Percentage of companies that affected specific impact of climate change

Therefore, to avoid insolvency, Nat Cat insurance sellers should have a scientific risk assessment based on environmental risks. Celsius Pro’s vast data set, and algorithms, objectively quantifies Nat Cat risks.

Celsius Pro:

 Build an in-house data warehouse where data flows from different meteorological stations and enrich the historical dataset each day.

 Implement advanced analytics to interpret the big data and visualize Nat Cat risk.

7. Lemonade: Introduced D2C insurance

Lemonade is one of the insurtech companies that sells its own coverages (as Etherisc) with its digital technologies rather than supporting incumbents within their digital transformation journey.

However, rather than selling insurance coverages via brokers or time consuming office environments, Lemonade directly sells its coverages in digital environments only via a custom mobile app (Direct to customer (D2C)).

Company offers variety of coverages such as:

 Renters’ insurance

 Homeowners’ insurance

 Pet insurance

 Auto insurance

Thanks to the digitized coverage selling, and insurance chatbot, that automates customer interactions, Lemonade provides a faster service compared to many incumbents which apparently boost customer satisfaction. For instance, it is rated almost five stars in the App store.

EXECUTIVE CONVERSATION WITH Dr. ALEXANDER BOCKELMANN

What is your motivation to wake up every morning?

Every day is an opportunity to learn something new. Currently as CTO of Baloise we learn during our Journey to the Cloud and the build up of new data capabilities. In addition, as the sponsor of our Mobility ecosystem, it is fascinating to learn about the opportunities and developments in the very dynamic field of our joint future mobility.

What is the technology that will have the most impact on the insurance industry in the next 5 years?

Sounds obvious but I would still bet on ML/AI enabled capabilities. Until now impacts have been limited but capabilities grow significantly with time and I bet on the fast progress in this domain.

How do you manage innovation culture in your organisation?

On a day to day basis, we leverage DevOps teams and agile structures like ARTs to foster a decentralized ownership for our business capabilities enabling the teams to innovate within their domain. As a company, Baloise employs an open innovation funnel in which we analyze trends and follow a portfolio approach for innovation projects. In addition, we use the Kickbox process from Swisscom to run innovation campaigns with our employees.

In addition, we selected the domains of “Home” and “Mobility” to innovate on new service and business models.

What would be your top 3 recommendation to help organisations become more innovative?

Create a purpose which inspires people to be creative and to focus the innovation on the right topics

Follow an open innovation approach and connect with partners of different kinds. Innovation thrives best with diverse sources and new perspectives

Use a portfolio approach to your ideas as many will fail and ensure enough resources and time to grow successful ideas to critical mass. That might require years.

Which book or person inspires you to drive innovation?

The Martian by Andy Weir. It is a great story of an optimist, who has a clear purpose for his innovation, who faces multiple innovation challenges, experiences failures but continues to learn and innovate to overcome multiple challenges.

Dr. Alexander Bockelmann Group CTO Baloise Insurance Group Switzerland

EXECUTIVE CONVERSATION WITH LUKAS HERRMANNS

What is your motivation to wake up every morning?

It might sound a little bit cheesy but what drives me most is the feeling of making a difference for our clients and colleagues. By having high aspirations and always reaching out for the stars, I hope to make the world a little better each day.

I believe that every decision we take has an impact and my ambition is to leave a footprint on the industry by giving clients and colleagues great

Lukas Herrmanns Multinational Executive & Business Leader Austria

opportunities to thrive. Historically, the insurance business seemed to be quite traditional. Changing our corporate culture in order to go with the time and be as innovative as possible offers great challenges, however, challenges I tackle with great pleasure and motivation. We need and want to be as innovative as possible to become thought leaders for our colleagues and clients – and to make a difference!

What is the technology that will have the most impact on the insurance industry in the next 5 years?

In my opinion, it is hard to point out a single technology. We are finding ourselves at the center of a digital revolution, which turns the industry as we know it upside-down.

As a result, digital innovation will have a major impact on how our business will be conducted. Technology will free up our resources from administrative tasks and enable us to become an advisor rather than a broker. In order to master such a transition, we need to focus on equipping our colleagues with the necessary skills to utilize technology adequately and unlock their full potential.

How do you manage innovation culture in your organisation?

During my role as CEO I found that empowering your colleagues is key to provoke innovation. Empowering for me means to enable colleagues by giving them the necessary trust to take on responsibility. Everybody has got to have a voice, from trainees to senior leadership. Bringing together different people with different backgrounds results in a great accumulation of ideas that ultimately lead to innovational success.

Finally yet importantly, it is crucial to remove barriers in order to enable creativity. That includes for example using technology in the best way to free up colleagues time for creative thinking.

What would be your top 3 recommendation to help organisations become more innovative?

Develop leaders who … …challenge the status quo

…are open minded! …are empowering! Which book or person inspires you to drive innovation?

Simon Sinek - Leaders Eat Last (2017)

EXECUTIVE CONVERSATION WITH MIHALY ERDŐS

What is your motivation to wake up every morning?

My biggest motivation is to wake up our youngest child, at the weekends all the three. Not because it is a task than I really enjoy to start the day with them. Then after the breakfast my motivation is for the whole day that I am in a sector which aims is to help people in trouble: we help them to protect their lives and dreams. Our commitment to society is rooted not only in our core business, but in the many programmes we run, the important causes we prioritise.

Mihály Erdős CEO of GENERALI Hungary

What is the technology that will have the most impact on the insurance industry in the next 5 years?

There are several technologies that are transforming our industry. As AI becomes more pervasive, service providers are fundamentally reforming their core processes, increasing the predictive capabilities of the enterprise as a whole. AI is reinventing sales, underwriting, claims processes and service. Insurers around the world face significant technological challenges, with many core processes based on extensive, locally used, outdated technologies. As cloud services evolve, there is scope for greater flexibility in launching new products and providing better customer service. Insurers have already started to develop the basic car product in many submarkets with the help of telematics. The wider adoption of IoT could trigger a similar product transformation across life, health, property and commercial lines. Insurance companies manage sensitive customer data and, as products and services continue to evolve, customers are sharing more and more of this information. This creates a double challenge for our sector: to manage data risks more effectively while making use of complex, large volumes of customer data. This is a critical step in the development of predictive-preventive models, for example.

How do you manage innovation culture in your organisation?

Innovation is basically an attitude. A long-term commitment by management to innovation. The Generali Group is committed to being at the forefront of renewing its operations and exploiting the potential of new technologies, especially datadriven innovation. In my practical experience, this requires abandoning the habit of thinking that only the perfect solution is good. A quickly implemented MVP (Minimum Viable Product) may be more useful than a perfect product or process that has taken years to perfect. We also need to learn the culture of making mistakes: we can learn a lot from a mistake.

What would be your top 3 recommendation to help organisations become more innovative?

The key is a clear vision. Innovation cannot be an end in itself, we need to see how the adaptation of new technologies can help us achieve our goals. Be open to learning and to best practices in the market. Be brave to change. And what is essential: let’s get the whole community of employees committed to innovation.

Which book or person inspires you to drive innovation?

Inspiring book Rik Vera: The day after tomorrow. And the person is Katalin Karikó.

#INTA INSURY TALENT NETWORK

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Access to all #MOI presentations & videos (morethan 150 videos)

We invite the best InsurTechs & Healthteches to show new business ideas

Networking / digital und analog

Special Linkedin Group to discuss & to exchange

Attend #MOI in Vienna or digital www. magicofinnovation.eu

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INSURANCE JUST GOT A WHOLE LOT SMARTER

The Future of Claims Management

Data Science and AI technologies will play an increasingly important role in the future of insurance services and operations in the next era of digital innovation. Insurance providers can either lose their competitive advantage or invest in these technologies to enhance their services and operations.

Currently, one of the most outdated and costly functions within insurance operations is that of claims management. Today, umAI is changing all of that with revolutionary AI technology.

umAI’s Human-machine, AI Insurance Intelligence solutions transform algorithms into concrete recommendations that guide adjusters on exactly how to process claims. These powerful algorithms provide insurers with prescriptive and actionable insights, allowing them to handle claims more efficiently, detect suspected fraud, and adjust claims payments accurately.

With UmAI, insurers are better prepared for the future, empowering the claims resolution process with AI technology.

Claims Management Challenges

Today, insurers are facing several critical challenges with claims management.

The traditional labour-intensive claims management process takes a lot of time, causing delays and inaccuracies in claims resolutions.

Insurers face major challenges with detecting fraudulent claims, resulting in significant monetary losses.

Insurers dependency on the specific knowledge of claims adjusters results in significant inconsistencies in claims settlement mechanics.

Customers today are demanding greater immediacy and are showing a greater preference toward non-traditional providers.

umAI’s Claims Resolution Solutions

umAI’s Claims Resolution Solutions

umAI was developed with the goal in mind to address the pressing challenges insurers face with claims resolution management. With umAI, insurers can:

umAI achieves this through several key AI technologies:

umAI was developed with the goal in mind to address the pressing challenges insurers face with claims resolution management. With umAI, insurers can:

✓

✓

Dig into claims insights impossible for adjusters to uncover

Natural Language Processing

umAI achieves this through several key AI technologies:

NLP technology derives meaning from human languages. NLP offers insurers the ability to automatically extract and analyse bulks of textual data, reducing the manual workload for handlers.

Natural Language Processing

Dig into claims insights impossible for adjusters to uncover

✓ Automatically assess liability, bypassing the manual burden of analysing myriads of documents

Suspicious and Fraud Detection

NLP technology derives meaning from human languages. NLP offers insurers the ability to automatically extract and analyse bulks of textual data, reducing the manual workload for handlers.

✓ Instantly flag suspicious claims for investigations to detect instances of fraud with unparalleled accuracy

✓ Automatically assess liability, bypassing the manual burden of analysing myriads of documents

✓ Automatically estimate the amount of money a claim will cost

✓ Process claims quickly to ensure that customers are happy with the quality of service provided

✓ Automatically estimate the amount of money a claim will cost

umAI can make significant improvements to the claims management detection process - helping to improve insurance providers’ bottom line.

Suspicious and Fraud detection systems identify suspicious patterns in claims, assigning suspicious scores to dubious claims. Utilising this technology, handlers can fast-track resolutions for unsuspicious claims.

✓ Instantly flag suspicious claims for investigations to detect instances of fraud with unparalleled accuracy

Suspicious and Fraud Detection

Causality and Link Detection

Causality and Link Detection AI Systems help insurers understand the root cause of potential suspicions, enabling them to uncover correlations between suspicious claims.

Suspicious and Fraud detection systems identify suspicious patterns in claims, assigning suspicious scores to dubious claims. Utilising this technology, handlers can fast-track resolutions for unsuspicious claims.

Claim Paid Amount Prediction

Causality and Link Detection

Claims amount predictions help benchmark claims paid amounts and predict the appropriate claim amount to be paid to claimants.

✓ Process claims quickly to ensure that customers are happy with the quality of service provided

umAI can make significant improvements to the claims management detection process - helping to improve insurance providers’ bottom line.

Causality and Link Detection AI Systems help insurers understand the root cause of potential suspicions, enabling them to uncover correlations between suspicious claims.

www.umai.ai

Claim Paid Amount Prediction

Claims amount predictions help benchmark claims paid amounts and predict the appropriate claim amount to be paid to claimants.

What results can be achieved?

Take a look at this interesting case study to see how umAI’s solutions can deliver real results:

An Israeli insurance provider faced several issues in processing vehicle claims. Manually handling thousands of claims led to significant delays in claims resolution. Furthermore, there was no robust system to handle suspicious claims. In order to address operational challenges, the company turned to umAI.

Unmatched

Expertise

With umAI the company achieved:

Standardisation in claims management

Improved analysis of suspicious claims

54.4% reduction in claims processing time

1.5% reduction in unnecessary payouts

$2.1M in annual savings

UmAI’s team has extensive experience leading advanced AI projects. Their expertise lies in developing self-learning AI solutions to support decision-making and optimisation.

Using this knowledge, the team built umAI for claims management and continues to innovate and develop great solutions for its customers. umAI helps clients uncover diamonds in their data and transform their business challenges into actionable insights.

Interested to learn more? Contact us: Jacob Gurman-Schatz

Business and Sales Director

jacob.gs@umai.ai

PUBLISHED BY

Around 400 to 500 global InsurTech MGAs are facing an inflection point where they may have to pivot their business models this year, sources have told this publication, as market dynamics combine to turn the screw on loss-making entities...

As investor appetite for InsurTechs continues to decline, and risk capacity partners reevaluate their tolerance to support InsurTech MGAs that remain unprofitable, sources agreed that many of these companies will have to consider changing fundamental aspects of their business model.

Some of the options InsurTech MGAs may be exploring, according to sources, include developing their technology as an off-theshelf solution for third parties, moving to a broking model or transforming into a fullstack insurer, all of which present their own challenges.

While investors and InsurTech experts acknowledged to this publication that there are many well-capitalised InsurTech MGAs demonstrating sustainable growth, they highlighted the existential questions for hundreds of other loss-making MGA operations.

Dr Andrew Johnston, global head of InsurTech at Gallagher Re, said: “There are lots of challenging dynamics in the (re) insurance industry at the same time that many of these InsurTech MGAs are looking to grow – and many of them have to grow to survive, let alone compete.”

He explained that balance sheet capacity for InsurTech MGAs is in theory still available from (re)insurers, but it now comes with a different level of scrutiny as (re)insurers also focus on their more core business propositions.

“For some (re)insurers, I think the idea of supporting certain InsurTechs is now seen as a nice to have in terms of the support that they can offer, and don’t necessarily represent (re) insurers’ primary, more traditional business objectives,” he added.

These dynamics across reinsurance are materialising at the same time as InsurTech funding volumes continue to fall.

Because of a more intensive spotlight on profitability, revenue, long-term equity valuations and strategic positioning of InsurTechs, sources noted that many MGAs in this space are now looking at fewer options for both investment and capacity partnerships than 12 months ago.

This has been compounded by effects of the recent intensive 1 January renewals, as primary risk carriers operating in a capital-constrained market reconsider their support for some InsurTech MGAs.

As one source said: “The era of risk partners being sympathetic to InsurTech MGAs indefinitely is coming to an end.”

A turning point

Gallagher Re’s most recent report on global InsurTech funding, for Q3 2022, explored how MGAs in this sphere have arrived at this position.

It acknowledged that the capital-light MGA model has been a growth sanctuary for many InsurTechs in recent years, enabling them to refine their underwriting, gain customers and develop a brand.

However, the report also stated that the reality for most InsurTech MGAs is that “they are not writing (net) profitable business, and in some cases charging up to 15% net fees for their services”.

The study also highlighted instances, up to 2019 at least, of quota shares which had been ceded into a single reinsurer that assumed 100% of the originated risk from InsurTech MGA.

Capacity partners have more generally been shouldering much of the load to support InsurTech MGAs, and in this context, Gallagher Re’s report stated that many InsurTechs “are going to have to start taking on risk if they have any hope of surviving in the long term”.

Johnston told this publication that as InsurTech MGAs approach capacity partners, the nature of responses has suddenly changed. He believes MGAs will simply be told “not at the moment”, or they will come under pressure from (re) insurers to take on risk to secure their support.

To date, many InsurTechs have made this leap in becoming balance sheet risk-takers, including Hippo, Buckle, Lemonade, Root, Openly, Beam, Next and Oscar.

MS&AD Ventures managing partner Jon Soberg

Option optimisation

While some sources said they expect an acceleration to some extent of MGA transitions into full-stack insurers this year, they also highlighted the requirements for this – notably recruiting talented underwriters and actuaries, as well as the transparency on business performance that comes with being a regulated insurance entity.

They also pointed to the different valuation multiples that, for now, favour the MGA model compared to regulated insurance entities.

Jon Soberg, managing partner of MS&AD Ventures, the venture capital firm set up by MS&AD Insurance Group, said: “I’m not sure if so many InsurTechs will want to go full stack, because their capital requirements will increase while their multiples come down, so that doesn’t fit with where the market is right now.”

Another option for InsurTech MGAs is to commercialise the technology they have built, but Ruth Foxe Blader, partner at Anthemis, one of the most active InsurTech investors on both sides of the Atlantic, said: “Although there are instances where InsurTechs have been able to do that successfully, it’s a tougher sell to the investors.

I’m not sure if so many InsurTechs will want to go full stack, because their capital requirements will increase while their multiples come down

“That’s because if you’re a tech investor, you recognise the fact that building enterprise technology is different from building technology for the InsurTech’s own internal use. The work it takes to build an off-the-shelf technology solution for third parties is very different from the architecture of an InsurTech using internal technology.”

In terms of other options being pursued, Johnston said he had observed a handful of InsurTech MGAs moving away from a primary risk origination model and transitioning to a service provision model.

For other InsurTech MGAs more inclined towards simply cutting costs, improving efficiencies and margin and generally riding out the turbulence, investors said these companies would have to prove that they are adding value in the process of matching capital with risk selection, while demonstrating explicitly how they are progressing to long-term profitability.

Anthemis partner Ruth Foxe

Any InsurTechs on death row?

According to sources, InsurTech MGAs that have reached an inflection point do not necessarily share a set of characteristics or common business lines in which they operate.

It’s also unclear how many are at material risk of insolvency, but one investor pointed out the precarious circumstances in which a few could find themselves.

Soberg at MS&AD Ventures said: “If you were an MGA that was already struggling through last year, you’re probably in big trouble now.”

Johnston added that some InsurTech MGAs are running out of money and it’s “kind of survival mode for a few of them”.

Blader pointed out the challenge for companies seeking a series B and C funding round, where there have been the most dramatic decreases in venture capital activity.

“What this implies is that either companies are quietly already going down paths to a private equity exit, or even administration, or their existing investors are reaching into their pockets to find more funding for them, and giving them more runway. I think there was a lot of the latter,” she added.

2023 and probably into early 2024, is when we’re going to start to see the smoke clearing on the InsurTech landscape, and we’ll see what the battlefield looks like

In a trading environment where investors believe many InsurTechs will soon run out of runway on current funding, it remains highly uncertain how many will go to the wall this year, but sources agreed the ultimate number could be significant.

One source suggested that, in the US, state regulators may support companies which try to find a solution for the more distressed InsurTechs.

Some think it could be another 12-18 months before the market sees how many InsurTechs have reached the end of the line.

As Blader remarked: “Through the end of 2023 and probably into early 2024 is when we’re going to start to see the smoke clearing on the InsurTech landscape, and we’ll be able to see what the battlefield looks like.

“Right now, investors are very much focused on their own portfolio companies, and less so on doing new deals.”

Insurance Insider delivers global wholesale, specialty, and (re)insurance Intelligence that enables you to act first. Redeem your complimentary 14day trial for more premium content from Insurance Insider.

How open insurance will reshape bancassurance Abstract

The open insurance paradigm offers new possibilities.

It will help reinvent the traditional bancassurance business model and design innovative offerings. Data is at the core of open insurance, and data harnessed from ecosystem players offers banks opportunities to expand the bancassurance portfolio to include insurance products focused on individual customers’ needs, besides adjacent and contextual financial services. This, in turn, will help banks enhance customer engagement and cement loyalty through hyper-personalized propositions across the customer lifecycle.

To ably orchestrate value-chain services by leveraging ecosystem partnerships, banks must define the key structural aspects of a resilient, multi-sided, and digital bancassurance model. We propose an ecosystem-aligned bancassurance platform that can empower banks to gain unconventional insights and co-create contextualized offerings to gain a competitive edge.

Open insurance

Open insurance is an evolving concept, which is gaining wider attention in the European Union (EU).

Data is critical to successfully adopting open insurance given its importance in the insurance value chain across customer proposition, risk pricing and actuarial decision-making, policy and claim administration, and customer servicing. Open flow of data among participating players—both insurance and non-insurance firms—helps design contextualized offerings for customers’ unique needs by using personal, non-personal, traditional, and non-traditional (alternative) data insights. Also, interconnected value chains and new partnerships help identify new business use cases across the insurance industry. Adopting open insurance, however, comes with risks and will require insurers to strike a fine balance between risks and benefits. A prime use case of open insurance is bancassurance—the open insurance paradigm has the potential to significantly reinvent the traditional bancassurance business model. Easier data exchange among ecosystem partners and new insights can expand the horizons of bancassurance to offer products such as loans and investment and wealth advisory that go beyond insurance.

Bancassurance

The open insurance paradigm offers the possibility to create a multi-sided platform or digital ecosystem.

The platform will connect different customer segments, aggregate products from partners through efficient intermediation, and unlock value through the network effect (see Figure 1). Open insurance has the ability to impact different areas in the insurance space, particularly bancassurance, where it has

significant potential to create new business models and design innovative offerings. In addition to new distribution partnerships, open insurance facilitates a connected, digital bancassurance operating model and equips banks with the ability to deliver a simple, holistic, and integrated customer experience. It envisages a shift from monolithic pointto-point processing chains to orchestrated ecosystems to offer unconventional value propositions.

Open insurance envisages a new ecosystem-based bancassurance model. (see Figure 2) It helps banks in addressing end-to-end customer needs, delivering an integrated customer experience, gaining full share of customers’ wallet, and driving loyalty while enabling customers to pursue their purpose. Anytime, anywhere, democratized access to adjacent services expands the service potential beyond insurance to cover the entire gamut of the financial services lifecycle. Thus, the core construct relies on an interconnected ecosystem offering services covering banking, insurance, wealth, health, and lifecycle financial needs of the customer. These offerings can include safety or risk mitigation support for mortgaged properties or breakdown support for auto insurance. Similar offerings can be designed for health insurance (telemedicine, healthy living, and health protection tips) and accident insurance. In addition, embedded insurance is a new value enhancer that can help craft new, contextualized offerings bundled with assurance features.

Figure 1: Participants in the open insurance ecosystem

By leveraging diverse transactional, demographic, and behavioral insights of individual customers, banks can identify event-driven engagement opportunities. For example, payment to a travel portal can be a potential case for offering travel insurance. They can also explore cross-sell and upsell opportunities across insurance, wealth, personal finance, health, and life needs. Event-led insights, customer self-service, and self-design of personalization features drastically change the entire engagement matrix. This can be enabled through basic functional features such as offering options covering subscription type, premium frequency, coverage period, co-pay, add-on riders, protection, and exclusion terms and so on. Exchange of data insights between banks, insurers, and other ecosystem partners such as third-party claims management services and insurtech companies can enable a whole new level of intuitive customer experience and help overcome limitations posed by channel-specific constraints, product complexities, product unbundling challenges, and inadequate customer awareness present in the existing model.

What banks must do

Insurtech players and startups are at the forefront in creating innovative products.

These new-age players are continuously innovating to offer new value propositions, improve customer experience, and ensure frictionless processes across the value chain. To thrive in this competitive space requires banks to formulate a well-calibrated strategy to transform business processes and IT platforms and build new capabilities required to move to an ecosystem-based bancassurance model.

Banks must comprehensively define the key aspects of a resilient, multi-sided, and digital bancassurance model. To build a forward-looking, ecosystem-aligned bancassurance platform, banks will need to focus on:

 Customer journey: Define customer journey maps and ways to achieve end objectives across banking, insurance, wealth, and other related services for various client segments.

 Business KPIs framework: Assess dimensions of impact on business and operating model and identify levers to achieve key performance indicators (KPIs) of the integrated bancassurance model.

 Integration with ecosystem partners: Ensure integration of business processes with those of ecosystem partners to design client-centric services with in-built capacity to customize product features and offer unbundled pricing options.

 Adaptive workflows and a shared data platform: Enable digitalized client profiling, due diligence, onboarding, and lifecycle engagement with contextual propositions, product design, risk pricing, and claims processing.

 Digital operating model: Adopt a completely digital operating model to enable intuitive user experience across channels by deploying intelligent virtual assistants to support the customer journey. Design contextual offerings based on insights into customers’ life stage and goals and offer self-service tools for premium calculation, risk assessment, customization, and adding features.

 Data integration and insights model: Build an integrated data ecosystem with ecosystem players to gather insights for product alignment, propensity-based predictive modelling, risk and suitability assessment, pricing models and product features as well as policy administration and service interventions. In addition, a connected ecosystem that delivers corelated and contextualized insights using data from the ecosystem players will enable the co-creation of new personalized products and services.

 Platform capabilities: Envision an end-to-end platform and define a roadmap, establish key milestones and specified timelines to achieve them, and identify resources to build the platform. Some crucial points to be kept in mind include:

 Process automation and data integration to support adaptive workflows across partners

 Value realization from a plethora of data sources such as banks, insurers, and third-party data providers

 Artificial intelligence (AI)- and machine learning (ML)-based intelligent tools for selfadaptable processing

 Microservice architecture and application programming interface (API) frameworks for service integration with ecosystem partners

 Innovative technology tools across telematics, geolocation, internet of things (IoT), imaging, facial recognition, and voice instruction among others

The way forward

The open insurance paradigm significantly alters the traditional bancassurance model.

To remain relevant and hold their competitive position in the bancassurance space, banks must define and implement a holistic roadmap to realize the vision of ecosystem-connected bancassurance. While the transition will come with its own set of challenges, it is well worth the effort given its potential for generating new revenue streams and enhancing customer experience. Quick action is imperative, and banks that move fast will benefit significantly from the first-mover advantage.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Indra Chourasia

Indra Chourasia is an Industry Advisor in the Analytics and Insights unit of TCS’ Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) business unit.

Krishnakumar Gopalakrishnan

Krishnakumar Gopalakrishnan is an Enterprise Architect and heads European growth and transformation initiatives in TCS’ Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) business unit.

Prab Pitchandi

Prab Pitchandi is the Vice President and Global Head of the Analytics and Insights unit within TCS’ Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) business unit.

The insurance platform of the future

WeGroup’s Digital Distribution Platform helps insurance distributors to support their digital or hybrid sales activities by analysing customer needs and risk profiles and connecting them to the perfect insurance solution, creating both new business and upselling opportunities.

It is WeGroup’s belief that any insurance distributor should have access to tools that give them better insights about their potential customers and existing portfolio, as well as the possibility to automate the processes needed to convert those insights into actual business.

Anno 2022, WeGroup is a thriving scale-up active in various markets all over Europe, serving over 2.000 insurance brokers, agents and commercial advisors. The innovative offering got awarded with over 20 international insurance and technology awards.

WeGroup has created more time for our employees, allowing them to be much more focused on customer interactions.

How WeGroup helps you and your customers

WeGroup offers a pre-sale, all-in-one distribution platform that streamlines work processes and increases productivity and efficiency. The platform creates customized advisory reports for personal and commercial lines clients, linking them to the appropriate risk solutions.

How WeGroup helps with your private clients

It’s important to offer the best service to your private clients. WeGroup’s all-in-one distribution platform makes this easier than ever. With WeGroup, you can:

Generate in-dept customer need- and risk reports.

Leverage comprehensive external databases.

Generate both new business and upselling opportunities.

Price indications and product comparisons.

Integration with insurance companies and management software.

How WeGroup helps with your business customers

WeGroup’s distribution platform is not just for private clients – it also helps you serve your business customers. With WeGroup, you can:

Use a dynamic questionnaire to generate in-depth customer advisory reports.

Offer tailor-made product recommendations for advise and quote requests.

Provide frequent reports for your customers and ensure legal compliance.

Access Europe’s most extensive professional databases.

Connect with relevant third party software.

A closer look at the process

WeGroup’s process that unlocks the full potential of every insurance distributor in a digital world.

WeGroup

in numbers

20+ Awards

9 Countries active

7.5m Funding raided

2.000+ Users

70+ Enterprise partners

About WeGroup

WeGroup is a Belgian Insurtech company founded in 2017 by 3 co-founders with a background in insurance, computer science engineering and corporate finance. The company is built on their common vision that all insurance providers should have access to cutting-edge technology fast and easy in order to serve clients better and more efficiently.

Anno 2022, WeGroup is a thriving scale-up active all over Europe. They consist of a healthy mix of bright engineers and great business minds. Thanks to their innovative developments and fast growth, WeGroup was awarded with over 20 awards and is internationally recognized as one of Europe’s leading Insurtech companies.

Find out more about WeGroup can assis you in streamlining your daily processes on:

https://www.wegroup.be

Why Insurers choose Instahelp for one of the most important health topics

The recent years have been tough for most people: Lockdowns and COVID restrictions affected our lives, and for the first time in many years, inflation has become a clear and present danger for many countries around the world. The ongoing political, economic and social insecurities leave most people feeling stressed, anxious or insecure – and the trend is rising. Now, the outcome is visible since more and more people face mental health issues.

According to the WHO World Mental Health report published in 2022, today's total number of people living with a mental disorder counts nearly 1 billion. No matter where it comes from, stress is also directly related to the performance of people and the absenteeism of employees at their workplace. This increasingly concerns organizations, who are already blowing the whistle – with many corporations already facing the negative effects of this rising challenge.

In the first instance, health insurers ask themselves how this could affect their business. Thus, it is obvious that stress is one of the current significant reasons for long-term sick leaves and every single case strains the healthcare system. And it is exactly within health care systems that there are critical gaps in care for mental health. That is why new solutions are needed.

Insta-what? Instahelp!

One established solution within the mental health industry comes from Austria: Instahelp. The company was founded in 2015 with the vision of improving mental health by simplifying access to psychological counselling, offering psychological support online and in real-time complement to the existing counselling system.

Since then, more than 150 companies from various sectors with more than 300.000 employees have chosen Instahelp to promote their Mental Health. Many Insurers follow the same example, ensuring that their customers can also benefit from this easy-to-go solution. The arguments for Psychological Counselling Online speak for themselves.

Why Insurers chose Instahelp:

 Psychological Counselling Online is flexible

The counselling sessions with Instahelp are handy, convenient and can be done from anywhere. Clients communicate with their psychologist of choice via Text, Audio or Video.

 Psychological Counselling Online reduces waiting times

This is crucial: especially when times get rough, people do not have time to wait months for a first meeting with a psychologist, especially when not feeling well. The 24/7 platform offers a selection from more than 260 experienced psychologists (including 15 different languages) with a guaranteed response within 24 hours. (Please note: Instahelp is no solution for emergency cases or in case of suicidal risk.)

 Psychological Counselling Online is effective

All psychologists were chosen based on experience, top training and practical competence. Moreover, they are further supported with ongoing online training and supervision. This enables not only state-of-the-art counselling but also consistent quality.

Different Use Cases for Insurers with Instahelp

Just as with different customers' needs, offerings for Insurers remain flexible when it comes to the well-established Insurance partnerships with Instahelp. That is why Insurers such as Allianz Austria or InsurTechHub Munich appreciate the adaptability of Instahelp regarding their individual use cases. Many insurers and companies already cooperate with the Austrian company, trusting their services – here, the use cases for Insurers are diverse:

Selling arguments and positive branding are provided, together with additional touchpoints along the customer journey. This facilitates prevention and cost saving since it helps to reduce downtime in the event of a claim by providing low-threshold immediate assistance. Moreover, it provides a bridge during the waiting period for on-site therapy places.

Instahelp has won the 1st place at the Magic of Innovation HealthTech Pitch!

Instahelp was awarded with the 1st place on the Insurance Innovation Day at the Magic of Innovation HealthTech Pitch in Vienna in September 2022.

Christiane Katschnig-Otter, Head of Partnerships at Instahelp, convinced the audience with her pitch and the innovative spirit of Instahelp!

New: The Mental Health and Engagement Program

Instahelp developed the Mental Health and Engagement Program, a made-to-measure solution that has been developed together with organizations: Created out of urgent business needs, it offers the possibility of implementing mental health on all levels – reaching customers, executives and employees.

The program offers different building blocks, such as the scientifically based Mental Wellbeing Check, a powerful tool which gives a clear and profound view of the overall mental health situation, focussing on personal stress and engagement factors. This important first positioning is being followed by a Mental Health Journey – Micro Learnings, developed with experienced clinical and occupational psychologists to raise awareness on the importance of Mental health while providing all relevant tools in order to remain mentally strong and to strengthen one's resilience!

What makes the Mental Health Journey special: Executives encounter their individual Leadership Mental Health Journey, while individuals and employees gain insights along their Employee Mental Health Journey – customized to the very certain needs and special topics on each level. The offer is completed by the effective and customized Mental Health Analytics – specially developed tools, aiming to provide clear insights as well as help realize and prevent future pitfalls when it comes to corporate mental health.

Insurers chose Instahelp

Instahelp offers a simple, qualitative and digital solution for Mental Health through psychological counselling online with no waiting time, total security and anonymity. The solution is simple, fully flexible and convenient from wherever you are – only an internet-enabled device is needed! And most importantly, the solution is quick: the Instahelp platform is available 24/7 and offers a guaranteed first contact within 24 hours.

https://instahelp.me/business or business@instahelp.me

WEATHER CONDITIONS: RISKS AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR INSURERS

There is no doubt that climate change, manifesting itself in the form of weather change, has entered our minds and is making itself noticeable in our everyday life - most recently with the extremely mild turn of the year 2022/2023 with highs of up to 25°C in Europe.

Now these record temperatures may be astonishing in themselves, but at the same time they allow a deeper insight into the overall changes in the weather conditions.

Over the past 15 years, UBIMET has developed a unique meteorological artificial intelligence from which weather information can be individually extracted with pinpoint accuracy and transformed into scalable and innovative services, for instance for the insurance industry.

Michael, what is “climate” and what makes climate change a challenge for the insurance industry?

In a nutshell, climate is the long-term weather pattern in a specific area. The climate describes what can be considered “normal weather” in that area, and it is determined based on decades of measured weather data from the past. “Climate change” is what we experience when recently

measured weather data starts differing compared to the measurements and the average values from the past – differing not only on a few days here and there, but in the form of a systematic change. That is: climate change also means weather change – what we actually notice in our everyday life is a difference in weather compared to the weather we know from the past. It may occur in the form of, for example, spring temperatures in the middle of winter, as mentioned at the beginning. This is a relatively

» Even if these changes are not always associated with serious threats to life, health or property, they are of significant relevance for the insurance industry.

Michael Fassnauer is the founder and managing director of UBIMET – Institute for Ubiquitous Meteorology, the leading digital weather service for weather-dependent industries.

solutions are part of the automated processing in coverage verification. More than half of all European insurers perform automated processing to a fair extent and there is no well-known insurer that is not currently working at full speed towards automation of their claims regulation.

So weather has become a strategic issue?

Absolutely! It doesn‘t matter whether the insurer wants to fulfil the requirements of the local financial authority or of the EU taxonomy, it is all about insurers becoming “weather-ready” and mitigating the consequences of climate change in the best possible way. Ultimately, this also means that climate change in terms of more intense events and increasing numbers of extreme weather events have taken on a strategic dimension and turned into an important topic for the board of directors.

How can insurers use weather and climate to their advantage in customer relations?

As a rule, in addition to the organisational optimisations already described, the “care” function for customers quickly becomes a key issue. If you manage to warn a customer of an upcoming severe weather event, you as an insurer have made it “into their living rooms”. You have the benefit of not only having protected the customer,

but also of having avoided a loss for the insurer. It may seem a bit surprising, but the most successful channel for disseminating such warnings is actually still via SMS – this channel is accepted by everyone and the message is perceived as highly individual. If, in addition, you manage to ask the customer via SMS after an extreme weather event if everything is OK, offering a link to online claims reporting, you are on the ways towards successfully transforming your customers’ behaviour from analogue to digital business channels.

But don’t severe weather warnings and “are you OK messages” trigger more claims?

No. Nobody has anything to gain from taking the car out of the garage and putting it straight into a hailstorm – the insurance would pay, but your car will be damaged and need repair; who needs such trouble?

To be honest, we were not able to assess this risk at first either. Now we have completed numerous projects, statistically monitored in detail by the insurance companies. There has been no evidence of an increased number of claims reports compared to statistical twins – not in any country. Interestingly, the average loss amounts were even lower due to the timely, quick claims reporting.

harmless example, but climate change also reveals itself in the form of more extreme weather events – and these are increasing significantly in number and intensity. This is when climate change becomes a core issue for the insurance industry.

In what role do insurers see themselves when it comes to climate and weather?

For historical reasons, insurers usually see themselves as risk carriers or intermediaries in this context. In that capacity, they know that the weather risk must be subject to ongoing reassessment, including consultation with reinsurers, in order to ensure an appropriate coverage for extreme weather events. They also realise that the insurance organisation must be able to handle more frequent and more intense severe weather situations. In order to cope with these requirements, the insurer needs an early warning system to ascertain that an accumulation event does not come as a surprise. Most insurers also want to provide their customers with the best service possible in the event of a claim, as well as taking on a “care” function for their customers. Ideally, insurers are able to influence their customers and convince them to take precautionary measures in order to prevent damage, which in the end prevents or decreases loss on the insurer’s side.

Is it possible to prepare specifically for accumulation events?

Yes, it is. We have accompanied many insurers worldwide on this journey. The goal is not only to identify upcoming severe weather conditions at an early stage, but above all to forecast the impact in terms of how an insurer will be affected: How many claims can be expected and what are the financial consequences? A severe weather event may be limited geographically and still trigger high level of impact, if the insurer has an unusually large client portfolio in the affected region. An insurer needs this type of impact forecast in order to know in advance how many customers are potentially affected by damage, what the corresponding staffing should look like, whether external service providers should be proactively reserved and much more.

In essence, the insurer’s aim is to deliver its best performance to the customers at the “moment of truth”, that is when the customers really need their

insurer, and to settle claims as quickly as possible. The board of directors also needs relatively detailed information concerning damage and loss early on, ideally no later than the day after the event. What used to be managed based on very rough estimates can, with our help, now be done in real-time based on high quality data and in a fully automated way.

Sounds like a simple solution...?

Yes, it is simple – for the insurer. Calculating these correlations, based on the correct assumptions and causations, and then quantifying the results in order to create information that an insurer can work with, is not simple. It takes not only highly precise and granular weather analyses and forecasts – above all, it takes huge amounts of data and years of experience to reliably determine in which regions and to what extent impact relevant to a specific insurer is actually triggered. We have the advantage of having developed such models for more than a decade, so we have already made all the mistakes. With our background, we can help insurers avoid a costly, steep and lengthy learning curve.

You mentioned the “moment of truth” in weather-related claims – are insurers already efficient enough in claims processing or is there still room for improvement?

A lot is currently happening in terms of processing efficiency. We are confronted with this issue primarily in the field of plausibility checks. Essentially, we give the insurer a clear yes/no answer to the question of whether a weatherrelated claim is meteorologically justified or not. This is where the precision of the weather data plays an important role – the more precisely you can detect the location of a lightning strike or analyse the maximum wind speed, the quicker and easier you can approve justified claims and reject unjustified ones. In fact, thanks to our precision and reliability, we regularly see positive business cases with potential savings in the millions or tens of millions range for individual insurers.

What about the speed at which claims are processed?

That is one of the top issues in weather damage verification. The fact that our systems react in real time is only part of the answer. As a rule, our weather

Constructions for the New Gold:

Do you build it based on data or do you let data build it?

Peters VIEWPOINT

Data Architecture is currently the big hype. It is not only the hot topic of the IT department but has made it to one of the first priorities of the business. This is based on the meanwhile common understanding that the true company gold resides in data, today produced in large amounts along the company’s value chain activities. It acts as a “liver ticker” of the company. We recognize that data analysis indicates the path to a better company which successfully survives in the market with innovative initiatives.

As Parallel Entrepreneur, his company initiatives Sparx Systems CE, Sparx Services CE / Switzerland, LieberLieber Software and ThreatGet offer innovation driven information technology, enabling a 360° management of business, applications and infrastructure. Peter is President of the Austrian Trade Organisation (österreichischer Gewerbeverein).

The “traditional” organisational architecture of data is structured into collection, transformation, distribution, and consumption of it. Meaningless to say to insurance industry representatives, that management also must satisfy regulatory demands in order to remain compliant to industry standards. And there is the rub: data becomes the master and our role is degraded to a slave who is digging for its gold, caged in rigid structures. The magical question: How can we flip this situation by 180°, enabling us to innovate and renew the company and its ecosystem? Or, in other words: How can we change from construction workers to architects of this “New Gold”?

ABOUT Peter Lieber

Why we got stucked when digging for gold.

When digging for data gold, we currently analyse data to gain information and build patterns, to measure relevance for the business. In the 80ies, the DIWK Pyramid (“data – information – knowledge – wisdom”) described a framework for knowledge management, highlighting the importance of the structural and functional relationship of it. The purpose behind is to gain a deeper understanding of subjects in question. The DIWK pyramid climbs from data to information, which allows to understand relations. Reaching for higher, we try to understand the patterns so we gather knowledge out of this information and turn it into actions of “better” and “more of the same”. We are pretty good with this discipline. New technologies such as artificial intelligence are supporting us.

So far for to the current state of the “New Gold”. But we start to realize that we get stuck because it makes us a slave to our data. We currently follow the process of data – information – knowledge, which is a cumbersome activity, tied to technical and organisational hurdles. Following this current standard, we let data build the gold. We are not in the position to mirror and build the relations between the patterns on a 360° perspective.

But the original concept of the knowledge management pyramid raises for more: Wisdom, because only Wisdom is the concrete to build sustainable innovations upon. Only by understanding the principles, we shift data insight from knowledge to the top. But how to determine the principles so we can cross this line?

“Stuck in the DIWK Pyramid”

Wisdom

Knowledge Information

Data

Escape from the data slavery: Breaking out from the bottom, taking the view from the wisdom top

Taking the view from the wisdom top means to flip the pyramid by 180°. Focus first is the activity needed to achieve this fresh and novel view. It means becoming the architect (master) and build gold out of data. Golden is the answer to the questions raised by various stakeholders in the company. But first, we need to understand which information is relevant and therefore worth the knowledge.

How to achieve this turn-around? With my long (and often also painful) innovation experience in technology, I came to the point where I understood the benefits of becoming an architect. In this role, you focus on the model as the first step of the process. In the sequence, it allows you to bring data and information together for a holistic view and understand the company’s concrete to build innovation upon.

How to become the architect: 5 A’s to combine Data and Information and raise the 5 levels of Gold Mining

Firstly, it is crucial to understand that we do not model the data as such. We manage the architecture of it.

„I work from the inside out.“

Frank Ghery, *1929, US Architect, originator of the “Bilbao Effect”

”Architecture is not so much a knowledge of form, but a form of knowledge.”

Bernard Tschumi, *1944, Swiss/French Architect

As mentioned as key activity to reach wisdom, FOCUS is it. Awareness and then attention allows us to start properly. Collaboration is key as we all know. And with collaboration, we as model experts understand it in a way which means reaching out to a much larger community than just IT and its nerds. It includes all stakeholders within the company, ideally the entire ecosystem. Because then you come to the point to publish knowledge for a broader and higher purpose. The top is reached by consolidation. It means, bringing together data, process, and infrastructure in one holistic piece, allows a 360° perspective, combining company assets with the relevant data. It means to reach the wisdom for sustainable innovation initiatives.

Get the most out of your gold as an architect for an innovative, yet unknown future built on data.

The past times has shown us even more, how the future is volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous, a VUCA world. So the call for us innovators is lauder than ever. Let’s shape the industry’s future with wisdom.

“As an architect you design for the present, with an awareness of the past, for a future which is essentially unknown.”

Norman Foster, *1935, British Architect

We from Sparx Services Central Europe enable Active Enterprise Architecture Management for a 360° view of corporate structures. We focus on the essentials for the agile organisation: Reduce Complexity, simplify Collaboration, and enable the Transparency to create the remarkable value contribution of Enterprise Architecture.

Florian Graillot

Data are coming from astorya.io, the databased market intelligence platform for insurance & banking technologies in Europe

1. Investment activity: is the glass half empty or half full?

With €1.5B invested last year in European InsurTech startups, that’s a 40% drop from a year before. On the other hand, there were 10% more deals announced than a year before !

2. InsurTech is still in early days

Last year, 48% of rounds announced were done below €3m (Seed stage).

3. InsurTech is more than ever a European industry

Almost ⅓ of rounds were done outside of the three biggest startups scenes - France, Germany and the UK -, and this share has been growing since inception (e.g. up from 22% in 2019 !)

4. No insurance line is immune to innovation

Once again, InsurTech startups which raised money in 2022 are covering all the business lines (Commercial, P&C, Life, Health in addition to Enterprise Software) and P&C was only a ⅓ of every deal.

5. InsurTech is getting closer to the insurance core engine

If 'distribution' accounted for more than half of all deals announced, the 'product' part of the value chain was also active, accounting for 25% of rounds in that category. These startups are addressing commoditized risks with new technologies or enabling coverage for new risks such as weather damage, cyber, and IT infrastructure.

Scope .

Scope .

New technologies enable insurance, to change its status quo, business models and way of serving customers in the age of continuous change. We are investing in visionary founders eager to build this next generation of insurance and capable to take their vision off-the-ground.

New technologies enable insurance, to change its status quo, business models and way of serving customers in the age of continuous change. We are investing in visionary founders eager to build this next generation of insurance and capable to take their vision off-the-ground.

2/9/23, 6:04 AM

Insurance

Early-stage Europe

Astorya.vc – Investing in Seed InsurTech startups across Europe

Increasing impact of evolving customer experience, data, digital platforms and new risks comes from everywhere

Insurance

Beyond pure insurtech, we are investing in all sectors in�uencing insurance: ntech, digital health, mobility, smart houses and cybersecurity

 Europe

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Early-stage

We feel especially comfortable well, where most rarely even look into –early-stage, usually taking the position of �rst institutional investor Surrounded by insurance and tech professionals, we offer experienced advice and network to help founders take their companies off-the-ground and �y

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Europe is a home market to more than 3200 insurance-related startups, spotted by astorya vc sourcing algorithm in the past 12 months We see newborns each week Leveraging our paneuropean origin and network, we help founders benchmark with European competition and scale internationally

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Strategic return beyond �nancial return .

We don’t just invest We are working closely with Boards of Directors, innovation and business teams or corporate VCs, to support their strategy, boost tech-driven innovation, source startups and invest

With strong exposure to the ecosystem of the best insurance entrepreneurs and startups, astorya vc is a strategic partner to our Limited Partners We believe that a fruitful collaboration between corporates and startups, creates win-win-win situation and in long term increases valuation of our portfolio startups

Access the best deal �ow in Europe

. Thanks to our automated scouting technology, we ’ ve spotted more than 4200+ startups in the past months. Many of them as early as at their �rst online apperances

The technology allows to observe high level industry trends with detailed startuplevel information. Besides, creating the biggest insurance-related deal�ow in Europe, it is also a source of knowledge about ready-to-implement tech products for insurers and banks or even a competition watch for astorya vc portfolio startups

3200+

insurance-related startups spotted in Europe so far

Meet our Team .

Meet astorya.vc Founding Partners, with past experience at AXA Strategic Ventures and Euler Hermes Digital Agency backed by insurance and tech experts

FOUNDING PARTNERS