InsurTech Magazine - March 2022

March 2022 | insurtechdigital.com

Beazley Digital: Underwriting risk in the digital era 2022's Women in InsurTech Covea Insurance: Pioneering consumer-centric insurance technology

Ibott: Insuring the shared economy and beyond

Strategy: Cloud computing and it's impact on the industry

BUILT ON TRUST AND SUSTAINABILITY Sara Lamsam (left) and Sutee Mokkhavesa (right) of MTL have laid a strong foundation and is now moving towards a digital revolution in Thailand

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GLEN WHITE

FOREWORD

DROWNING IN BIG DATA With the IoT exploding, data has become the lifeblood of the insurtech industry

“As usual, it's been a challenge to decide what to include from this incredibly dynamic and busy industry”

As our cities, homes and personal wearables become smarter, data gravity has become an increasingly large problem for both fintech and insurtech sectors.

But, technology is providing the answers, with new AI technologies and ML (machine learning) that aggregate and process the data, producing razor-sharp insights This month, we take a look at the latest development in the IoT space and find out how insurtechs are leveraging the technology to collect ever more incisive data to attract and cater to customers. We also take a look at the latest metaverse offerings and see how gamification is transforming the space.

Don’t miss our other deep-dives, which explore digital trends and innovation in insurtech, as well as our Top 10 list - Women in InsurTech. As usual, it's been a challenge to decide what to include from this incredibly dynamic and busy industry.

Happy reading and enjoy the magazine!

INSURTECH MAGAZINE IS PUBLISHED BY

JOANNA ENGLAND

joanna.england@bizclikmedia.com

© 2021 | ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

insurtechdigital.com

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CONTENTS

Our Regular Upfront Section: 12 Big Picture 14 The Brief 16 Timeline: Telematics and the story of UBI 18 Trailblazer: Danil Khachaturov 22 Five Minutes With: Meeri Rebane

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Strategy

Insurtech strategy: Digital Innovation and Trends

28

50

Built on trust and sustainability

Pioneering consumer-centric insurance tech

Muang Thai Life Assurance Public Company Limited

Covea Insurance

62

Digital Transformation

Gravity Rising: Big Data and the insurance industry

70

Beazley Digital

Underwriting Risk in the Digital Era

84

MGA:TPA

Cloud Computing: How It Impacts the Insurance Industry

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106

Automating the Experiences of Insurance

Uploading: The IoT and InsurTech in the year ahead

Virtusa

Technology

FINANCE THAT SCALES WITH YOU Easy multi-entity management and reporting Sage Intacct cloud finance software for financial services

LEARN MORE

116 Ibott

132 Top 10

InsurTech Women to watch in 2022

Insuring the shared economy and beyond

144

156

Connected motor insurance for market niches

Fast pharmacy service BioPlus grows with new technology

Ticker

BioPlus

M A RCH8.COM

IS HERE Telling the stories of driven, ambitious women in business and society...

V I SIT NOW

E D U C AT E • M OT IVAT E • E L E VAT E

VI SI T N OW

BIG PICTURE

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March 2022

Robotic Risk United States

Robot technology is being deployed by some of the world’s biggest insurance operators, to minimise risk to humans when assessing areas and situations that are inhospitable to people.

The technology enables claims adjusters to collect critical data and assist with claims handling optimisation to serve impacted customers more efficiently in areas that are deemed too dangerous for humans to venture into. Additionally, the robots may be used to handle non-catastrophic events such as structure fires, collapsed structures, water loss, or other potentially hazardous environments in the future.

insurtechdigital.com

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THE BRIEF “ALLOWING POLICYHOLDERS TO CAPTURE REAL-TIME DATA OF AN ACCIDENT USING MOBILE DEVICES AND SENDING THEM ACROSS TO THE INSURER OVER THE CLOUD” ASHISH DESHMUKH

Head of Banking and Financial Services, Newgen Software  READ MORE

“COLOCATION CAN BE AN ATTRACTIVE SOLUTION; PROVIDING THE EXTRA CAPACITY REQUIRED, WHILE ALSO ENABLING INSURTECHS TO BENEFIT FROM FAST, SECURE AND DIRECT CONNECTIONS TO CLOUD SERVICE

BY THE NUMBERS We asked you: What do you think of the new FCA pricing regulations?

46% Necessary

42% Bad

13% Good

PROVIDERS” MARK WHITE

Senior Manager – Financial Markets and Fintech, Telehouse Europe  READ MORE

“THROUGH THE RICH INTEL PROVIDED BY SOCIAL MEDIA AND TELEMATICS, INSURERS ARE ABLE TO BUILD 360-DEGREE VIEWS OF CONSUMERS AND USE REALTIME MONITORING TO TRACK THEIR HABITS” LORENZO GRAFF

CEO and Co-Founder, Bsurance  READ MORE

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March 2022

VCS TO BACK INSURTECH IN 2022 Global VC investment in insurtech grew from US$1.8bn in 2016 to US$10.5bn in the first three quarters of 2021 alone, so 2022 will be a big year for the space INSURTECH RECORD GROWTH The Insurtech market is estimated to grow by US$33.73bn from 2020 to 2025, and the market's growth is anticipated to accelerate at a CAGR of 45.29% EMBEDDED INSURANCE BOOM The growing use of API and automation software, compounded by the availability of open consumer data, shows that embedded insurance products will become imperative to the insurance industry

INSURANCE APIS ON THE RISE

This enables insurers to obtain a TPP license and gain access to customer payment information — with the consent of the customer. Such information can be used by insurers to personalise insurance policies and further enforce AI in the industry.

Indeed, the demand for embedded insurance is increasing; a recent report by InsuTech London, calculated that this market could be worth US$722bn in Gross Written Premiums (GWP) by 2030, led by growth in China and North America.

 ALLSTATE US primary insurer Allstate has announced fourth-quarter 2021 catastrophe losses of US$528mn, pre-tax, the majority of which came in December following a series of tornadoes

 INTACT FINANCIAL CORPORATION Toronto-based property and casualty (P&C) insurer Intact Financial Corporation has announced that its estimated catastrophe losses for the fourth quarter of 2021 are US$186mn, pre-tax.

MAR22

BAD TIMES

POS INSURANCE POLICIES The move means that providing insurance at the POS is now becoming a popular concept across the e-commerce space. For the buyer, the focus is on the need for a product, and for the seller, the focus is very much on the tangible assets within a business. This is where embedded insurtech comes in; the perfect harmony of insurance and technology bundles together relevant protections within the customer journey for both the buyer and the seller.

 ACCELERANT Accelerant enjoyed a US$193mn, private equity round in its recent funding drive led by Eldridge and including Deer Park, Marshall Wace, MS&AD Ventures, Altamont Capital

GOOD TIMES

Embedded insurance offerings look set to transform the insurtech space over the next 12 months.

Europe’s instroduction of the PSD2 regulation for online financial services advocates for the migration to open-sourcing and the free movement of customer data with third-party providers (TPP).

 BETTERFLY Chilean insurance-tech startup Betterfly plans to expand overseas after its latest mega funding round of US$1250mn swelled its valuation to US$1bn

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TIMELINE TELEMATICS AND THE ST RY F UBI UBI and telematics-based insurance is transforming the mobility and auto insurance sector. But, it’s also being used in other areas of the insurance industry too. We take a look at who invented it, how it became mainstream, and what the present demand means for future use cases

1960’S

Technologies that birthed telematics In the 1960s, the US Department of Defence developed Global Position System (GPS) technology. At the same time, Theodore G. Paraskevakos’s work on Caller ID led to the conception of M2M (Machine to Machine) communication

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March 2022

1978

EARLY 80’S

Scientists Simon Nora and Alain Minc were the first in the world to classify the technology and devised the term “Telematics” in a report to the French government

The EU commissioned research into vehicle telematics with the aim to improve road safety.

This was probably the beginning of wider telematics adoption in vehicles and its uses today

Early computer science

The EU takes note

EARLY 2000’S First UBI insurance is launched

EARLY 90’S

The first insurer recognises telematics potential Progressive Insurance was the earliest pioneer in the UBI movement. They recognised the value of telematics technology and patented a usage-based product in the mid-1990s

Progressive Insurance Company and General Motors Assurance Company (GMAC) began to offer mileagelinked discounts through combined GPS technology and cellular systems that tracked miles driven. These discounts were (and still are) often combined with additional benefits like roadside assistance and vehicle theft recovery

THE FUTURE Automation, AI and Big Data

We predict that the majority of auto insurance policies will be usagebased in the not too distant future. This movement is being driven by increasingly automated systems and the introduction of driverless vehicles insurtechdigital.com

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TRAILBLAZER

INSURANCE

T y c o o n JOB TITLE: PRESIDENT

W

COMPANY: ROSGOSSTRAKH GROUP

ith an estimated net wealth of US$2.8bn, Moscow-based billionaire Danil Khachaturov is president of the Rosgosstrakh Group — Russia’s biggest insurance company.

The 51-year-old divorced father-of-two is best known locally as the richest Armenian in Russia and is a somewhat elusive figure who avoids press attention and prefers to maintain a low public profile.

He has been divorced twice — once in 2007 from a woman whose name was never released to the press, and with whom, reports suggest, he has one child, and once in 2013, from Ulyana Sergeenko, a famous Russian fashion designer with whom he has a daughter. Other than these scant details, his personal life has been kept well under wraps.

From construction to banking Born in Moscow on October 30th, 1971, Khachaturov’s father was involved with construction. Initially, the young Danil followed in his footsteps. But in 1994, following an impressive academic performance that saw him gain a BA in Science from the Moscow Academy of Finance, and a BA from the Moscow Institute of Civil Engineering, it was clear the world of business was a better fit for the young Khachaturov.

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March 2022

DANIL KHACHATUROV

The Russian

© АНДРЕЙ ВЕСЕЛКОВ - СОБСТВЕННАЯ СЪЕМКА

19

insurtechdigital.com

TRAILBLAZER

© FORBES

Upon graduation, he sought a position at the privately-held BIN Bank, but later joined the oil company Slavnet, which at the time was headed up by billionaire Mikhail Gutseriev. Khachaturov was a fast learner and saw potential in business development that others missed.

A millionaire aged 23 By the age of 23, he was already a millionaire, having perfected the art of trading. In 2001, Khachaturov persuaded several partners to join with him and purchase the then-insolvent Rosgosstrakh Insurance company — more 20

March 2022

© ФОТО MILANA19 - ИЗ СВОЕГО АРХИВА

A year later, they bought the rest of the 13% stake still owned by the Russian Government.

Supported by his partners, Khachaturov had transformed the formerly state-run dinosaur of a company into an insurance industry-leading powerhouse with a US$3.4bn annual profit.

commonly known as RGS or RGS Group.

The group paid just over US$60mn in the transaction — mere pennies considering the potential.

By 2006, Rosgosstrakh was Russia's largest insurance company. It had US$1.528tn in premiums — and in 2007 and 2008, guided by Khachaturov, the partners opted to add the insurance company arm of the IFD Kapital Financial Group, consisting of Kapital Insurance, Kapital Reinsurance, Kapital Health Insurance, and Kapital Life Insurance to Rosgosstrakh’s assets.

Russia’s biggest insurance company Currently, Khachaturov is the Chairman of Rosgosstrakh, which is considered to be Russia’s largest insurance company boasting more than 25 million private and 250,000 corporate clients from all over the country, 3,000 regional offices, and 400 claim centres.

It also provides insurance products from car insurance to insurance of domestic animals and even spacecraft.

Today, Khachaturov’s reputation as the wealthiest insurance tycoon in Russia is well-established. But he also recently hit the headlines following the purchase of a mansion in the most exclusive part of Beverly Hills which set him back US$35mn. The canny businessman had, however, been able to secure himself a discount of US$11mn off the original price. Despite this, it was still the largest ever recorded property transaction for the area. insurtechdigital.com

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FIVE MINUTES WITH...

MEERI

REBANE AKA: Mrs Insurtech

AS THE CEO AND CO-FOUNDER OF THE BERLIN-BASED RENTAL AND PROPERTY INSURTECH, INZMO, MEERI REBANE IS ENJOYING THE CHALLENGE OF A RAPIDLY CHANGING MARKETPLACE. SHE TELLS US WHAT INSPIRES HER AND WHY A GOOD WORK ETHIC IS ESSENTIAL TO SUCCESS

Q. WHO WAS YOUR CHILDHOOD HERO AND WHY?

» My parents. They’ve always been

one of my biggest influences as well as my biggest supporters. My mother came from a humble background without the sorts of opportunities and privileges so many of us take for granted. She was extremely hard working but also was pragmatic and straightforward. Reflecting back, her work ethic was immense and it was incredibly 22

March 2022

inspiring to see what she was able to achieve. This has certainly impacted on me and my determination to succeed.

My father taught me to look at the world through the prism of humour. He has a way with words, is a brilliant storyteller and is really engaging. His sharp wit and ability to make people laugh never fails to hold people’s attention. I always wanted to be as funny as he is!

Humour is so important - some would say you need it in our industry! I’ve really valued these characteristics in my parents and they’ve made me the person I am today.

Q. W HAT'S THE BEST PIECE OF ADVICE YOU EVER RECEIVED?

» The best piece of advice was to ask myself

this question before I embark on any project: “Why are you/we doing this?”

The important thing about business is not what you do, but why you do it and I’ve applied this to both my professional and personal life. It helps to eliminate noise around you, gives a purpose and meaning to your actions and motivates you to achieve whatever goal you’re working towards. This is how I talk through company objectives with my teams and ensures we’re all on the same page and highly motivated.

Q. W HAT ACTIVITIES ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO DOING ONCE LIFE GETS BACK TO NORMAL?

» I had travelling plans in place before the pandemic to explore Asia and the US and

I’m really looking forward to revisiting these.

I’m also a huge fan of the arts, it’s been a big part of my life. I love classical music and opera, and am a regular theatregoer with a particular passion for comedy shows.

In my native Estonia we have a wealth of talented young performers who, like elsewhere in the world, have struggled with theatre closures. It’s so important we support our local arts venues and I will definitely be back in the theatre and opera houses as soon as it’s safe to do so.

Q. I S THERE A PERSONAL ACHIEVEMENT FROM THE PAST 12 MONTHS OF WHICH YOU ARE PARTICULARLY PROUD?

» On a personal level I’ve learnt to become

more patient! As a fast-growing startup and working in digital insurtech which rewards hyperspeed, I’ve been used to quick fixes, being always on and had the same expectation of my teams.

FIVE MINUTES WITH...

The pandemic however changed all of our working lives. No longer working in-person with colleagues meant I wasn’t always aware of their personal situations (and vice versa) and how they were having to adapt to address unforeseen challenges resulting from the crisis.

And, because of that it was important for us all and particularly the senior team members to be better listeners, more respectful of individual situations and

Meeri Rebane, INZMO - NOAH18 Berlin

understanding of the need for flexible working patterns as we found it had a direct impact on levels of creativity, productivity, and collaboration.

Q. W HAT INSPIRES YOU IN INSURTECH TODAY?

» The sheer potential for new innovations 24

March 2022

and technology to transform the insurance space is huge and there is plenty of opportunity to add value in the sector today. There is a clear opportunity for the consumer to benefit massively from digitisation and as it’s still in its infancy relative to other sectors I’m excited to be playing a role in driving this forward.

insurtechdigital.com

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Meeri Rebane (left) and Risto Klausen (right)

DISCOVER WHO MADE THE CUT. Top 100 Companies in FinTech Read Now

A BizClik Media Group Brand

Creating Digital Communities

MUANG THAI LIFE ASSURANCE

BUILT ON TRUST AND

SUSTAIN 28

March 2022

NABILITY WRITTEN BY: JANET BRICE

PRODUCED BY: JAKE MEGEARY insurtechdigital.com

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MUANG THAI LIFE ASSURANCE

At 70 years young, MTL has laid a strong foundation and is now moving towards a digitally-driven future set to revolutionise InsurTech in Thailand

M

uang Thai Life Assurance has been providing life insurance services to the people of Thailand, under the principle of integrity and fairness, for the past 70 years. It is now building on this strong foundation by creating digitally-driven, innovative products for ‘forward-thinking people’.

MTL is a major Thai life and health insurer and has exchanged ‘smiles’ with its customers, employees and agents since it was founded in 1951 by Chulin Lamsam.

Current Chief Executive Officer Sara Lamsam took the time to celebrate the company’s success with InsurTech Magazine.

“Innovation and forward-thinking has always been the DNA of Muang Thai Life Assurance,” he said. Lamsam has led the company for the past 17 years, as it has evolved from a life insurance provider founded with the intention of providing a social safety net, to investing in its own AI-as-a-Service firm to help it realise the full potential of artificial intelligence (AI) within the insurance space.

“The most important thing in life insurance is trust and honesty. Trust in the company, trust in the product, trust in the team as this provides sustainability for both our customers and MTL,” said Lamsam, speaking from the company’s head office in Bangkok.

“We aim to be a partner that customers trust through innovation. We have a dynamic pricing product, which not

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March 2022

Example of an image caption insurtechdigital.com

31

MUANG THAI LIFE ASSURANCE

Muang Thai

“We aim to be a partner that customers trust through innovation”

many life assurance products, saying “it’s companies offer,” said not just about sales and Lamsam, who also margins.” One example highlights the fact they of this is The Muang are a very strong brand Thai Smile Club, which in Thailand because of a offers customer focus, belief in working with the the ability to respond to customer at the centre. the needs of customers “We are the regional and is considered to be life insurance leader, more than a standard SARA LAMSAM which is strong in terms loyalty programme.

CEO, MUANG THAI LIFE ASSURANCE of finance, service and “MTL started off as image and under a a family business, and good governance and risk management although we still have shares, we now have system. We deeply understand the needs partnerships with banks and multinational and behaviour of our customers to deliver companies. We have a transparent suitable products and services to create governance structure, but we still have the financial stability and complete the lives of sentiments of working as a team. During a customers throughout their lifetimes.” time when everything is very dynamic we are Lamsam points out MTL — a familiar horizontal in the way we work as opposed to and friendly name visible throughout having a silo mentality,” said Lamsam.

Thai society — focuses on the lifetime of “We have a very strong brand in Thailand, the policyholder with dynamic pricing people always recognise us, and internally 32

March 2022

MUANG THAI LIFE ASSURANCE

we have a very strong team. We are starting to connect to an ecosystem of partners, especially hospitals or nursing homes that are beyond life insurance.”

How Aigen will revolutionise MTL Two years ago, MTL established Aigen, a subsidiary company of MTGH, which

TITLE: CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER INDUSTRY: INSURANCE LOCATION: BANGKOK, THAILAND

EXECUTIVE BIO

Digital transformation Dr Sutee Mokkhavesa, President of MTL, spearheaded the company's own AI -as-aService company and has driven the digital transformation.

“We've come a long way in the past five years, but we view our digital transformation as a never-ending journey that requires perseverance. It’s not a project, it's more like a continuous transformation that the company is undergoing as we experience this fast pace of change in technology.”

Mokkhavesa, who has been with the company for 18 years, pointed out the digital journey started with MTL creating a robust customer service platform that was unproven in the industry and faced questions over whether people would use the apps.

“When COVID-19 hit, people couldn't go to our branches, they couldn't go to hospitals, so the adoption rates skyrocketed and this has fostered the belief that consumers can change and they can change radically once you get it right.

“We were fortunate that we built the digital asset prior to the pandemic and it has a telemedicine app embedded within it. Typically, 70% of all hospital visits are for simple diseases which can be served by telemedicine. During the pandemic, more customers found it convenient and it was cheaper for us, so it was a win-win all around. I believe COVID-19 accelerated our digital adoption by at least a decade.”

SARA LAMSAM

With over 28 years of experience, Sara has led MTL to become a leader in Thailand’s life insurance industry. Sara has taken the leading role to enhance the life insurance business with innovative ideas, holistic thinking, and change management and transformation leadership in order to tackle major business challenges today. In addition, he has been involved as director in Fuchsia Venture Capital (Leading Financial Conglomerate in Thailand and SEA) for the longevity of life through innovation and technology.

Moreover, Sara has been actively involved in the enhancement of rules and regulations. He has worked as the president of the Thai Life Assurance Association and worked with the Office of Insurance Commission (OIC) to set a strategic roadmap to set new standards for the sustainable life insurance industry. In his professional experience, he has also served in many business positions in the financial sector.

In key, his examples are the chairman and director of the Thai Financial Planners Association and the chairman of the Federation of Thai Insurance Organisations.

MUANG THAI LIFE ASSURANCE

“ We recruited 30 best-inclass experts for Aigen and the mandate would be to work together with MTL and solve any technology problems and once they have this brain established they can sell this service to other industries” PRESIDENT, MUANG THAI LIFE ASSURANCE

have this brain established they can sell this service to other industries.

“The first use-case was on a death claim which used to take a claims manager 55 minutes. With AI it took six seconds - which is a massive productivity gain. I can then redeploy people to work on harder cases that need human intervention.

“Aigen is maturing nicely and what we are proving is the right people with the right culture and right incentives can innovate on the edge and create a high-value enterprise,” he said.

specialises in AI as they felt this was going to have a big impact on the insurance industry.

“We built a strong capability with 30 bestin-class experts for Aigen and the mandate would be to work together with MTL and solve any technical problems and once they

How AI can detect fraud Mokkhavesa said they are seeing great potential in AI helping MTL with Optical Character Recognition (OCR). This technology can help decipher an itemised bill from a hospital and identify any

DR SUTEE MOKKHAVESA

insurtechdigital.com

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MUANG THAI LIFE ASSURANCE

TIMELINE OF MTL 1951 As a financial institution that has been providing “Life Insurance” to the Thai society since its establishment on the 6th of April, 1951, MTL has been operating its business through quality life insurance product and service development, together with asset management. In addition, MTL is the first company to receive royal garuda.

INSIGHT...

1998 MTL divided its insurance business into life (MTL) and non-life insurance (MTI).

Also, MTL shaped the look of the logo and changed the slogan to “Company of forward-thinking people.”

36

2004 Muang Thai Group Holding joined forces with an important business partnership, “Ageas”, formerly known as “FORTIS” and started a bancassurance business with Kasikornbank Public Company Limited (Kbank). Moreover, MTL launched “Muang Thai Smile Club” as the first CRM programme for the life insurance industry, and MTL was rebranded.

March 2022

2009 Kasikornbank increased the shareholding proportion in the company in order to enhance the potential for developing the bancassurance channel in full scale.

2012 The company was converted into a public limited company to reflect upon its stability and compliance with good corporate governance. Its performance has been disclosed to the public while being audited to ensure that they are following the standards of the public limited companies.

2017 MTL launched “Fuchsia Innovation Centre” and “Fuchsia VC”, a new dimension of innovation to pioneer and develop products and services, enhancing accessibility and tailor-fitting them to each customer segment, and investing in startups focused on insurtech and wellness tech within the life and health spaces.

2019 Launch of subsidiary company Aigen specialising in artificial intelligence and building capability with best-in-class recruiting.

MUANG THAI LIFE ASSURANCE

“ The most important thing in life insurance is trust and honesty. Trust in the company, trust in the product, trust in the team as this provides sustainability for both our customers and MTL”

SUTEE MOKKHAVESA, PH.D. TITLE: PRESIDENT INDUSTRY: INSURANCE LOCATION: BANGKOK, THAILAND Sutee is the President of Muang Thai Life Assurance Public Company Limited (MTL), overseeing all management operations, investment, risk management, strategic direction, and digital initiatives.

Sutee holds a PhD in Applied Mathematical Finance from Imperial College, London. As a professional with more than 18 years of experience in financial services, he set up Aigen, a subsidiary of Muang Thai Group.

Aigen is an AI-as-a-Service company focusing on using deep learning to create solutions for the group.

He also teaches at various academic institutions and focuses his research in areas of Asset Management, ALM, Risk and Optimisation.

SARA LAMSAM

fraudulent claims, which can be in excess of 20% of total claims for the whole industry.

“We can see any fraudulent claims, such as any other medicines being prescribed, and analyse all sorts of things that we were not able to do before. Not because we didn't have the data, we had the data, but not in the right format.

“We are now working on OCR to read a doctor’s handwriting and contextual information. You may ask why we need this when hospitals will be digital in the future.

The answer is in Thailand, we have many sophisticated hospitals and those which are basic and still use pen and paper.

“It is estimated abuses and fraud in life insurance probably constitute for up to 20% of the total claims. MTL is a big company so even if we fractionally reduce this by 2%, that's a huge saving, so it makes a lot of sense.”

Thai Chatbot using NLP MTL has also built their own Thai chatbot using Natural Language Processing (NLP) and have seen some “spectacular” results

EXECUTIVE BIO

CEO, MUANG THAI LIFE ASSURANCE

MUANG THAI LIFE ASSURANCE

1951

Year MTL was founded

2020

Hall of Fame by the Office of Insurance Commission (OIC)

2,500 Employees

20,000 Agents

38

March 2022

MUANG THAI LIFE ASSURANCE

“We can see any fraudulent claims, such as any other medicines being prescribed, and analyse all sorts of things that we were not able to do before, not because we didn't have the data, we had the data, but not in the right format” DR SUTEE MOKKHAVESA

PRESIDENT, MUANG THAI LIFE ASSURANCE

when used against the complex Jumbo Health Policy.

“The chatbot makes the interaction from the agent to the customer seamless. It basically has two loops. The agents ask the questions, we train the bot, and by looking at the questions, we can go back and retrain the agents on the questions they should work on, for example ‘is physiotherapy included in the policy?’.”

Mokkhavesa said AI has the power to take on mundane jobs and provide higher value tasks to the team at MTL. Power of partnership with Loxley Orbit MTL also partnered with Loxley Orbit, a provider of cutting-edge cloud technologies and services, offering scalable solutions for companies. Mokkhavesa said, “we use Loxley Orbit to develop our services, such as our inventory systems, temporary receipt systems for our vendors to carry and they also helped us with the regional migration of our Google workspace platform for our 6,000 users from Lotus Domino.

The life insurance and health insurance industry is probably one of the biggest insurtechdigital.com

39

MUANG THAI LIFE ASSURANCE

INSIGHT...

MTL FOCUS ON THE FOLLOWING PRODUCTS AND SERVICES • Ordinary life insurance • Life insurance with payroll • Small tickets life insurance • Group life insurance • Accident and health insurance • Credit and mortgage Insurance • Selling life insurance through various channels such as through agents, through branches nationwide, through banks, through online channel and via tele-seller • Customer service centre • Customer loyalty program (Muangthai Smile Club)

industries in the world, yet it's the one most resistant to change. But I do believe that with the right incentives and the right demand by our consumers, it will change and it will change quickly, so everyone must be prepared for this.”

How collaboration with ZA Tech will innovate the InsurTech industry Sara Lamsam, CEO of Muang Thai Life Assurance, revealed that MTL has teamed up with ZA Tech Global Limited (ZA Tech), 40

March 2022

which is Asia’s leading technology venture company founded by ZA International and is supported by Softbank’s Vision Fund 1.

This synergy is made possible by the commitment of both organisations to create new experiences and innovations for the life insurance industry, including making it easier and more flexible for Thai people to access insurance products in line with the new world and changing needs.

Lamsam commented: “Throughout the past 70 years, the company has never ceased to be a leading player in the development of products and services for customers. During the past four to five years, the company has continuously developed in the digital field. Whether it is the establishment of the Fuchsia Innovation Centre, the launch of the MTL Click application, MTL Mini Click, the

MUANG THAI LIFE ASSURANCE

“ We deeply understand the needs and behaviour of our customers to deliver suitable products and services to create financial stability and complete the lives of customers throughout their lifetimes” SARA LAMSAM

CEO, MUANG THAI LIFE ASSURANCE

MTL Fit application, and many other services, and most recently, MTL has decided to take the next step on the digital path together with ZA Tech, one of the most famous InsurTech companies in Asia.

“This collaboration is an important combination of strengths. With Muang Thai Life Assurance having strength in innovation and product development, together with the strong capabilities of ZA Tech in the field of insurance technology, innovation can be carried out seamlessly, and we can create experiences that meet specific needs (personalised) of customers and various partners in the ecosystem comprehensively.”

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INSURANCE

INSURTECH STRATEGY: DIGITAL INNOVATION AND TRENDS As the insurtech sector matures, we take a look at the biggest disruptive elements facing the industry WRITTEN BY: JOANNA ENGLAND 42

March 2022

INSURANCE

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urrently, insurtech occupies just 2% of the global insurance industry. But that is changing fast as companies scale at pace and investors throw their weight behind the new digital insurance providers emerging in the space. According to the latest studies by Research and Markets, the insurtech market is poised to grow by US$33.73bn between now and 2025, progressing at a CAGR of 45.28%.

Needless to say, the industry is maturing in a multi-dimensional, omnichannel environment, where strategic collaborations with other providers and new technologies are racing to produce new and increasingly innovative products and services. In fact,

the environment is so ripe for creativity, that one of the defining success factors in a company, is how they decide which element to concentrate on in this swiftly expanding environment.

Big Data and KYC opportunities One of the biggest disruptive elements in insurtech is the increased access to Big Data. Times have changed, and with it, the way data is used to define and determine market trends. Just a decade ago, insurance companies relied on information being provided over a long period of time, and just from a few data point sources. insurtechdigital.com

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CELEBRATING

YEARS IN

PREMIUM FINANCE

1977-2022

We’re the most experienced provider of premium finance funding insurance for one in seven UK families and one in 20 UK businesses “Close Brothers have been a great partner – they’re one of the most trusted names in the industry.”

Richard King - Founder & CEO Ticker

Drop an email to workwithus@closebrothers.com Go to www.closebrotherspf.com

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“ WHEN IT COMES TO RECORDING EACH PARTNERSHIP IN WRITING, THE DEVIL REALLY IS IN THE DETAILS” RACHEL HILLIER CAPITAL LAW

Today, the amounts of data being produced, collected, and aggregated, come from a wealth of data points, and provide much richer insights into the marketplace, customer preferences and risks. Indeed, data collected over a long time frame, may not even be as relevant as data collected over a

shorter period, but from many more sources.

Tim McKenzie, director – cloud computing and location solutions at data integrity specialist, Precisely, explains, “We are seeing companies looking for ways to leverage cloud/big data computing to begin to organise and enrich data at scale to take advantage of the opportunities presented by the increased availability of data.

“In the property and casualty industry, location is a vital component of the business from underwriting, to predicting risk, to responding to catastrophic events and more. The ability to create efficient methods of organising location-based data into a format that can be consumed by modern technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning has become a very important strategy for capitalising on this influx of data.”

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INSURANCE

InsurTech Trends 2022 - Digital Transformation, Blockchain, and Web 3

“ DISINTERMEDIATION OF INSURANCE IS A TREND THAT HAS SLOWLY BEEN BUILDING MOMENTUM FOR A WHILE” STEPHEN DARRAH FUELLED

He adds, “Precisely’s methodology of organising data to a unique and persistent location key, along with providing thousands of location-based attributes already preprocessed for every location, has made us a natural fit in this new era of analytics.”

Technology and automation Managing Big Data is the second half of 46

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the equation. By 2024, reports suggest that 70% of the global insurance industry will have adopted automation technologies. The transition requires a lot of investment, but results in insurance companies becoming more profitable in the long term.

Steven Darrah, founder and CEO of Fuelled, explains, “Disintermediation of insurance is a trend that has slowly been building momentum for a while. Most associate disintermediation to be the removal of brokers from the value chain, but even trimming underwriting departments can be seen removing the middle-person nowadays.

“With the rise of new technologies, it’s easier than ever to increase profitability – it’s just taken the insurance industry a

INSURANCE

little longer than most to come around to the idea.”

He continues, “Simple and cheap automation can replace processes that used to be completed by humans. Often this can release human hands to complete more effective tasks that would be harder to give to a computer. In some organisations, however, the desire for automation will be to reduce overheads. Keeping overheads down and profitability up is a larger factor for businesses than ever before.”

Embedded offerings Embedded insurance offerings have slowly emerged throughout the past two years to become one of the most talked about new trends in insurtech. Embedded services enables insurtechs to form numerous partnerships with a massive spectrum of business customers who wish to offer cover products at the point of sale.

Automated and digitised offerings have been turned into a fully automated workflows, thus lowering unit costs and insurtechdigital.com

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“ WITH THE RISE OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES, IT’S EASIER THAN EVER TO INCREASE PROFITABILITY – IT’S JUST TAKEN THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY A LITTLE LONGER THAN MOST TO COME AROUND TO THE IDEA” STEPHEN DARRAH FUELLED

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enabling insurtechs to scale at pace. The cover is flexible too, and can be switched with a swipe or even automatically.

Embedding insurance resolves the traditional drawbacks of insurance because its fast, easy and personalised. These products are also becoming an additional revenue stream for companies across many industries.

Embedded technology exists mainly in the form of APIs that can be integrated into existing platforms, with very little set-up and a fast market delivery speed. Like open banking services and the BNPL surge, embedded insurance will become a massive discussion point over the next few months.

INSURANCE

Managing partnerships Perhaps one of the most defining strategies an insurtech can make, regards the partnerships it forms across the ecosystem. Forming a long-term, reciprocal relationship with another service provider can bring plentiful benefits and help that insurtech to scale at speed.

However, like all relationships, a number of legal and workable strategies must be put into place to ensure the continuation of a healthy and productive collaboration.

Rachel Hillier of Capital Law is an experienced regulatory lawyer and leads the Financial Services team explains, “Honest and frank conversations about these matters at an early stage are vital. When it comes to recording each partnership in writing, the devil really is in the details. Will an investor be entitled to have a director on the board?

How often does that director expect to attend meetings? What decisions of the company will require investor consent?

For delegated authority, there will be

“ WE ARE SEEING COMPANIES LOOKING FOR WAYS TO LEVERAGE CLOUD/BIG DATA COMPUTING TO BEGIN TO ORGANISE AND ENRICH DATA AT SCALE” TIM MCKENZIE PRECISELY

similar details in the delegated authority agreement (DA).”

She adds, “The parameters of that authority must be carefully negotiated and drafted into the agreement. Whilst the extent of that authority is important, exit and reporting provisions must be considered. Intellectual property and confidentiality clauses could all also be points of friction if not discussed and written into the DA at the beginning of the partnership.” insurtechdigital.com

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PIONEERING CONSUMER-CENTRIC INSURANCE TECH WRITTEN BY: BLAISE HOPE PRODUCED BY: JAKE MEGEARY

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COVEA INSURANCE

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COVEA INSURANCE

Covea Insurance has launched a microservice based policy admin platform that is driving huge change to an traditional industry through pioneering work with major partner brands.

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ovea Insurance PLC is owned

by Covea France, one of the largest insurers in France.

The UK arm was founded in 2012 and is something of a laboratory for testing new and innovative approaches in the marketplace. They’re the partner of choice for a number of high-street brands, providing award winning claims handling and customer service to match the reputation of their clients.

Graeme Howard, is Covéa’s Chief Information Technology Officer and the leader of a new era heralded by their micro service based approach to insurance platforms. Howard’s journey is a life lived through insurance and technology. A conservative and traditional industry, often slow and resistant to change, but where even minor change has an enormous impact on the end customer.

Covea Insurance Plc was officially formed through a 1999 merger of 3 smaller UK insurance companies. Howard’s charge allows for the incubation of Covea’s most ambitious changes and sees its new platform approach as the launch of a new era in insurance technology.

While applications of this technology are harder in an industry as traditional as insurance, that is precisely why digital

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COVEA INSURANCE

What's the secret to successful Digital Transformation?

“ I think it's really important that the insurance offerings meet the needs and desires of customer.

It's not necessarily about the cost of product” GRAEME HOWARD

CHIEF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, COVEA INSURANCE

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transformation here is so meaningful. Covea Insurance is a young, dynamic and large business with a heritage behind it, as well as the flexibility and evolution of its offering, fit for the digital age.

Fostering innovation in insurance technology Covea Insurance’s test and learn approach especially applies to the tech side of things, which helps foster innovation and allows Howard the autonomy to choose partners like Camunda and Dell.

The company has created a new micro services, event driven policy administration platform to support the new Vitality Car insurance product. This platform was created in partnership with Vitality and also utilising some of the insurtech Iotatech components.

That launched in June and a further enhancements to the platform are now in the works.

COVEA INSURANCE

GRAEME HOWARD TITLE: CHIEF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY OFFICER INDUSTRY: INSURANCE LOCATION: ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM A dynamic board level CTO/ CIO specialising in the delivery of disruptive transformational digital programs and Agile software development to drive organisational growth, performance, operational efficiency and profitability. Passionate about enabling disruptive digital innovation to flourish within the business while ensuring that technology is fully integrated into the business functions that it supports. Thrives in fast paced environments while combining distinctive problem solving and strategic capabilities with proven success in driving execution with customers, through both regional and global teams as well as virtual organisations.

EXECUTIVE BIO

The convenience of an API for carriers is something Howard is very excited about.

Howard began his career at British Aerospace as an engineer hired through the firm’s graduate scheme as a software engineer. Later, he moved on to Motorola Solutions, helping roll out radio systems across the UK, working his way up into more senior roles including Director roles in architecture and design of software solutions.

His last role was designing and implementing a standardised intelligent network management systems to support 350 Managed Service systems across the globe.

“Process automation, process definition, Six Sigma [process improvement], and really understanding, how to write business processes are critical” explains Howard.

“Creating those sort of cookie cutter approaches, to a blueprint of how we could operate an IT system, in simplistic terms, and then migrate that out across different networks, across the globe to multiple, different channels and hundreds of customers.”

Howard landed his first Chief Technology Officer role at global relocations firm Santa Fe as it embarked on a large-scale digital transformation for its 98 offices across 48 countries. He was later promoted to the global Executive team as CIO as the role out gathered pace and complexity.

“There's a lot of transferable skills,” he says, “but by moving industries, there's a huge amount of learning but equally, coming in new to an industry allows you to challenge some of the previous sacred truths.

After two years at Santa Fe, it was time for a new challenge. “I was looking for somewhere I could really get my teeth stuck into a major transformational role where I could really make a difference. I pretty quickly picked insurance as a sweet

I N N O V AT I O N REVOLUTION We’ll stop at nothing to empower you with technology that drives your business forward — from cloud, cybersecurity, storage and beyond. Because when organisations like yours can focus on innovation, the possibilities are limitless.

Dell.com

COVEA INSURANCE

“ If you don't put the hard yards in, if you don’t take that fight and that mantle forward, then nothing, nothing ever changes” GRAEME HOWARD

the digitization of banking had made an impact. So I was keen to try and find a role in an insurance company.”

That was when Graeme first encountered Covea Insurance: “We had a discussion and I think it was interesting that they were of the right sort of size to be able to implement a strategy. The leadership team were keen to do something different and it fitted with my aspirations and desire to drive forward.”

spot that I felt was ripe for disruption and I felt it was massively underserved from a digital perspective. There wasn't really a huge amount of change going on. You could see what happened within the banking industry and, and how much

Policy API and pushing for insurance-as-a-service Howard is very excited about the potential of Covea Insurance’s policy platform and the benefits it can bring to the sector as a whole.

“You can see where kind of open banking has gone with the data share and capabilities, So we are - particularly Neil Walker, our Head of Technology - helping

CHIEF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, COVEA INSURANCE

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COVEA INSURANCE

“ There's a built-up swell of change within the insurance market, not just about technology, not just about pricing, but just around making products much more sticky for people and giving the service that they really want and need” GRAEME HOWARD

CHIEF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, COVEA INSURANCE

to really drive the foundations and the regulations around open insurance. So our platform is going to be fully compliant with the Open Insurance Initiative [OII].”

The OII is the industry’s largest open source project and while Howard lauds his team’s work he also says there is still more to do, particularly with regard to machine learning and AI modelling and so the company has invested in created their own platform.

In an era where digital fraud has skyrocketed with lockdowns, Howard praises his team for their work in an industry that historically sees high levels of fraud: “The team are doing amazing things in not just fraud analytics, but leading the way with, with ‘ghost broking’, which is a particular bane of the insurance industry and quite hard to pick out, but the models we've created now are starting to really push us into a much stronger position in that area.”

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COVEA INSURANCE

Howard is looking ahead to a supercharged 2022, saying “I think the more data we get, the more information we can create, the more analysis we can do. Particularly as we move to more crossproduct data and cross-selling.

“I believe there's a huge amount of potential there, particularly when you look at different products at the same time, you start to get different patterns and get pretty passionate about it. It's quite exciting.“ How Covea Insurance maximises partnerships The policy admin platform launched by Covea uses Kong open-source software as its API gateway. While openness is important, Howards says working with select partners to great effect is the better strategy for continuing development. Camunda has really helped us to drive our orchestration capabilities and is a key part of our platform.

“We can work with other people we're sharing that information up front so we can both develop at the same time. It's really about that, that transparent way of operating,” says Howard. “We found that by broadcasting that data…enabled us to move forward with other partners and co-develop at the same time, so when you're all pushing into production it's less of a surprise!”

Howard says the fundamentals of a successful API rollout and development phase is having a clear understanding of working practises with partners you know well. “I feel with some partners, you don’t necessarily get the same level of closeness, it's not as symbiotic, it's more transactional,” he explained. “I think things tend to work better when you move from the transactional to a higher plane of collaboration with a partner.

Howard says a principle of developing meaningful relationships with partners is at insurtechdigital.com

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COVEA INSURANCE

“If you are willing to accept the status quos then what have you achieved?”

GRAEME HOWARD

CHIEF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, COVEA INSURANCE

the core of his development philosophy: “Less partnerships, but try to get deeper partnerships, so you get a true understanding of you, of each other. You can understand the business model that you are trying to support rather than it all being about your business model. I think it works a lot better when you understand what you need to do from each other, and you can really share that kind of experience to move forward.”

How insurance technologies put consumers first Howard joined Covea in 2019 and after three years remains impressed by innovative practises, technologies and people in the industry and the consumer-first approach being tackled by companies in the space.

“I think it's really important that the insurance offerings meet the needs and desires of customers. I strongly believe that subscription is something we should be moving into. There's some great companies that have done some amazing things with just consumer consumption based insurance. Providing solutions to questions likes - why do I need to pay £1,000 [US$1,338] a year when I'm only going to use the car for two months of the year, or how does my pet insurance work? I think there's just so many different things that we can do with that data and pushing information out to people and giving them greater choice.”

“It’s about choice,” says Howard. “There's a ground swell of change within the insurance market, not just about technology, not just about pricing, but around making products much more sticky for people and giving them what they really want and need.”

“There's some great companies really growing very, very quickly, and I think when you see that kind of hyper growth that really tells you they're hitting a sweet spot in the market and will continue to grow.”

His time with Covea has made Howard an advocate for the industry and the huge change it can create.

“I think insurance is an exciting place, technology's now right at the front and centre of what we are doing and how we're getting there. I think insurance has had a bit of a negative perception from people,” says Howard. “When I first joined a few people were asking me, ‘why are you working in insurance?’ But I think I'm working in insurance because it's hard and has been historically slow and the opportunity for change is vast.

“I think if you don't, if you don't put the hard yards in, if you don’t take that fight and that mantle forward, then nothing, ever changes. If you are willing to accept the status quos then, really, what have you achieved?”

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DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

GRAVITY RISING: BIG DATA AND THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY WRITTEN BY: JOANNA ENGLAND 62

March 2022

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

A look at the challenges faced by the insurance industry as Big Data gets bigger

E

very day, the world seems to move a little faster as technological advances connect businesses and people more efficiently.

For the most part, it goes on unnoticed. We barely register the fact that our broadband connections are now so swift that instant video streaming is an expectation, not a luxury.

However, the speed at which data is being gathered these days and the methods through with it is being collected, are increasing in both efficiency and number. Currently, according to Gartner, there are approximately 25 billion IoT devices in operation globally. By 2025, the IoT will comprise of more than 64 billion.

As 5G continues its worldwide roll-out and connectivity, as well as the speed and volume of data transfer grows, so will the amounts of data collected, and with it potentially, the issue of data gravity - a term given to the massive glut of information that is collected electronically by companies through the IoT, which is then stored, but not aggregated, and therefore, produces no useful insights.

Data gravity management According to a number of reports, data gravity in the insurance industry is predicted to double in volume annually by 2024. This presents all companies with the unique challenge of handling vast swathes of information that on one hand, can provide them with essential KYC insights, but at the same time, in the age of cybersecurity, become a legal liability.

David Sexton, VP & Head of Insurance Practice at global technology solutions giant, Cognizant, says advances in data availability due to several criteria such as the explosion of

“THERE IS ALSO SIGNIFICANT UPFRONT INVESTMENT NEEDED (TECHNICAL DEBT) TO MOVE [COMPANIES] TO CLOUD/DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION” JASON PAAU

PUBLICIS SAPIENT insurtechdigital.com

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DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

“BIG DATA IS LIKELY TO EXPAND IN WAYS WE CAN’T EVEN IMAGINE IN THE INSURTECH SPACE, BUT AS A START, THE AMOUNT OF DATA BEING COLLECTED AND ANALYSED WILL ONLY GROW” DAVID SEXTON COGNIZANT

smart cities, data analytics and modelling techniques, highlight the need for insurers and re-insurers to treat data as one of their organisation's most important assets. He explains, “Like any other asset, insurers must protect their data with utmost care.

Regulatory compliance requirements, such as GDPR, and data protection acts, form strict guidelines dictating the insurers to deal the data assets with the utmost care, under careful and authoritative data governance processes.”

The opportunities presented by Big Data But while the risk-reward ratio presents a distinct set of challenges, most experts believe it's weighted in favour of greater data collection. insurtechdigital.com

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DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

Sean Russell, Senior Data Governance Consultant at DTSQUARED, sees this double-edged sword as a great opportunity, albeit weighted in responsibility. He says the race is on to be among the first to capitalise on the potential for insights into customers, markets, and products. However, he points out, “It also means there are new regulatory requirements to consider, especially in the ESG, Privacy, Security and Ethics spaces.

Most importantly, it means that insurance businesses will need to see data as an asset and manage that data effectively.”

The change that insurers are facing in terms of managing these assets, should not be understated though, as more regulatory safeguards will need to be issued.

Real-time insights for a faster world Lorenz Graff, CEO, and co-founder of bsurance, says while insurers are used to the process of data collection, the future presents them with high-resolution data sources in real-time.

"Of course, insurers have been collecting data and using it for years – but it has been limited. Take, for example, a standard consumer risk assessment and evaluation.

Hereby, the onus is on the intuition and expertise of the underwriter, whereby the price and potential risk is informed by the most basic of data such as the policyholder’s age, address, occupation.

"But this is changing – and fast. Combined with the latest advances in computing power, the processing and analysis of this data when combined with internal material offers invaluable insights needed to inform better decision making in product development, distribution, marketing, and sales.”

Graff cites customer profiling as a prime example of the way data can be used, even 66

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though real-life contact with the customer is minimal. "Through the rich intel provided by social media and telematics, insurers are able to build 360-degree views of consumers and use real-time monitoring to track their habits. This data can prove invaluable in learning more about the customer to enhance existing solutions and even identify cross-selling opportunities – say, where the same demographic of customer is likely to purchase life and household insurance in close proximity.”

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

“

MANY STILL STORETHEIR VALUABLE CUSTOMER DATA IN DISPARATE SILOS ACROSS THE BUSINESS” JEROME BUGNET MULESOFT

Risk versus reward The pitfalls of increased Big Data - especially at a time when privacy concerns are a primary issue, cannot be understated.

Cybersecurity is a huge aspect of the risk/reward ratio, and as incidences have increased significantly since the advent of digital transformation and the pandemic, it looms large in the discussion.

Brian Mullins, CEO of Mind Foundry, describes it as a big threat. “Cyber-attacks and data breaches will continue and the

fallout from these is likely to get worse as our digital footprints expand. But opting out will often be even more detrimental than opting in and falling prey to an attack.”

Mullins says the optimal approach involves an understanding that increased access to data comes with risk but these risks can be mitigated with a careful, principled approach that, “utilises the best techniques of machine learning including continuous meta-learning, differential privacy, robust data governance frameworks, and responsible system design.” insurtechdigital.com

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DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

Jason Paau, Insurance Lead at Publicis Sapient, agrees. He believes there will be equal amounts of pros and cons to the increase in Big Data.

“It’s not black and white,” he says. “It will depend on how the industry establishes data governance and data management (governance and management will grow in complexity as data usage matures). This will also be driven by individual carriers based on their own assessment of the opportunity and costs” Paau says the risks will include stale data, in the form of “black box” decisioning by AI/ML that affect people’s lives, combining dirty/untrustworthy data. But he also says the benefits will include the potential for a holistic and accurate view to add greater customer value (and therefore loyalty), rather than a “one size fits all” with advanced data granularity in the form of personalised offers and products as well as, preventative cost-

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saving opportunities as IoT data on anything from truck maintenance to drone surveys, feedback vital information.

He notes, “There is also significant upfront investment needed (technical debt) to move [companies] to cloud/digital transformation” Edge of maturation But how can companies effectively aggregate their data to maximum effect? Which technologies are proving most effective in terms of handling the data surge? And which technologies hold the key?

Jerome Bugnet, Director, Solution Engineering of the hybrid integration platform, MuleSoft predicts APIs will be essential in enabling insurers to aggregate their data to maximum effect. As Big Data increases, he says, insurers will need the ability to integrate a growing number of data sources quickly and easily. This requires a high level of data agility that enables

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

insurers to manage and access Big Data more effectively, so they can use it to build sophisticated experiences for customers.

He explains, “Despite being rich in data, agility doesn’t come naturally to insurance providers due to their heavy reliance on sprawling legacy IT estates. Many still store their valuable customer data in disparate silos across the business. This makes it difficult to unlock the insights needed to power more personalised insurance products and better policyholder experiences.”

Bugnet says insurers use API-led connectivity, they can embrace a “composable enterprise strategy” that allows them to more easily draw data from any source to create a single view of their policyholders. This will put them in a far better position to maximise the value of Big Data for creating personalised experiences and building new partnerships.

The future of Big Data in Insurtech Most experts agree that there will be many challenges to overcome and many more changes to take place in the next few years, as insurtech further establishes itself among incumbents, and the IoT and connectivity develop. Sexton concludes, “Big Data is likely to will expand in ways we can’t even imagine in the insur-tech space, but as a start, the amount of data being collected and analysed will only grow. Areas of regulatory concern, such as ESG and ethics mean more data in these areas will need to be collected.

He adds, “Meanwhile, smart devices and other technological advancements will mean more actuarial, claims, and trend data.

Finally, environmental, and political factors will play an increasing role in how new products and offerings are developed and marketed. It’s an exciting time to learn more about data in the insurance industry!”.

“THROUGH THE RICH INTEL PROVIDED BY SOCIAL MEDIA AND TELEMATICS, INSURERS ARE ABLE TO BUILD 360-DEGREE VIEWS OF CONSUMERS AND USE REAL-TIME MONITORING TO TRACK THEIR HABITS” LORENZO GRAFF BSURANCE

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WRITTEN BY: RHYS THOMAS PRODUCED BY: JAKE MEGEARY 70

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UNDERWRITING RISK IN THE DIGITAL ERA

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Head of Technology James Wright introduces Beazley Group’s brand-new dedicated digital division and the future of digital, specialist insurance

I

nnovation and technological advancement have been at the heart of the Beazley Group since it was established in 1986. The specialist insurer has always remained close to the rapidly evolving industries it serves, with a client base that is highly diverse, in size, industry and geography, and leaders in their field. For more than three decades the group has experienced consistent growth, writing close to US$4bn of premiums in 2021, and with greater ambitions for the year ahead.

But as the world is changing, so is Beazley. In January 2022 the group launched a new division to elevate its digital capabilities and lead from the forefront of accessible, always-on insurance, rather than react to the demands of clients and trends in the sector. Beazley Digital is helmed by James Wright, an insurance veteran who joined the firm in 2004 and has held a variety of roles in the intervening 17 years. His latest charge as Head of Technology will see him grapple with new challenges, but also seize new opportunities.

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Example of an image caption

“We started to hear more and more from our brokers that they wanted simpler, faster, more digital ways of placing risk with us” JAMES WRIGHT

HEAD OF TECHNOLOGY, BEAZLEY DIGITAL

“We started to hear more and more from our brokers that they wanted simpler, faster, more digital ways of placing risk with us,” says Wright. “Our brokers want digital but they also didn't want to lose that kind of specialist, face74

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to-face, expert relationship that we’re known for. So we decided to bring together all of the talent from those digital channels into one division, to create a more joined up, holistic service back to our brokers, and to our clients.”

Beazley Digital is built upon an objectives and key results framework (OKR) - a common approach for technology companies - with five overarching objectives that define the division’s output. Not only does this carve a transparent roadmap, it also allows each

BEAZLEY DIGITAL

individual to understand how the work they do impacts and improves the outcome. It is important, Wright says, that the firm’s experts evolve as much as the technology itself.

Beazley Digital’s Five Key Objectives The first of Beazley Digital’s core objectives is brilliant basics, a commitment to get the fundamentals right and deliver an exceptional service in a very automated manner. The second is to meet brokers where they want to be met, creating from

the perspective of brokers rather than an insular ‘build it and they will come’ mentality.

“Our third objective is access to specialists,” Wright explains. “This is really important. We’re hearing loud and clear that our brokers and our clients still want to be able to access a specialist, whether a claims manager or underwriter, to better understand their risk. Fourthly - and this is becoming more common across the industry anyway - is using data to drive insight and leveraging that in our everyday business operations to better understand how our products are performing and what our clients want.”

The final mission statement is to do better, to continue to innovate beyond base level expectations. Refining Beazley’s current business is not enough for Wright. With a new cross-functional team freed from their ‘day job’ and able to focus on pioneering truly transformative projects, Beazley Digital is building for the future, a near future where the Amazon effect has already brought friction free, zero-touch accessibility to everything from finance to supply chain procurement.

“I’m sure we have a broker demographic that is becoming younger and much more digitally adept,” says Wright. “I think the way of doing business historically is probably not how it's going to be done in the future. Yes, in some markets the way that business is done is going to persist for the next few years, and that’s why we’ve got one eye on the future and developing those new channels that can really connect with our brokers in new ways to drive that digital efficiency.”

To do this, Beazley Digital is stepping away from how insurance firms traditionally prioritise products, instead focussing on distribution channels through which clients and brokers access them. Wright says the team is “very deliberately organised” to serve four core channels: APIs, leveraging insurtechdigital.com

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James Wright TITLE: HEAD OF TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY: INSURANCE

“We are changing how we work vendors and partners in terms of our agile method and realisation framework” JAMES WRIGHT

HEAD OF TECHNOLOGY, BEAZLEY DIGITAL

EXECUTIVE BIO

LOCATION: LONDON, UK

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James Wright is the Head of Technology for Beazley Digital he is part of the senior leadership team focused on developing and delivering seamless, intuitive digital insurance solutions for Beazley’s SME clients.

Before taking on the role within Beazley Digital he held the position of Head of US IT where as part of the US Management team was responsible for the end to end technology platform delivering specialist insurance products for both large and small commercial markets. James played a key role in scaling Beazley’s US operation through continued strategy development, internal partnerships, technology delivery and developing a vendor ecosystem.

Prior to his US leadership role James managed the Lloyds of London platforms and before that managed the infrastructure and operations division laying much of the core foundation that enabled Beazley to become an international organization. Prior to joining Beazley James held technology roles at Aviva and The Financial Times.

James has a passion for building cross functional teams that can work

March 2022

together in creating technology powered products that deliver value for all. He is passionate about taking inspiration from technology giants and making it relevant and applicable to small commercial insurance.

His breadth of experience in both technology and insurance enables him to add value in the alignment of technology delivery alongside the digitization of the insurance product, process and distribution strategy.

Deciding to not purse a Bachelor of Science degree James as continued his personal and professional development with formal technology qualifications combined with management and leadership training from London and Saïd Business School.

BEAZLEY DIGITAL

Microsoft’s cloud expertise to deliver safe and secure products and processes; a digital brokers’ portal; market hubs, where Beazley products are accessible to brokers in international, digital marketplaces; and email and phone, the traditional channels which remain the standard route for clients in the US and other major markets around the globe.

“So as I say, we’re working with our brokers and their needs and feedback, and that means we are going to continue supporting that traditional channel,” Wright says. “But we are going to bring new digital technologies to the fold, specifically around email ingestion and using things like NLP and data enrichment to improve that service without changing what fundamentally makes it work.”

To realise these objectives, Wright has embedded a philosophy of agility into Beazley Digital’s culture. Delivery sprints are biweekly, allowing the division to prioritise and react to emerging demands. Quarterly planning also allows the team to roadmap and deliver product changes in close to real time. It is a mindset that Wright also extends to the technology partners and collaborators that underpin the insurers digital offering.

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FOR SEVEN YEARS ENDAVA’S DEDICATED TEAM HAS WORKED THROUGH BEAZLEY’S DIGITAL JOURNEY Endava and Beazley, both global businesses based in the UK, have been working together for over seven years, during which time they have developed many products, among them Beazley’s e-trading platform, reporting services and other applications. “More recently, we have been helping Beazley in their digital transformation journey and their agile transformation process,” explains Gavril (Gabi) Halasu, Endava’s Head of Applications Management. “I think we are all seeing the value that’s been created right now, because Beazley is seen as a highly innovative company in the insurance world.”

This makes both companies an ideal fit since Endava, as one of the world’s leading providers of digital transformation consulting and agile software development services, has become well known for the innovative, low-code solutions it develops for its clients.

“We are a service provider working with global clients irrespective of vertical,” adds Design Lead Ioana Catinean, “Gabi and I however, have focused mainly on insurance clients for many years, for whom low-code platformbuilding is extremely beneficial.”

The partnership between Endava and Beazley goes back over seven years. Till then they were relying on in-house talent, hampered by spreadsheet-dependency.

Now this partnership delivers ongoing business value through teamwork. As Beazley’s Head of Technology James Wright said: “Endava has access to talent markets that we don’t. Endava provides that talent pipeline for us, which is crucial, and has empowered us to scale our ideas and concepts quickly using very strong engineers that we wouldn’t ordinarily have access to.” Implementing and developing products on Sequel Rulebook has been a game-changer for Beazley. “This has helped them a great deal in growing their client base,” says Gabi.

Endava brings much more to the table than IT capability. Its model of partnership delivers targeted and reliable results, at speed, for insurance carriers.

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BEAZLEY DIGITAL

Beazley Digital: Underwriting Risk in the Digital Era

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“Five years out, the real way to prove [digital] is by building a meaningful book of business” JAMES WRIGHT

HEAD OF TECHNOLOGY, BEAZLEY DIGITAL

Partnering for Digital Excellence “We are changing how we work with vendors and partners in terms of our agile method and realisation framework,” Wright explains.

“We’re ensuring that those partners are aligned with that way of working, and we're using a common set of tools and language to drive the right outcomes, bringing our vendors closer together in this environment.”

Endava is a key technology partner for Beazley, with delivery units around the world.

“What this means is they've got access to talent markets that we don't have access to. And given that everyone's trying to digitise at the moment, in every industry, there is a real war on talent,” Wright explains. “Endava provides that talent pipeline for us, which is crucial, and has empowered us to scale our ideas and concepts quite quickly using very, very strong engineers that we wouldn't ordinarily have access to.”

One example Wright points to is the Beazley Digital API gateway, a complex combination of proprietary, internally developed technology insurtechdigital.com

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BEAZLEY DIGITAL

“Winning the market is very important, but providing that true omni-channel experience, giving the client choice, is the really exciting part of what we're offering” JAMES WRIGHT

HEAD OF TECHNOLOGY, BEAZLEY DIGITAL

that relies on Microsoft’s Azure cloud infrastructure.

“Endava’s engineering team have been able to very quickly scale that operation up, so we can provide numerous products and services via API.” Under the bonnet, Beazley Digital’s products leverage Verisk’s Sequel Rulebook, a robust rules engine into which the insurer inputs its underwriting rules, logic, rating and documents. It’s something Wright needs to do, but partnering with Sequel goes beyond necessity.

“Sequel also have an ambition to move and digitise a broader part of the market,” he explains. “To do that they've got this concept called the Sequel Hub, which we’re a partner of, and that allows us to put products into a one-to-many environment, allowing lots of brokers to access our products. The reason we really love that is that it is starting to bring 82

March 2022

some standards to our industry.”

This product is surfaced to brokers under the MyBeazley brand, an evolving broker trading portal already on the market in four countries that illustrates where Wright’s division is headed. MyBeazley provides brokers with access to 14 products, providing instant insurance quotes and terms they can feed back to clients. It is an immensely customisable portal that Beazley has been developing for several years.

“MyBeazley has been built in a very clientcentric way; we haven't just taken the Sequel rulebook product off the shelf,” says Wright.

“Over the past three years it has been heavily customised, specifically from broker feedback, and as a result of that is being very well received by brokers. We’re even attracting underwriting talent as a result of having a system of that nature, and the plan

now is to launch that into Canada and the US. It’s a very solid example of how we’re using digital in a competitive way.”

The Future of Beazley Digital Beazley Digital is a brand-new division. While much of the insurance firm’s digital acumen is today centred upon the transactional elements of buying and selling insurance products, Wright is emphatic that a focus on channels before products will change that. It means providing a true gateway experience, where digital training materials about Beazley products will better equip brokers, where risk information is instantly available at their fingertips, and where having a video call with a specialist ensures Beazley’s reputation for access to expertise endures.

“We see that this as an experience that's much broader than just the trading portal element,” explains Wright. “That's really that's a core part of what our proposition is going

to become over time. Winning the market is very important, but providing that true omnichannel experience, giving the client choice, is the really exciting part of what we're offering.”

Over the coming year, Wright hopes to establish a digital foundation to build upon, an agile delivery framework, and “rather than just me saying it”, feedback from brokers that vindicate the division’s OKR approach.

“Five years out, the real way to prove that is by building a meaningful book of business,” Wright adds. “Across multiple territories, across multiple products, what we'd like to be saying in five years is that we're writing somewhere between US$400-500mn of small business and 80% of that is digitally underwritten, straight through processes, and with broker and client feedback being very positive about that.”

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Cloud Computing: HOW IT IMPACTS THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY MGA:TPA

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MGA:TPA

The ultimate guide to understanding cloud computing and how it can benefit the insurance industry as well as contribute to improving business efficiency

WRITTEN BY: DERIN CAG

C

loud computing has become a staple in the business world, and for a good reason. It offers a wide range of benefits to help businesses of all sizes scale without worrying about the upfront costs.

"There's no better way to optimise costs; gather, process and analyse data; and achieve the agility needed to meet the changes in demand and customer behaviour than cloud computing," said Franco Salonia, CEO at DinoCloud.

The insurance industry is no exception and can benefit from the cloud in many ways; to reduce costs, speed up processes, and improve data management.

This feature article highlights some of the benefits and drawbacks of cloud computing while exploring how it is being used in the insurance industry to improve business performance.

What is cloud computing?

One way to describe cloud computing is to think of it as a giant pool of resources that businesses can tap into as needed. It is a way to outsource IT infrastructure, software, and services so companies don't have to worry about the upfront costs or manage the technology themselves.

Cloud computing falls into three categories: public, private, and hybrid. insurtechdigital.com

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“ For the first time, cloud downtime insurance is making it possible for businesses to protect themselves from downtime events” NETA ROZY

CO-FOUNDER AND CTO, PARAMETRIX

• PUBLIC cloud is the most common and refers to services offered by companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. These are typically free or low-cost services that allow users to access applications, storage, and other resources over the internet.

"Allowing policyholders to capture realtime data of an accident using mobile devices and sending them across to the insurer over the cloud" is another example of how the cloud is being used in the insurance sector, according to Ashish Deshmukh, Head of Banking and Financial Services at Newgen Software.

Cloud computing is also being used in the insurance industry for "optimising and updating insurance workflows and processes," added Ivan Kot, Senior Manager at Itransition. "For instance, ML-enhanced cloud insurance solutions can speed up claim management, fraud detection, and other analytics efforts while reducing the error rate."

• PRIVATE cloud is a term used for internally managed clouds that a single organisation uses. This type of cloud computing offers the benefits of the public cloud but with more control and security.

• HYBRID cloud is a combination of both private and public clouds, where some applications or data are hosted in the public cloud while other applications and data remain on-premises.

How does the insurance industry use cloud computing?

Insurance firms have implemented numerous technologies in the cloud to enhance their business success. It is most commonly used to store data, process claims, and provide customer service.

As with any technology, however, the cloud also has some disadvantages. For example, it can be difficult to transfer data between providers, and it also holds distinctive challenges in terms of security and compliance. Another disadvantage is that bills can quickly stack up if organisations are not careful about what services they use and how much data they store in the cloud. insurtechdigital.com

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“ Insurance organisations are rapidly scaling their AI and cloud investments for all their core systems” SATEESH SEETHARAMIAH CHIEF BUSINESS OFFICER, EDGEVERVE SYSTEMS LTD

Nonetheless, improvements in cloud computing options outweigh the drawbacks, making it a valuable resource for businesses of all sizes. It is also proving to be a valuable asset from an environmental perspective due to helping companies reduce their carbon footprint.

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"Advances in cloud technology have made embedded finance, or 'banking as a service' (BaaS), a new and growing reality. Through a few lines of code and APIs, retailers can offer white-label financial products via their apps and websites in a win-win for the bank and retailer," said Joan McGowan, Head

MGA:TPA

of Financial Services Growth Strategy at SAS. "Two prominent examples include online retail giants Amazon and Shopify.

Amazon offers Amazon Payments, Amazon Go and Amazon Cash financial services -- and Shopify's financial solution comprises a remarkable 60% of the company's revenues."

A comprehensive package: a new way of looking at the cloud Compared to around fifteen years ago, cloud computing now offers a broader range of services than when the term first emerged. The market has evolved and

now offers a comprehensive package of services tailored to the specific needs of an industry or organisation.

"At the top of the list are AI and machine learning services that will improve automation capabilities and become game changers to those that apply them," added Dax Craig, President and Co-Founder at Pie Insurance.

This advancement means that businesses no longer have to worry about managing the time or resources needed to handle everything in-house or manually doing everything themselves.

"When it comes to the future of insurance, cloud computing is a huge component. insurtechdigital.com

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MGA:TPA

“ When it comes to the future of insurance, cloud computing is a huge component” COLIN NABITY

CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, BREEZE

The industry will continue to move away from legacy operations and towards decisions driven by data and predictive analytics, which are increasingly being used to digitise the insurance application process," added Colin Nabity, Co-Founder and CEO at Breeze.

Another development in the insurtech market is that cloud services themselves can now be insured. "For the first time, cloud downtime insurance is making it possible for businesses to protect themselves from downtime events," said Neta Rozy, co-founder and CTO at Parametrix. "This latest development in insurtech, being provided on a parametric basis, provides businesses with rapid payouts to cover any type of cloud downtime related loss."

Insurers have more time to consider the bigger picture as a result of cloud computing Rather than being bogged down by the day-to-day tasks of data entry and processing, cloud computing allows insurers to take a step back and concentrate on long-term strategic goals.

"Cloud computing allows us to spend more of our time building things that solve customer problems and developing 90

March 2022

proprietary technology and less time messing with servers and reinventing the wheel," said Jack Dubie, Co-Founder and CTO at Ladder. "Being cloud-native from day one has let us really invest in automation and utilise the 'infrastructure as code' approach."

In addition, cloud-based solutions can help reduce the time it takes to get new products and services to market. Many startups have gone from idea to market in a matter of months by taking advantage of this rapid deployment and pay-as-you-go capability.

"With the emergence of work from home environments, cloud computing brings the power of enterprise capabilities into every home while maintaining operational stability and security," said Nick Martin, Director of Managed Services at Mainstreet IT Solutions.

The bottom line The benefits of cloud computing are not only evident in terms of time saved or strategic goals achieved, but also in terms of the bottom line. Businesses can enjoy significant cost savings by moving to the cloud.

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"Insurance organisations are rapidly scaling their AI and cloud investments for all their core systems; gaining the ability to experiment, implement and scale the digital transformation programs," stated Sateesh Seetharamiah, Chief Business Officer at EdgeVerve Systems Ltd. "This has had a seismic impact on all critical functions of an insurance organisation, from distribution to underwriting and pricing to claims."

In conclusion, it is evident that cloud computing has a positive impact on the insurance industry by offering more comprehensive than ever before, making them an ideal choice for insurers.

“ Being cloud-native from day one has let us really invest in automation and utilise the 'infrastructure as code' approach” JACK DUBIE

CO-FOUNDER AND CTO, LADDER insurtechdigital.com

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AUTOMATING THE EXPERIENCES OF INSURANCE WRITTEN BY: JOHN O'HANLON PRODUCED BY: TOM VENTURO

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VIRTUSA

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VIRTUSA

Virtusa is a rock star of DPA and technology delivery.

I

nsurance is an old industry. The earliest insurance contract found dates back more than 3,000 years. The concept of laying off risk was well established in medieval Europe, and it's well known that the structure of the modern insurance industry took shape following the Great Fire of London in 1666.

It's nothing if not a mature industry, and it is all about managing risk. The mindset of insurers is cautious and does not readily embrace changes to long-established practices. So, it is no great surprise the sector has been slower than some, like manufacturing or distribution, to enter the cloud-enabled, data-driven era.

The industry has managed to adapt to the gradual shift in demographics from Baby Boomers to Gen X to Millennials and now to Gen Z, through its standard time-tested measures, says Ganesh Iyer, Head of Insurance at Virtusa. As with everything, however, the landscape changed dramatically once COVID-19 sent everyone home. “Never before has the insurance ecosystem ever had to deal with a situation that completely shut down physical and in-person interactions. Even their most technology-averse customer has had to adapt to dealing with insurance companies remotely through different media.”

As the leader of the insurance vertical, Iyer has a clear view of this huge sector: Virtusa is already relied on by the largest insurers in the United States and globally, helping them navigate the uncharted seas ahead without compromising traditional prudence.

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Example of an image caption insurtechdigital.com

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VIRTUSA

Automating the Experiences of Insurance

The DPA rock star Once they choose their Core technology platforms and trust them with their data, insurers are reluctant to change. There are so many companies operating in this huge and diverse sector, each with its own insurtech products reflecting its specialisations, as well as legacy systems it may have accumulated through M&A activity and its brokerage ecosystem. There is a danger in addressing problems in piecemeal, as they arise.

The answer to this is digital process automation (DPA).

Virtusa isn't the only DPA service provider in the field, but it does stand out: in its Q3 2020 report. Forrester evaluated 13 of the most significant digital process automation providers across their current offerings, strategies, and market presence, and concluded that “Virtusa is a technology and delivery rock star.”

Greg Price is Virtusa's Practice Leader, Digital Process Automation: that is his job 96

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“ It's only when you create a multi-talented team that the magic can happen!”

GANESH IYER

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT & HEAD CLOUD AMERICAS, VIRTUSA

title, but he also describes himself as chief solution architect for intelligent automation, and with 25 years as a software developer and architect behind him, much of it in the insurance industry, his job is hard to encapsulate in a few words. The practice he leads spans multiple verticals, but he confesses to a particular fascination for insurance clients.

Process automation and digitisation through DPA are essential for two main reasons, driving efficiencies to compete

VIRTUSA

on price, and raising customer experience from acceptable to remarkable.

“Insurance may have been something of a laggard but it's waking up to the possibilities of hyper-automation, which is like DPA with an aggressive agenda to create automation that spans across multiple different processes to tell the living story right across the value chain and silos. Hyperautomation transcends these: “We're able to lay an orchestration layer across the stovepipes. Essentially, we deal in the digitisation and automation of the process to remove friction from the customer experience and to optimise efficiency.”

TITLE: E XECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, INSURANCE LOCATION: UNITED STATES Ganesh Iyer is responsible for driving revenue growth and setting strategic direction for Virtusa’s Insurance business in North America. He has over 30 years of experience in the Technology services, including outsourcing, systems integration, and consulting services.

With over two decades of working with Insurance, he has a deep understanding of the unique challenges faced by the Insurance sector and the factors

EXECUTIVE BIO

Architectural pace-layering Virtusa’s architectural approach places a low-code-no-code DPA platform on top of the insurer's legacy systems and permits a 360-degree view of the customers and their history in a channel-less environment – to be customer-centric, not policy-centric or risk-centric. “Insurance carriers don't want any interference with their brittle legacy systems of record. We must provide cohesive articulation of processes over the top to relieve their burden of technical debt.

The architectural paradigm is called pacelayering wherein systems of record remain unaltered, systems of differentiation is enabled through DPA platform, and systems of innovation on top enable new efficiencies and experiences. It allows us to change our systems of differentiation frequently without touching and adding risk to their systems of record.”

That applies to all the insurer's systems, not just the records that may have been in place 30 years or more, he adds. If the insurer is implementing a core insurance system like Guidewire, then resist the temptation to meddle with it because that

GANESH IYER

impacting the successful implementation and execution of solutions, change management, and effective operational governance programs leveraging global delivery models. Prior to joining Virtusa, he has held leadership positions in large consulting organizations in the Insurance, Healthcare and Life Sciences business.

will just increase technical debt. “Every time you customise, you get further away from the product lifecycle that is carefully managed by Guidewire. Instead, if you really need to customise, do it in the differentiation layer.”

To deliver on their automation agenda, Virtusa helps insurers to 'pick a right swim lane', aka process for specific automation technologies. Reach for the optimal amalgamation of tools, or accelerators, to adopt from the width of available technologies, eg business process management (BPM) suites, such as Pega, Appian, IBM Smarter Process and some insurtechdigital.com

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Pega and Virtusa Pega with Virtusa develops true low-code no-code software platforms for insurance carriers “If we face a really complex problem, we reach for Pega,” says Greg Price, Chief Architect for Intelligent Automation at Virtusa.” Founded 39 years ago, Pega now has revenues of over $1bn. Much of this growth has been driven in the last five years by the insurance market, where Pega is now seen as an essential partner.

Michelle Gaertner, Pega’s Managing Director of Enterprise Accounts, specialises in this key sector. “We’re focused on helping insurers find new ways to harness untapped economic value using Pega lowcode no-code software, for the intelligent automation of business applications.

Customers can view all transactions through a single pane of glass – a customer decision hub that allows them to up-sell, cross-sell, and retain their clients.”

Pega acquires data in real time unlike many competitors that replicate it in their applications, and derives insights applicable to any business process. “Our software handles both simple and highly complex transactions, through what we call the situational layer cake. It allows us to

define things that are common across the enterprise; and users to manage complex variations without rework or duplication.”

In the early days, Virtusa built the engine that generates the core Java code that underpins Pega’s architecture, so their relationship couldn’t be closer – it’s also a key modernisation partner for many Pega customers. “Virtusa is our key partner in helping customers transform and leverage their legacy Pega investments into an adult, channel-less customer experience application. When my team gets to work with Virtusa in deploying Pega applications, we know that the longterm success of the customer is in really good hands. They are a key partner, especially in the insurance space.

“We’ve built the industry’s leading realtime AI engine, integrated with the best digital automation tools available, handling millions of interactions a day.

Insurance carriers want straight-though claims, underwriting, and complaints processing.” Pega Process Fabric, another recent innovation, facilitates the faultless user experience insurers strive for.

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VIRTUSA

Outstanding collaboration Among the many hundreds of collaborations Michelle Gaertner recalls redefining the global claims process for one of the largest global insurers was memorable. “Our customer had a global claims process that had become fragmented, with over 140 disconnected legacy systems across 90 countries, unconsolidated data and uncontrolled TCO leading to inaccurate claims settlement. Virtusa and Pega partnered together to successfully establish a collaborative multi-vendor ecosystem that helps them, improve the claims handling significantly.”

This is precisely the problem that will be recognised by almost all insurance carriers, she says, and one which is resolved by the 'layer cake' architecture these companies have refined to allow users to manage complex variations without rework, duplication, or interference with core systems. “Most of our successful customers have leveraged that capability to deploy 40-plus applications across their organisation on Pega's platform.”

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open source solutions like Red Hat, jBPM or Camunda.

“We maintain partnerships with most of these, also with robotic process automation (RPA) specialists like Blue Prism, Automation Anywhere, WorkFusion, and low-code platforms like Pega, Unqork and Outsystems We know that the properties of an automation word problem will really guide our way. If we let the process tell us what it needs, we'll know what tool to reach for. If we face a really complex problem, we might reach for Pega. I feel like I’m an objective architect, eager to do what is right for the customer and what’s appropriate for the business’ word problem. But I calibrate Pega a little differently from other DPA-

“Insurance carriers are seeking a unified customer experience, and a unified view of the customer” GANESH IYER

EXECUTIVE VP INSURANCE, VIRTUSA

type platforms. Pega seems to be the most complete amalgamation of DPA capabilities in one platform.

For insurers, the technical debt they carry is like innovating with a piano on your back, says Price. On the most basic level they need to eliminate paper, something they hold onto stoically in the fear that their older users aren't ready for digital transactions, but he feels that is unfair to the techsavvy 'baby boomers'. But more carriers are beginning to focus on removing paperbased processes and adopting OCR and ICR, and Process Fabric, a business architecture pioneered by Pega that weaves together business processes, case management, and workflows across all systems and platforms. insurtechdigital.com

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“I think insurers are overcoming their fear of artificial intelligence (AI) and the cloud and are less worried that they will be taken somewhere they don't want to go.” Virtusa as a long time partner with Google, Amazon Web Service (AWS), SAP and others can be very confident in the security of these cloud environments.

“We're seeing that carriers are starting to come along and develop a cloud-first agenda with any modernisation work they're doing.”

Pegged to Pega From what Price says, it is clear that Pegasystems (Pega) has something special.

The two companies are more than partners and have an organic relationship going back to 2002. Virtusa is Pega's most tenured partner and the only one to partner with it in developing products for the financial

GREG PRICE TITLE: C HIEF ARCHITECT AND PRACTICE LEADER FOR INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION LOCATION: HOUSTON Greg Price is the practice leader

EXECUTIVE BIO

and chief architect for Virtusa’s

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Digital Process Automation with nearly 30 years’ experience providing transformation strategic consulting, enterprise and solution architecture, engineering services, and innovation with responsibilities for competency development, practice building, solutions curation, and client adoption of process enablement technologies.

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services, insurance, healthcare, telecom, media, and manufacturing industries.

As Pega's Insurance Director, Michelle Gaertner explained: “Nearly 20 years ago, Pega joined forces with Virtusa, at that time a software engineering firm, to help the construction of product level configuration and build out some of our strategic applications. That gives Virtusa's product engineers a unique intimacy with the underpinning of Pega's architecture.”

To this day, Virtusa has engineers working inside Pega. It has executed more than 200 DPA programmes that include some of the largest Pega Implementations in the world.

Iyer also is keenly appreciative of the bond between the companies. “As a foundational partner, Virtusa is one of the few who really understand the Pega architecture.”

Multi-faceted differentiation Virtusa stands out in many ways as an enabler for transformation. With an overview from a vantage point of his 30 years in technology services, however, Ganesh Iyer can show how his organisation is uniquely structured.

“When you look across the spectrum, you see at one end the consulting players who tell you how to do it without actually doing it and at the other a number of lowcost outsourcing providers. Virtusa's strategy sits in the middle, so we can consult, design and also execute. That places us in a unique position. Technology used to enable business, now technology is business!”

Iyer says coming out of a software engineering, rather than development, background gives Virtusa a unique DNA. “We don't see development as a one-time

activity but as something we can constantly reuse. What sets us apart more than anything is this DNA, and the fact we are a truly digital engineering company.”

This also means that Virtusa is ideally placed to help insurance customers navigate the post-pandemic landscape they suddenly find themselves in. “Insurance carriers are used to making in-person transactions conducted through brokers,” Iyer says, “so remote working radically changed the dynamics of an industry that finds itself dealing with customers who expect a seamless experience irrespective of how they communicate. This revolution sets us squarely in a place where we can help those customers who are figuring out how to become truly digitally savvy.”

He cites the example of a mediumsized insurance company that is part of a insurtechdigital.com

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large Japanese conglomerate, that wanted to modernise and cast off the shackles of tradition. “They looked at how to ensure that their brokers and agents could react seamlessly with their systems. They put in a lot of time and effort into a platform connectivity strategy that we are developing for them to modernise the whole exchange of information between them and all third parties through employee, agent, and other portals.

“At a larger scale, we're helping one of the largest insurance carriers globally to

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ensure that there is one look and feel for everybody who deals with it and its local companies. Each country may operate its own different systems. Virtusa helped them set up a global service platform, and to conceptualise it from an architectural standpoint. We then set about executing it so they have the same base functionality repeated in every country.”

At the end of the day, he concludes, what insurance carriers always have as their priority is user experience.

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“ Pace-layering allows us to change our systems of differentiation frequently without touching their systems of record” GREG PRICE CHIEF ARCHITECT AND PRACTICE LEADER FOR INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION,

“They are seeking a unified customer experience and a unified view of the customer. A large global insurance company wants multinational underwriting, the ability to manage multiple underwriters using a single contract. We built it for them – the most sophisticated platform, future-proofed using the latest technology.”

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TECHNOLOGY

Uploading: The IoT and InsurTech in the year ahead THE IOT IS REDEFINING SO MANY ASPECTS OF BUSINESS GLOBALLY, WITH SIGNIFICANT IMPACTS ON INSURTECH

WRITTEN BY: JOANNA ENGLAND

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S

o much has changed over the past decade in terms of risk assessment, incentives, underwriting, and claims responses.

Much of this can be laid at the door of the IoT (internet of things) as popular, wearables, connective devices, and sensors send insurers vital information that forms insights, providing customer profiles and risk assessments that can accurately predict the future.

Alongside the data collection and constant customer connectivity, come creative incentives, made more user-friendly through gamification technologies. The insurance industry has never looked so dynamic, but this incredible shift is just the tip of the iceberg.

TECHNOLOGY

Avoid the Top 5 Most Common Open Source Vulnerabilities Within Financial Organizations Learn what open source vulnerabilities are commonly found in financial services organizations.

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TECHNOLOGY

The IoT and legacy systems But as insurtech currently occupies just 2% of the global insurance industry, to what degree are IoT devices influencing events - and which areas have seen the biggest uptake? Furthermore, What are the biggest challenges faced by insurtechs in terms of managing the data they collect, and why?

Mark White, Senior Manager – Financial Markets and Fintech at Telehouse Europe says the amount of data being collected, poses the biggest challenge. “Insurtechs recognise the value of data and increasingly want to use it to inform decision making.

The problem is the sheer volume of data can easily become overwhelming and many don’t have the right IT infrastructure to support it.”

However, he points out that many are still reliant on inflexible, legacy on-premises infrastructure which puts them at risk from newer entrants, the

majority of which are now cloud-native.

“To succeed, they need the ability to quickly ingest and process data and this will be dependent on having a connected, secure, reliable, scalable, flexible, resilient, and low latency IT infrastructure.

Colocation can be an attractive solution; providing the extra capacity required, while also enabling insurtechs to benefit from fast, secure and direct connections to cloud service providers.”

IoT change and influence With this in mind, it's important to understand just how much IoT devices are influencing events in the insurtech sector - and which areas have seen the biggest uptake. Peter Heywood is regional director, Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance, at ISG. He believes the transition has been happening for a long time, and the most

“ IoT devices should be isolated from existing production networks while technologies such as firewalls and intrusion detection and prevention systems should be configured and enabled” MIKE MCGRATH

BRIDEWELL CONSULTING insurtechdigital.com

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critical changes are happening at the data management level.

He says, “IoT in insurance isn’t new, although the term IoT might be. Blackbox insurance – both for personal and fleet use has been used widely for more than a decade.

More personal technology and devices, such as smart watches, are more recent. The size of IoT sensors and the ability to be integrated with low-power sources, at high resolution and accuracy, and at low cost, are driving the wider adoption and integration into the insurance value chain.”

Heywood says an interesting area of development is in managing issues that would have previously been highly intensive and highly error-prone, or have high dependencies on external agencies. He explains, “An example of this is flood insurance, where there are many thousands of claims in a short period of time. Using IoT data on the water levels, combined with drone imagery, has

virtually removed the need for adjusters to visit sites, which can often only happen many months after the claim.”

Security, wearables, and personal data concerns As the digital footprint expands, so do the opportunities for crime, and cyber-attack has become synonymous with this period of intense digital transformation. The stakes have never been higher as companies stream in data in real-time directly from customers, and hackers develop more ingenious ways of infiltrating them.

Mike McGrath, Senior Lead Penetration Tester at Bridewell Consulting says IoT security needs to be taken very seriously especially in this period of intensive innovation and disruption. “When you look at the applications where IoT devices are becoming widely used, there are serious implications if the devices implemented are not secure.

IoT in Insurtech

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“ Using IoT data on the water levels, combined with drone imagery, has virtually removed the need for adjusters to visit sites”

technologies such as firewalls and intrusion detection and prevention systems should be configured and enabled. End-to-end encryption technologies should also be utilised to ensure any data that is being transmitted is secure.”

TECHNOLOGY

PETER HEYWOOD ISG

“There are a few steps businesses should take to ensure the security of the IoT devices they’re implementing. Firstly, they should look at limiting physical access to the devices, ensuring only authorised users can access these. Unauthorised physical access can lead to changing the device’s configuration with malicious intent or installing malicious firmware.

“They should also change any default passwords and credentials from the manufacturer and enable multi-factor authentication if the device supports it.

Wherever possible, it’s also important to disable any unneeded protocols, especially any that transmit unencrypted data (Telnet, FTP) as this can be trivially captured and manipulated. It’s also worthwhile disabling Universal Plug and Play Protocols (UPnP) which are usually enabled by default. These allow devices to modify your router, allowing access from outside the business network.

“Finally, IoT devices should be isolated from existing production networks while

Challenges in IoT management Heywood believes better regulation is at the heart of the solution and pinpoints several areas he believes are ripe for an overhaul. If these changes don’t happen, the challenges will continue, he says. He cites four main elements, including; • Regulation. Data privacy (for example under GDPR) and workers’ rights are major challenges for collecting data from individuals. These are already top of mind for Chief Regulation Officers and Chief Information Officers in all the big insurers, so adding another level of complexity of personal data makes it even more insurtechdigital.com

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“ Colocation can be an attractive solution; providing the extra capacity required, while also enabling insurtechs to benefit from fast, secure and direct connections to cloud service providers” MARK WHITE

TELEHOUSE EUROPE

challenging. Under GDPR, 'the right to be forgotten' (when a customer leaves the company and their data must be purged) can make this more problematic and error-prone.

• Cost of data. IoT-linked devices produce mind-boggling levels of data. Cisco estimated that IoT devices produce 500 zettabytes (one zettabyte is one trillion gigabytes) per year. This has a real cost.

Of course, some smart data management techniques exist with cloud technologies, such as compression and purging - but these are band-aid fixes rather than true data management strategies.

• Volume of data. The challenge is to ‘find the needle in the needle stack’, as it has been described. The level of processing and time required to find 'reasonable' results often prohibits insurers from taking advantages of real-world operational cases such as motor claims with a 24-hour response to First Notice of Loss.

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Model explainability and basis. The increase of modern machine learning techniques, which include neural networks, have dramatically improved our ability to understand sparse and complex datasets. However, there are still challenges with the explainability of such models (particularly in underwriting and claims management) from a regulatory point of view.

“There’s also an increasing focus on the alignment of inclusion and diversity in these models,” Haywood says. “That means ensuring models used for analysis are 'basis free' and not hindering (or benefiting) certain groups based on external factors such as demographics.”

Technological breakthroughs in insurtech As technology marches forth, connectivity will play a major role in turning insurtech into a mainstream service, increasing its marketplace space from 2%, to the dominant force in the industry.

White says, “5G will offer many benefits for Insurtech companies including reduced

TECHNOLOGY

should be focused on improving the foundations of their data operations by improving areas such as data governance instead of relying on shiny new things like 5G. Bottom line, 5G will be a nice boost to digital operations in the insurance sector, but the industry can’t kid itself that it hasn’t got a lot of work to do on its foundational data processes before reaping the benefits of 5G.” latency to help decrease transaction and settlement times. It will also facilitate the adoption of AI to enable greater personalisation and improvements to customer experience.

“Typically, whenever a new wireless communications technology is introduced, the volume of data used increases significantly.

This additional data traffic will put more stress on backbone networks, and many will need to find ways to increase their available bandwidth and likely data centre capacity.”

However, Chris Gill, Director of Risk and Insurance Markets, Over-C, believes the increased connectivity of 5G will simply enhance the services offered by insurtechs, rather than play a marked role in increasing its adoption. He also says legacy insurers must re-evaluate their data systems and make sure they are adequately prepared.

“5G only really serves to enhance current data processes rather than transform them,” Gill points out. “The insurance industry

The IoT in a decade With such rapid expansions and new technologies skyrocketing, it’s hard to predict what the future of the IoT will look like in relation to insurance. However, it's likely that the latest innovations in augmented and virtual reality, gamification, and the Metaverse, will all play a role in this increasingly complex world. Gill believes the next 12 months will play a vital part in shaping which directions insurance will shift in.

He says there are some huge opportunities for the commercial insurance sector if they can connect and utilise the power of their customers' IoT effectively, from gathering dynamic risk data and, ultimately, to develop a deeper understanding of their customer’s risk quality.

“Customers who have embraced IoT have experienced significant improvements in ESG, risk reduction, and claims defensibility.”

In terms of trends to watch out for, Gill says many more insurers monitoring insurtechdigital.com

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“ IoT and 5G will continue to proliferate into our lives – our homes, cars, offices. The ability to harness the value from this data is the most important and challenging next step for Insurtechs. Major” CHRIS GILL OVER-C

dynamic risk factors in near time, enabling them to select and price commercial Casualty and Property policies more accurately for customers and offer more focused additional value add services through claims and risk solutions.

Heywood agrees, and says a number of insurtechs are already taking a radical approach to data aggregation, which will be key in guiding the future of insurtech.

“IoT and 5G will continue to proliferate into our lives – our homes, cars, offices.

The ability to harness the value from this data is the most important and challenging next step for Insurtechs. Major insurers are increasingly working closely with and investing in Insurtechs, many of which are in the IoT area. For example, Allianz launched their 'open space' which allows developers to actively participate to solve some of the largest challenges in the industry.”

He adds, “Insurtechs should focus on greater data aggregation and the use of alternative data within processes, such as underwriting and claims management.

The most successful Insurtechs will find the 'golden' combination that enables them to consistently provide predictive results.”

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IBOTT

Insuring the shared economy

and beyond WRITTEN BY: JOANNA ENGLAND PRODUCED BY: JAKE MEGEARY

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Head of ibott, Chris Moore, tells us why Insurers need to start paying more attention to the growing Sharing Economy

I

n January 2019, Apollo Syndicate Management, the independent specialist insurer and reinsurer, announced the appointment of Chris Moore as Head of ibott (Insuring businesses of tomorrow for today) and Deputy Active Underwriter of ibott’s special purpose arrangement (SPA) 1971 at Lloyd’s.

Fast-forward to 2022, and Moore, who is known for his proactive leadership style and passion for innovation, is relishing the role that is leading ibott and its offerings from strength to strength.

Moore, a mathematics graduate of Bath University who always wanted to work in the insurance industry, is not one to shy away from a challenge. He admits he took a somewhat unorthodox dive into his first role in the space.

He explains, “I had visions of being an actuary and quickly realised that probably wasn't for me, so tried to transit into underwriting. However, I'd missed the graduate scheme intakes and so tried to find a different route into the industry which proved fairly challenging. Then my friend told me how he'd accepted a job at Deloitte to be a consultant and he was going to cancel an interview with an insurance broker the next day.”

Moore saw his chance and took the slot for himself. "I told him not to cancel it, and then turned up and stole his interview with my CV. I think they appreciated the audacity and gave me the job there and then."

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ibott: Insuring the shared economy and beyond

“ You feel like you are a small part of that journey because you have enabled them to achieve their goals by making insurance an enabler and not a blocker. It’s fun” CHRIS MOORE HEAD OF IBOTT

The calculated risk paid off, and Moore began work as a broker, transitioned into underwriting at Catlin, and then two years into his career, grasped the opportunity to join Apollo - a new Lloyd’s syndicate - to help establish a new Casualty practice.

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Adopting a new approach for new risks The move proved to be another advantageous one for Moore, who thrived in the innovative environment of Apollo. “It was almost like a startup in itself, which is quite rare in the Lloyd’s environment,” he says, outlining the company’s background.

"It's called Apollo because the original investor was Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon; the Syndicate number 1969 was chosen both to mark that event and to be symbolic of the challenge to the status quo that Apollo sought to pose”.

Moore says Apollo's attitude to innovation, and the way the company embraces the client-first culture, resonated deeply with him. The company was one of the innovators behind building a first of its kind global solution for Airbnb in 2014.

The biggest challenge with the product for Airbnb was the element of trust, explains Moore. "To create trust in their marketplace, Apollo needed to ensure the nights stayed,

IBOTT

which were located in various people’s homes, were insured well enough to generate trust in the product."

Central to the challenge lay the concept of ownership, says Moore, which the insurance industry, in general, is rooted in. It was the disruptive ability of Apollo in acknowledging the changing marketplace and the potential of the Sharing Economy that led to its product innovations.

Moore says, "The insurance industry is fascinated by ownership. You own a car, you insure your car. You own your house, you insure your house. New millennials, however don't care about ownership. For them the future is utilisation, rendering it challenging from an insurance perspective."

By listening to the requirements of the marketplace and recognizing changing needs, Apollo embraced partnership with Airbnb and created a tailored, fit for purpose, scalable product – and word spread. “When you create something for someone like Airbnb, your phone starts ringing; "Hey, we're a rideshare company. Can you create something for us in the rideshare space?" or, "Can you create something in this car sharing space, on demand delivery, drones, e-scooters, autonomous vehicles?" because that's the direction society is moving towards."

TITLE: HEAD OF IBOTT INDUSTRY: INSURANCE LOCATION: LONDON, UK Chris has been with Apollo since 2013 and was instrumental in the setup of ibott, the first dedicated division at Lloyd’s catering for the digital economy and new mobility.

Chris has a passion for insurance innovation and believes in insurance products being an enabler for new progressive business models. He was one of the pioneers in creating products for the Sharing Economy, working with companies such as Airbnb in early 2014 to create global, first of their kind solutions. Chris has a degree in Mathematics and is FCII and CRIS qualified. He sits on the Lloyd’s innovation panel and the Lloyd’s Market Association Committee for US and International Casualty.

EXECUTIVE BIO

New market opportunities It was, Moore recalls, Apollo's client-first culture that led to the birth of ibott. “We moved away from a buyer-supplier model and embraced one of long-term strategic partnerships. We quickly gained a reputation for listening to clients, collaborating and co-creating new products, and innovating as much as we could."

Taking advantage of new opportunities as they come along has been something of a habit for Apollo. “It just became very

CHRIS MOORE

Connected Insurance is helping digital platforms, reduce their risk exposure

Connected Insurance: UBI and the Sharing Economy Connected Insurance’s Tal Cohen and Yaron Zurr reveal how CI is revolutionising UBI solutions in the sharing economy Connected Insurance (CI) created a datadriven risk platform that powers the next generation UBIs, driving the space forward.

Tal Cohen, co-founder and CEO of CI explains, “The sharing economy is a relatively new industry with limited exposure history. Traditional insurers are using traditional risk models that they use for similar products. This results in low accuracy pricing, which is based on few risk factors and a black box that customers can’t understand or control. By differentiation, CI breaks the insurance paradigm.”

“Our technology employs pricing models with much higher granularity, factoring many more data points currently ignored standard pricing models. We provide our clients transparency on their insurance costs and empower them to control and reduce costs by making educated decisions,” he says.

Strategic partnerships Extending their services into the marketplace has been achieved by a collaboration with some of the world’s leading insurance players. Yaron Zurr, co-founder and CCO of CI, says “We believe that insurance players

should become contributors and enablers to the businesses they serve. We provide a solution that empowers our partners to make a better insurance offering to their client, as well as solution for the digital platforms to manage their self-insurance and enable them to offer even more relevant protections to their end clients.”

Technology-driven innovation and CI CI’s full-stack solution connects and serves all parties: sharing economy platforms, brokers, claim administrators, and reinsurers. Connecting everyone under the same platform, says Cohen, creates transparency, leads to better insurance pricing, and ultimately allows sharing economy companies to reduce their total exposure costs.

Cohen adds, “CI provides digital platforms with essential tools such as: Risk & utilization dashboards to help the platforms manage their insurance costs and control their risk; Connected Claims module integrated into the digital; tools to manage the self-insurance part better than most advanced carriers; and tools for rapid creation of embedded insurance.”

The result is a seamless delivery of services and a satisfactory customer journey, concludes Zurr, who adds, “CI can optimise the customer’s insurance pricing by focusing on the lower risk usage and avoid the riskier transactions.”

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apparent to us that the entire digitalisationdriven space occupied by new tech, new startup companies and new platforms was seeking insurance products that the insurance industry had previously failed to produce," Moore explains.

He says that Apollo was fortunate in that it was exposed to the huge wave of insurtech early and was well positioned to embrace the opportunity and benefits of digitalisation from the start. “We were fortunate in the fact that we didn't have legacy systems that would prevent us from adopting the digitalised partnership model. We partnered with some talented clients, broker partners, and tech vendors that allowed us to explore new things without huge upfront cost on our balance sheet."

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Fast-track to success and ibott’s launch Recognising that insurance companies were trying to sell mismatched products that just weren't fit for purpose was the revelation that led to ibott being launched. Moore put together a team that is purely dedicated to those unique challenges within new tech platforms and creating tailored insurance products for them.

Demand has been high, and since its launch in 2019, ibott has been increasingly busy. “It's been very successful,” Moore says. “We’ve written an awful lot of premium and forged some fantastic longterm partnerships and are on track to hopefully write US$250mn this year.”

2022 will also be ibott’s first year as a standalone syndicate. What that means is

IBOTT

that at Lloyds, the company will have its own capital base purely dedicated to this industry. This is important for ibott as the market is changing rapidly and Moore feels the need for dynamism, flexibility and agility has never been so important in order to be a successful partner for their clients.

It's been a journey, acknowledges Moore, who says the past three years being dedicated to this space have enabled him and his team to meet with a wide range of companies that are passionate about changing the world. "You feel like you are a small part of that journey because you have enabled them to achieve their goals by making insurance an enabler and not a blocker. It’s fun.”

Today, ibott focuses on partnerships across the entire digital economy. “The team goes beyond just underwriting our clients and truly partners with them using APIs. This provides a deep level of understanding of our customers’ evolving needs. We can also use this data to establish new risk insights that we can feed back to our clients in order to help them make better risk based business decisions. Our goal is ultimately to help our clients run safer and more sustainable operations.”

Managing the Sharing Economy With greater numbers of users than ever before, from mobility solutions to the housing and travel market, the Sharing Economy has developed massively over the insurtechdigital.com

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past few years. The emphasis on ownership has truly shifted to utilisation, which is where ibott is making its mark.

“We were fortunate in the fact that we didn't have this wave of legacy systems that would prevent us from adopting the digitised partnership model” CHRIS MOORE

HEAD OF IBOTT

“When you start transitioning to a utilisation model you seen an immediate advancement in risk mitigation; we have seen marketplace platforms buying insurance on behalf of a lot of their users, whether it's their drivers, whether it's the hosts that put homes on their platform, whether it's the people that ride one of their e-scooters or e-bikes,” Moore says.

“They're trying to build an insurance product that takes away the block of, "Well, I can only use this service through insurance."

And insurance historically has been a pretty awful customer experience which companies don't want to put their users through.”

Ultimately, solving problems and creating seamless solutions is key as it encourages people to interact with the platform – and encourages others to do the same. This ease of use creates brand loyalty, he explains.

"If I were to put my home on an accommodation sharing platform, and I knew I had insurance in place that would protect me from anything that could happen, it would probably be a block in terms of me renting my home outside of insurtechdigital.com

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that platform. That's an example of how insurance can tie in that customer loyalty.

So when you start thinking about that, the whole product itself has to change.

Insurance in this space is not just about balance sheet protection. Strategically positioned insurance can be a USP for a marketplace platform."

Creating a disruptive service Interaction with customers is critical to the process. The plan must fit each user perfectly. “Am I speaking to the individual giggers or the individual drivers? Or am I speaking just to the platform?” Moore says. “You've got a whole compliance and 128

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regulation piece that fits around that type of policy. The real opportunity within this space is that you've now got a real closed pool of addressable premium.”

He explains, “If I wanted to insure a fleet of drivers and I was trying to sell to those individually it's a huge marketing spend, a huge amount of administration and a difficult risk selection process. A partnership with a platform, on the other hand, permits 100% driver acquisition through a bundled commercial purchase, and unlocks the potential for my team and I to start doing a lot of things with the data that can drive safer and thus improved performance.”

IBOTT

Managing Big Data for insights With a large number of new data sources and the growth of the IoT, processing Big Data has been a challenge for the insurance industry in general. However, this rich information source has also been a huge advantage to insurtechs that have adopted the latest technologies and can manage the data to their advantage.

The digital ecosystem, Moore says, is providing insurtechs with the opportunity to create new products because they have better access to data and they are adept at maximising that opportunity. “A lot of insurance companies have maybe struggled embracing new risks like that of the Sharing Economy as they have a deep rooted reliance on 10-15 years of developed loss data in order to price risk.”

“However, we need to move faster than that. It's got to be more dynamic. The 10 years of data might only have three or four data points. What we can get through this digital ecosystem is hundreds of data points, from maybe the past two to three years. It's not as long-standing – but it is much richer information – and the world is moving so fast that it's almost certainly incredibly deep and it gives us so many different risk insights.”

“ Embedded insurance is huge. There's still so much to be done on the insurance customer experience” CHRIS MOORE HEAD OF IBOTT

Scaling at pace Another challenge is the ability to focus and grow. Because of how the insurtech industry is developing, startups often make the mistake of trying to do too many things when they should always seek to specialise and become leaders in their fields. The Sharing Economy, like insurtech, is also undergoing a period of intense development.

"It's expanding all the time," Moore says.

"And it's not expanding linearly. Airbnb is a great example. It transitioned quickly from just providing homes to now providing experiences and looking at the whole spectrum of travel. Policies have to be able to cater to that level of change. Insurers have struggled with that amount of flexibility and that speed that you need to transition to create a partnership that's fit for purpose for these companies.”

He continues: "I think it's really easy to see the opportunity and think disruption. But my advice to startups in the space would be 'focus on your goal'. There is a huge opportunity across every part of the value chain, but focus on a certain deliverable and be good at it and deliver it and then you can transition. And I think this is also a very people-oriented business. It’s about building relationships and partnerships.” insurtechdigital.com

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“ Digitalisation done properly allows my team and I to derive new risk insights that we can feed back to our clients in order to help them make better risk-based business decisions.

Our goal is ultimately to help our clients run safer and more sustainable operations” CHRIS MOORE HEAD OF IBOTT

ESG, transparency, and mobility But it’s not just about expansion, it’s also about changes in direction. Consumers are becomingly increasingly focused on the Environmental, Social and Governance factors and so our clients are looking for ways to embrace changes and require their insurance partners to support them in these endeavors. Moore says working with mobility firms is inspiring because they are delivering on their carbon-neutral promises.

"I'm very passionate about micromobility. I do think it is going to play an important role in the future of transportation. What we're trying to be is transparent. E-scooters are an example where insurance poses a unique challenge.

It's a new area of mobility and there isn't much data on it. There's certainly fear from certain regulators about embracing that aspect. But insurance has an important 130

March 2022

role to play, not just through providing protection to these shared scooter operators, but also educating regulators about what an insurance product needs to look like, and what the real risks are. We are very data-driven in our underwriting decisions with ibott.”

Innovation and success Ultimately, Moore believes in innovation – but it must be carried out strategically.

He also believes the pandemic has

fundamentally changed the digital economy and the opportunity for insurtechs, and that embedded insurance will be the single biggest trending factor transforming the industry over the next few years.

In terms of what inspires him today, he speaks of the richness of opportunity within the digital economy and insurtech industry as well as the latest emerging trends.

“Embedded insurance is huge. There's still so much to be done on customer experience.

There's so much to be done on data. There

are so many opportunities in terms of the ecosystem and technology.”

He adds, “that richness of opportunity has attracted a new wave of talent that insurance hasn't seen before. We are seeing people with a non-insurance background coming into insurance – and it’s fantastic working with people that have a fresh, diverse way of doing things and a new perspective.”

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INSURTECH WOMEN INSURTECH INSURTECH WOMEN WOMEN TO TO WATCH IN 2022 TOWATCH WATCHIN IN2022 2022 With new innovations disrupting the insurance industry, we look at the top 10 women leading their sectors in InsurTech WRITTEN BY: JOANNA ENGLAND Currently occupying just 2% of the insurance industry but offering a new streamlined future to traditional companies and start-ups alike, insurtech as an industry is scaling fast. It is dynamic, and its demographics are changing the space too, with some of the most prominent roles globally being held by women. With an impressive combination of industry awards, technical genius and disruptive innovation between them, we’ve compiled our Top 10 Women in InsurTech to watch in 2022.

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10

Carolina Klint

Title: M anaging Director, Risk Management Leader Continental Europe Company: Marsh A well-known figure in the insurance industry, former USA South Zone AIG President, Carolina Klint joined Marsh in 2017 as the CEO of the company’s Northwest Europe region. She was then appointed Risk Management Leader for Continental Europe in October 2020 and works with the local teams to develop strategic solutions that support and enable Marsh’s largest clients to navigate the global risk landscape. Klint currently leads critical initiatives serving customer centricity, innovation, and enhanced value propositions and is a member of the Continental Europe Executive Committee.

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09

Meeri Rebane

Title: Co-founder and CEO Company: INZMO As the co-founder and CEO of one of Europe’s rising insurtech stars, Rebane was inspired to launch the company, which specialises in rental finance and insurance for landlords and tenants, following her own and friends experiences with the expensive German rental market.

Rebane is strongly driven by innovation, development of new products, services or processes in forward-thinking organizations and specialises in insurance and insurtech solutions.

TOP 10

07 08

Carey Anne Nadeau

Title: Co-founder and CEO Company: Loop Insurance As an MIT-trained entrepreneur, it stands to reason that Carey Anne Nadeau would carve a space for herself in the technology industry.

A risk assessment specialist and a former researcher at the Brookings Institution and Urban Institute, Nadeau launched Loop, an auto insurance MGA that uses AI to provide a fair price to all, in 2015.

Kate Terry

Title: Co-founder and COO Company: Surround Insurance An insurtech that appeals to the demands of the younger generation, Surround Insurance launched in 2018 and provides an array of products and services that cater to the new and mobile lifestyles of generation Z. The company provides services to those in the gig economy, but also those who rent, car share, and require protection while they freelance. Terry says, “Insurance is a profession that is about people.

That's why this is a calling - for me and for so many of my colleagues past and present.”

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06

Hillary Orly Harel

Title: Co-founder and CEO Company: Serenus AI Multiple industry award-winning entrepreneur Hillary Orly Harel is the co-founder and CEO of Serenus AI, a groundbreaking technology platform for the healthcare industry. It is also the first AI-based solution that empowers medical decisions at critical post-diagnostic crossroads on patient pathways, saving lives and valuable resources. Serenus was recently named the winner of the Top AI start-up company category in "Healthcare Innovation Landscape 2020" by Data Roots Labs report, while Harel was named the 58th Most Influential Woman in the Tech World.

05

Jenny Cohen Derfler Title: Co-founder and CEO Company: Air Doctor

Jenny Cohen Derfler founded Air Doctor in 2018 following a disastrous travel experience in which finding the right doctors for her party’s needs proved an almost impossible task. Air Doctor is a technology-driven app that provides insurers with a global outpatient medical network through which their customers can access the most appropriate care while travelling abroad, either through an online or in-person consultation.

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04

Pravina Ladva

Title: C TO and Operations Officer Company: Swiss Re Pravina Ladva joined Swiss Re in 2017 and has been largely responsible for guiding the insurance giant through its digital transformation phase over the past five years.

With an impressive resume that includes an eight-year long role at Retail Solutions Barclaycard as the company’s CIO, Ladva has extensive experience in the fintech and insurtech industries and also spent 16 years at Abbey, developing wealth management expertise. She describes herself as a “leader who creates the right culture for colleagues to succeed and commercial benefits to be achieved at pace.”

03

Skye Theodorou Title: Co-founder Company: upcover

Skye Theodorou prides herself on creating simple, easy, and affordable business insurance solutions for any loyal brand.

A qualified lawyer and formerly a high-level executive at Zurich Insurance and NSW Govt, she leads the Upcover team - a customer-focused insurtech that builds tailored, simple and pay-asyou-go insurance protection and benefits products for gig economy workers. She is passionate about helping small businesses manage their own risk having worked in her family's businesses from a young age. Theodorou has worked with hundreds of SMEs at Zurich, across multiple functions. She has also worked to help SMEs in policy and regulatory reform across NSW.

TOP 10

Henriette Fleischmann

02 02

Title: Co-founder and COO Company: Hosta Labs

A self-confessed technology addict, Henriette Fleischmann is the MIT MBA graduate and computer genius who launched Hosta Labs in 2019 - a revolutionary AI-powered app that is transforming risk assessment data collection in the property industry.

With a background in the automotive industry, she started out as an IT consultant for Daimler, and later worked for Porsche. Her aptitude for innovation took her swiftly up the technology corporate ladder until she developed the concept for Hosta Labs and co-founded the company. She has also worked in top tier consulting, managing multi-million dollar projects for Fortune 100 companies on process optimization, strategy development, and restructuring for more than 12 years.

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More employees are choosing to legally use cannabis.

Because tests of oral fluid, urine, and hair can detect cannabis use for days, weeks, or months, there is a greater risk of positive results.

The era of cannabis legalization requires new technology to balance SAFETY + FAIRNESS .

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The HOUND® MARIJUANA BREATHALYZER is for law enforcement, employer, and insurance use only.

Not for any medical or therapeutic use. https://houndlabs.com/2018/09/06/how-long-can-marijuana-be-detected-in-drug-tests/ https://houndlabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/drugshumanperformfs.pdf

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Hair

TOP 10

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TOP 10

Jennifer Fitzgerald

Title: Co-founder and CEO Company: Policygenius Jennifer Fitzgerald, the CEO and co-founder of Policygenius, was one of the first industry figures to recognise the importance of insurtech and to see its staggering potential. Nine years after launching Policygenius, her company is now one of the leading insurtechs in the US. It was a leap of faith for Fitzgerald and her business partner, Francois de Lame, because the pair left their lucrative consulting jobs to create Policygenius, and initially, Fitzgerald had a tough time convincing investors to take a chance on the company. But the hard work paid off, and by 2020, the team had raised over US$100mn in investment funding. Policygenius now has over 35 million users.

A winner of the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year New York 2019, Fitzgerald was also one of Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business for 2018 and is one of only four women founders in Fintech to raise more than $50mn in funding.

“ You cannot over-invest in finding and retaining the best people” insurtechdigital.com

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CONNECTED MOTOR INSURANCE FOR MARKET NICHES

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March 2022

TICKER

WRITTEN BY: JANET BRICE

PRODUCED BY: JAKE MEGEARY insurtechdigital.com

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TICKER

Entrepreneur Richard King explains how Ticker is disrupting insurtech with its use of connected data and sophisticated pricing

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isruptive insurtech, Ticker is accelerating change with connected motor insurance that targets niche markets.

Founder and CEO, Richard King is looking to deliver a high growth strategy and hit +US$100mn Gross Written Premium (GWP) by the end of 2022.

As an insurtech, Ticker is taking connected motor insurance to a much wider market, using the latest telematics technology and pricing methods. They are targeting markets from low-mileage drivers to the over 70s and anyone with a driving conviction, who may find it hard to get traditional insurance.

It already looks like Ticker is in the fast lane when it comes to financial backers.

England footballer and presenter Gary Lineker and entrepreneur Theo Paphitis, known for his appearances on TV’s Dragons’ Den, are just two famous faces who have become seed investors and brand ambassadors.

“The key to Ticker’s success is winning in niches,” said King, who already has two startups under his belt. “Ticker is a digitalfirst motor insurtech but, at heart, we’re a data company.

“This year, we plan to launch an electric vehicle product and a proposition for drivers new to the UK, who are often treated as brand-new drivers even with a long driving history.

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TICKER

“We’re not a unicorn today – but I like to think we’re a soonicorn.”

InsurTech magazine sat down with Richard King to find out more about Ticker and how he predicts it will shape the insurtech market in 2022.

“Ticker is an insurtech bringing connected motor insurance to a much wider market but, at heart, we’re a data company”

take it to a much wider market, far beyond young drivers. But I knew that, this time, one of the biggest drivers of our success would be in implementing greater levels of pricing sophistication, including Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI).”

What was the inspiration RICHARD KING FOUNDER AND CEO, to launch Ticker?

TICKER “I’ve been involved in connected motor Please could you insurance for more than 10 years. I sold and give us an overview of Ticker and exited ingenie back in 2015 – it was one of how you put insurtech to work? the UK’s first insurers using telematics.

“Ticker is an insurtech bringing connected When I had the opportunity to sit back motor insurance to a much wider market. and look at the market with fresh eyes, We’ve created an ecosystem, then we I realised there was the opportunity to overlay niche propositions. We have 148

March 2022

TICKER

two products live today, for novice and van drivers. In just over two years, we’ve managed to get to a US$65mn GWP runrate with these two products.

“We’ll have two more going live shortly for low-mileage drivers and convicted drivers, who find it hard to get affordable insurance after a ban or motoring conviction.

“This year (2022), we’ll launch an electric vehicle product and a proposition for drivers who are new to the UK (who are often treated as brand-new drivers even when they have a long driving history). There’ll also be a product for older drivers – particularly over-70s who face higher premiums, similar to young drivers. By the end of 2022, we target a GWP of just over US$100m”

RICHARD KING TITLE: FOUNDER AND CEO INDUSTRY: INSURTECH LOCATION: UNITED KINGDOM Prior to Ticker, Richard King was the founder and CEO of ingenie, one of the first connected motor insurers in the UK, which was acquired for $145m in 2015. Alongside this activity, he was a seed investor and non-exec of Neos from 2016 to 2019 – the UK’s first connected home insurer, which was acquired by Sky TV in 2021. In the early part of his career, he was a co-founder of Innovation Group, which developed a motor claims ecosystem, listed on the London market and entered the FTSE 250.

How important is it to Ticker that insurtechs now have the ability to be in control of pricing?

“Having a third-party underwriter control your pricing would be like building the latest petrol-powered sports car and then filling it with diesel. Ticker is an insurance company, so we have motor policies and a high level of customer service, but lift up the bonnet and we’re really a data company. We need to be in control of the entire ecosystem, especially pricing. More than that: to be best-in-market,

EXECUTIVE BIO

You have the support of former England footballer Gary Lineker and Theo Paphitis from Dragons’ Den, how has this helped the brand?

“Gary’s been a friend for many years. We were next-door neighbours, he was my best man, and we’ve invested in many businesses together.

“Theo is also a friend and we live quite near each other. He was aware of my track record, so it was a quick decision for him to become a seed investor.

CELEBRATING

YEARS IN

PREMIUM FINANCE

1977-2022

We’re the most experienced provider of premium finance funding insurance for one in seven UK families and one in 20 UK businesses “Close Brothers have been a great partner – they’re one of the most trusted names in the industry.”

Richard King - Founder & CEO Ticker

Drop an email to workwithus@closebrothers.com Go to www.closebrotherspf.com

TICKER

“ We have two products live today, for novice and van drivers. In just over two years, we’ve managed to get to a US$65M GWP run-rate with these two products” RICHARD KING

FOUNDER AND CEO, TICKER

we have to have the highest levels of pricing sophistication. As an insurer, if you’re not already implementing ML and AI, or at the least have it on your radar, then the competition is going to accelerate ahead of you.”

Can you tell us more about price optimisation and the use of AI and machine learning?

“Insurtechs like Ticker maximise their competitive advantage and market share

through sophisticated pricing techniques and price optimisation – being even more accurate in pricing customers on an individual basis.

“Throw connected car data into the mix and you can employ machine learning tools, which we use to identify patterns in driving behaviour and tell us when someone’s had a crash. In its simplest form, machine learning is looking at data to identify patterns, but on a larger and finer-grained scale than a human can achieve.

“ML can only be introduced when you have vast amounts of data, but the holy grail is AI. ML is just a clever subset of that and can help inform AI. The more data we get, the more complex and sophisticated we can make the algorithms. That said, simpler algorithms can still be very effective when you have this quantity of data and shouldn’t be underestimated. insurtechdigital.com

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TICKER

2018

year Ticker was founded

100+

number of employees

$65m

GWP run-rate

$100m+

GWP target for 2022

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“Ticker now has what I refer to as ‘tonnes of data’ and that’s how we’re already employing some exciting machine learning models”.

“Insurtechs like Ticker maximise their competitive advantage and market share through sophisticated pricing techniques and price optimisation” RICHARD KING

FOUNDER AND CEO, TICKER

Looking at some of the crazy insurtech valuations and how far they are from making a profit, is there a need for a focus on sustainable profitability?

“I don’t think these valuations are crazy – especially when you look at the track record of VCs making investments; they know what they’re doing.

“The pandemic highlighted the need for insurers to be digital-first and accelerate innovation projects. But more than that, insurtechs are going to revolutionise this industry in the next five to 10 years – it won’t look or feel the same – and ML and AI are the key to this change.”

How much of your time is spent fundraising as opposed to running the business?

“The time between insurtech fundraises seems to be narrowing all the time.

Companies are coming back to market for Series A, B or C within 12 months. More than 50% of my time is now in fundraising mode.

That’s why it’s essential to have a first-class executive team around you.” insurtechdigital.com

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TICKER

DID YOU KNOW...

HOW IS DATA COLLECTED FROM THE CAR?

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For a connected motor insurtech like Ticker, it all comes down to the quality and richness of data.

Ticker is agnostic to the data collection method, as long as what comes through is granular, accurate and can be used to improve pricing sophistication and customer experience.

Ticker’s products use self-install connected devices, which the customer either plugs into their vehicle or sticks to the windscreen. These send driving data (specific to the product) to Ticker and provide data visualisation for the customer through the Ticker app.

March 2022

How does Ticker use the connected car data?

Connected car data fuels Ticker’s growth.

The more detailed and predictive data, the better the outcome for the customer and for the business.

From a customer experience point of view, the data collected is used to: • Verify the insurance details provided • Work out driving behaviour or usage • Calculate the renewal quote “Doing this means we can attract the kind of driver that will do well with Ticker. It also helps us reduce fraud (a major issue in the insurance industry), which will ultimately make insurance cheaper for everyone with Ticker.”

“ As an insurtech, we’re not dealing with legacy.

Everything is cloudbased and agile. If we see an opportunity in the marketplace, we can develop a product in a matter of weeks and have something launched in months rather than years” RICHARD KING

FOUNDER AND CEO, TICKER

Is it better to specialise or generalise?

“For Ticker, it’s about winning in niches where the average premium is high and there’s plenty of margin to soak up the additional data costs. By building specialised products, we can access the wider market with connected insurance.”

Is Ticker close to an underwriting profit?

“We set ourselves the goal to achieve underwriting profits within the first three years. That’s an aggressive goal for any motor insurtech but we’re on target to achieve it.

If you look at our friends across the pond, some of the big US insurtechs are happy to see loss ratios north of 100% in the early years. I don’t know of many capacity partners in the UK or Europe who would stomach that sort of loss for very long.”

What plans do you have for the next 12-18 months?

“We’re about to start our Series B fundraise, which I hope to conclude by the end of Q1.

Other than that, we’ll be hiring the best talent, building more sophisticated products and extracting valuable insights from the connected car data that flows into our data lake. On the product side, we have two new products due to be launched for low-mileage and convicted drivers, and three more will be launched during 2022.

We’re quite busy and focused.”

Could you sum up what gives Ticker the competitive advantage?

“It’s the quality of the team.”

How are you working with Close Brothers?

“We’ve worked with Close Brothers since the start, partnering with them for premium finance for our customers. As many of our policies have a high average premium, there’s quite a high uptake for paying monthly over annually. Close Brothers have been a great partner – they’re one of the most trusted names in the industry.”

insurtechdigital.com

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FAST

PHARMACY SERVICE

BioPlus

GROWS

WITH NEW TECHNOLOGY WRITTEN BY: LEILA HAWKINS

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March 2022

PRODUCED BY: JAMES BERRY

insurtechdigital.com

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BIOPLUS

Fred Gagle, VP of Technology & CSO, BioPlus, discusses the pharmacy’s growth and how technology supported their services even in the challenges of COVID-19

B

ioPlus Specialty Pharmacy knows that timely care is critical, especially in the treatment of cancer, multiple sclerosis, hepatitis C, and the other complex conditions served by this speciality pharmacy.

Unlike a retail pharmacy, the speciality medications that BioPlus supplies are specialist medicines for chronic conditions.

Founded in 1989, the company services patients nationwide and currently has brickand-mortar locations in six states. "We have a motto of ‘BioPlus, Where Healing Begins in 2 Hours’" Fred Gagle, the VP of Technology and CSO explains. "We are committed to being faster than other pharmacies and are proud to be the first and only independent, national speciality pharmacy to develop processes that quickly move through the steps from diagnosis to prescription fulfilment, within two hours, two days, and two Click operational processes.”

As Gagle explains: "We call this the ‘Power of 2’ and it starts with our ‘2 Hour Patient Acceptance Guarantee’ that notifies physician offices in less than two hours whether a referred patient is accepted for treatment or not. Prescriptions then move through the ‘2 Day Ready 2 Ship’ process.

In addition, patients with qualifying prescriptions can refill online with two simple clicks.”

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Example of an image caption insurtechdigital.com

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BIOPLUS

Fast pharmacy service Bioplus grows with new technology

More recently, BioPlus also announced its advanced operational processes that allow accelerated delivery of certain generic oncology medications, guaranteeing that they are ready to ship within 24 hours of the pharmacy receiving a complete referral.

“Until now, no other pharmacy has ever eliminated the excess waiting period — the time from diagnosis to starting therapy — that cancer patients have historically experienced when prescribed treatment.

We think of it as ‘hope delivered in 24 hours,’” notes Gagle.

The organisation has experienced rapid growth over the past nine years, increasing its workforce of 80 to over 500 today, and generating US$1.5bn in revenue.

"I think the growth has been a combination of many different factors," Gagle says. "It starts with our patient focus and our commitment to be the premier speciality pharmacy in the nation.

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"I also think BioPlus has valued the role of technology and how our technology investments have helped us maintain a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Our speciality pharmacy has always focused on being ‘fast & easy’ for our doctors and patients, and technology is essential to meeting that goal."

Gagle also explains that BioPlus has dedicated staff across every department, with a strong culture that has been built over the years, which includes giving back to the greater community. Playing off the ‘Power of 2’ theme at BioPlus, there’s a ‘2gether program’ that provides a lifesaving antibiotic through a partnership with OneWorld Health for every referral received at BioPlus. It’s part of BioPlus’ global vision to ‘heal the world 2gether’, helping to ensure patients across town and around the world have access to lifesaving and lifesustaining medications.

FREDERICK GAGLE TITLE: VP OF TECHNOLOGY AND CHIEF SECURITY OFFICER INDUSTRY: PHARMACEUTICAL LOCATION: UNITED STATES Fred Gagle, as the Executive Vice President of IT, ensures that the IT infrastructure at BioPlus is reliable, cost effective, secure, and easy to support. His department is responsible for making sure patient health information is secure and protected. Gagle deeply understands IT’s potential for making things easier for patients, doctors, pharmacists, business partners, and employees.

Gagle earned a Master of Business Administration from the University of Central Florida, as well as a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration– Information Systems from the University of Florida.

500+ Number of employees

$1.5bn Revenue

1989

Year founded

“ Our pharmacy makes sure that the patient therapy and treatment plan are going well and this is managed through a very comprehensive clinical assessment system”

BIOPLUS

Like so many other organisations, this workforce was suddenly faced with the challenge of COVID-19, which necessitated a quick pivot to a new style of working.

"Having almost 10 times more employees working from home was a real challenge," Gagle explains.

"This introduced many variables like troubleshooting issues at employees’ homes with their internet connection and speed and all sorts of other issues that were previously in a well-controlled environment when people worked in the office. But it's also helped us become a better company," Gagle says.

Pandemic restrictions meant BioPlus had to improve remote access to the network.

"We implemented soft phones, introduced

“ Our speciality pharmacy has always focused on being ‘fast & easy’ for our doctors and patients, and technology is essential to meeting that goal” FREDERICK GAGLE

VP OF TECHNOLOGY AND CHIEF SECURITY OFFICER, BIOPLUS SPECIALTY PHARMACY

COLLABORATE. CONNECT. CONVERGE.

Converge Technology Solutions Corp. is a Software-Enabled IT & Cloud Solutions Provider Focused on Delivering Industry-Leading Soutions and Services.

www.convergetp.com | info@convergetp.com

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Microsoft Teams, and had to quickly increase the capacity of our remote desktop servers.

We changed all of our in-person meetings to virtual meetings, and even our sales team had to learn a different way of selling because many doctor’s offices only allowed patients and not visitors."

By making these adaptations, Gagle says the company has experienced growth of 20% throughout the pandemic, which he calls "remarkable." In part, this is because BioPlus was already equipped to handle the pandemic challenges due to the nature of how a speciality pharmacy operates. "We've always been somewhat virtual. Speciality pharmacies manage very expensive drugs, and it takes a while for health plans to approve the treatment, so we store everything centrally, conduct patient consults over the phone and then ship the medication.

"From that standpoint, we haven't really changed our business model that much.

Years ago we implemented Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology which made it easier to onboard new patients and fulfil medication refills for existing patients. We also added what we called the digital ‘Patient Journey’ which provides a comprehensive patient management system that includes a web-based patient portal, emails, text messaging, and educational videos that support patients by providing information about both the patient’s condition and their therapy, including potential side effects and how to manage that challenge.

"Then we introduced our self-service ‘2 Click system’ for patients to refill qualifying medications in a much easier and faster way, and in 2021, we introduced multiple online forms of payments for patients." insurtechdigital.com

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These digital experiences have led to accolades such as a spot among the Five Best Online Pharmacies from Money.com in 2020 and a 4.8 Google ranking from hundreds of patients.

In the future, Gagle says virtual services will be essential. "I think that telepharmacy and telemedicine have always been the future of pharmacy and healthcare, but the pandemic has greatly accelerated the need for this. In most aspects, BioPlus has already been providing telepharmacy for patients since we do consultations, billing, and patient care all through telecommunications and other virtual technologies.

"We may look into doing some kind of live video chat with our patients next, to give a more personal touch to patients.

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We have made large investments in online technology that can provide the best patient care and adherence to their medication and therapy. Our pharmacy makes sure that the patient therapy and treatment plan is going well and this is managed through a very comprehensive clinical assessment system.

The assessment systems use the technology we developed and have refined to suit the unique needs of a speciality pharmacy."

Over the years BioPlus has also shifted toward the cloud. "When we choose software and technology we always make sure that it is mobile-friendly and can be easily accessed from anywhere. Remote access is key for our current and future success and it is an area we spend a lot of time on. In fact, we are fully transitioning to

BIOPLUS

“ We made an impact and revolutionised the speciality pharmacy industry by becoming the fastest pharmacy with our ‘Power of 2’ promises”

the cloud with Amazon Web Services (AWS) along with using Citrix Cloud," Gagle says.

BioPlus also uses a suite of Microsoft products, including Microsoft 365, Teams, SQL Servers, Power BI, and Great Plains.

"Microsoft Teams has been an effective way to allow all our teams to communicate in this highly virtual world that we operate in today," he says.

"We use Biscom which is a cloud-based fax system, and Salesforce CRM which is our cloud-based CRM system for sales. Our strategy is also to introduce virtual desktop infrastructure in 2022."

Converge Technology Solutions is a key technology partner and has been supporting BioPlus' growth for over seven years. "They have always been there for us and provided technologies including load balancers, disaster recovery solutions, storage area networks, firewalls, Cisco switches, servers and other IT equipment. I can’t say enough about this company and I would highly recommend them as a technology solutions partner and vendor.”

Gagle says that for the next two to three years, BioPlus' top goals will centre around connectivity. "This means that by using people, process and technology we will be deeply connected to the doctor’s offices and to our patients.

"We set higher quality standards for the speciality pharmacy industry by becoming the fastest pharmacy with our ‘Power of 2’ promises. Moving to the cloud and being able to work virtually gives us flexibility as we expand and grow into other markets.

We're licenced in all 50 states, and in the future, we aim to be the most connected speciality pharmacy in the US."

FREDERICK GAGLE

VP OF TECHNOLOGY AND CHIEF SECURITY OFFICER, BIOPLUS SPECIALTY PHARMACY insurtechdigital.com

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