When it comes to innovation, claims technology has not always got the level of focus it deserves. That situation is changing though with several companies, including this week’s podcast guest, providing new technology solutions to speed up and improve claims processes. Matthew talks to Jeremy Hyams , CEO and founder of Claims Consortium Group, about building a claims service provider, innovating at speed during Covid-19, and how its Synergy Cloud platform is helping the AA to manage home insuran...
Nov 28, 2021•30 min•Ep. 168
Descartes Underwriting, founded in 2018, has scaled quickly to provide parametric insurance against climate risks to corporate clients around the world. Co-founder & Head of Underwriting Sébastien Piguet joins Matthew on Podcast 165 to discuss trends in parametric insurance and Descartes' experiences with its clients. Talking points include: Why some corporates are replacing indemnity policies with parametric Educating brokers and risk managers about parametric Insuring solar and wind farms ...
Nov 21, 2021•22 min•Ep. 167
Start-ups looking to sell insurance products often struggle to secure the insurance capacity from incumbent (re)insurers they need as a managing general agent (MGA). Ensuro is piloting an alternative source of insurance capital: using cryptocurrency funds from investors, locked in smart contracts on a blockchain, to underwrite risks. Founder and CEO Marco Mirabella joins InsTech London's Henry Gale on Podcast 164 to discuss the opportunity for cryptocurrency to be used as insurance capital and h...
Nov 14, 2021•19 min•Ep. 166
The Managing General Agent (MGA) model has become a successful way for many insurtech startups to establish themselves, but the subject of this week’s podcast is a bit different to other MGAs in the marketplace. Pen Underwriting was created by bringing together 12 companies in 2014. Its work covers claims, pricing, and distribution with more than £650 million in gross written premium per year. Chief Business Development Officer Nick Wright joins Matthew on Podcast 163 to explain how Pen Underwri...
Nov 07, 2021•21 min•Ep. 165
We're bringing you the highlights and key insights from our property risk event at The Steel Yard in London. ‘Property Risk - What’s New and What Works?’ brought together experts in flood forecasting, digital twins, rebuild costs, remote assessment and more, to discuss new data and analytics solutions that are helping insurers understand the physical characteristics and risks of properties. The episode begins with Robin in conversation with Todd Rissel, Chairman and CEO of event sponsors e2Value...
Oct 31, 2021•52 min•Ep. 164
Liberty Mutual Insurance is a global insurance company that embraces innovation, with a strong track record of building successful partnerships with technology companies. Matthew talks to Brendan Smyth, SVP, Global Risk Solutions Innovation, and Premal Gohil, Head of Innovation Partnerships & Investments, to understand how Liberty approaches innovation projects and works with third parties to understand new insurance trends. The episode also includes advice for start-ups on how to approach i...
Oct 24, 2021•41 min•Ep. 162
Robin is joined by Concirrus CEO and Co-founder Andrew Yeoman on Podcast 160 to discuss how commercial insurers are beginning to use algorithms to support underwriting decisions. The conversation covers the findings from the InsTech London report, A Practitioner's Guide: Algorithmic underwriting in commercial and specialty insurance, which examines where industry adoption is right now and what’s needed to move the technology forward. Andrew shares his insights on the potential of algorithmic und...
Oct 17, 2021•28 min•Ep. 161
Atrium Underwriters has been operating in the London market for almost 100 years and has established itself as one of the most forward-thinking insurers when it comes to innovation and new technology. Underwriters Simon Lewis and Matt Greaves join Matthew on Podcast 159 to discuss where that drive for innovation comes from. The conversation covers how Atrium assesses ideas and products for new opportunities like crypto, using technology to speed up claims and reduce costs, and how it supports st...
Oct 10, 2021•40 min•Ep. 160
For underwriters, time spent searching for information is time lost to underwriting. Terrene Labs, acquired by FRISS in April 2021, aggregates third-party data sources to help underwriters focus on the core of underwriting rather than the chore of data collection. The acquisition will expand FRISS's range of underwriting insights beyond risk detection analytics. Matthew speaks to Piyush Singh, CEO of Terrene Labs, on podcast 155 to discuss why he left his senior role to launch a start-up, how Te...
Oct 08, 2021•32 min•Ep. 155
Podcast 158 features the highlights from Part 1 of our first live event back at The Steel Yard in London and is packed with advice for start-ups looking to grow and future founders. Ed Leon Klinger ( Flock ), Oliver Brew ( CyberCube ), Andre Symes ( Genasys Technologies ), and Jonathan Spry ( Envelop Risk ) returned to the InsTech London stage to discuss their experiences of the journey from start-up to scale-up. They shared their insights with Matthew and Robin on surviving the ups and downs of...
Oct 03, 2021•36 min•Ep. 159
Health insurers have been on the front line of the COVID-19 pandemic. They have had to get to grips with the new peril of the COVID-19 virus, experience changes in demand and plan for the long term while adjusting to lockdowns and home working. Mark Allan, Commercial Director UK Insurance at Bupa, joins Robin to discuss Bupa’s experience during the pandemic in the UK and what lies ahead. Talking points include: The challenges of being a health insurer during a pandemic The long term impact of CO...
Sep 26, 2021•23 min•Ep. 158
Insurance Business Applications (IBA) has established itself as a genuine insurance innovator over the past decade, embracing new technologies to offer a full cycle property and casualty insurance platform in the cloud. Chief Commercial Officer Karina Buch joins Robin to discuss the company's origins and growth so far, why global insurers like Zurich and AIG are choosing to use its IBSuite platform, and the potential of both embedded and parametric insurance. Talking points include: Why speed ma...
Sep 19, 2021•32 min•Ep. 157
For insurtechs to flourish, companies need to match their innovative technology solutions with market opportunities and an understanding of how the industry works. Some of the best innovation in recent years has come from combining new technology with deep insurance knowledge and experience, and this week’s podcast guest is a great example. Originally an underwriter, Niall Barton co-founded Wrisk in 2015 and has gone on to become one of the leading figures in the UK insurtech scene. Niall joins ...
Sep 05, 2021•34 min•Ep. 154
When you think of insurance innovation, there is a whole host of exciting start-ups and scale-ups that spring to mind, but this week’s podcast guest has been consistently innovating for the past two decades. Todd Rissel founded e2Value 20 years ago and has built a company that now provides Insurance to Value (ITV) data and products to over 500 clients in the US and Canada. Matthew and Todd discuss how e2Value has managed to stay relevant and move with the times, including its latest product offe...
Aug 29, 2021•33 min•Ep. 153
Whether you are an established company or a new kid on the block, you need to be smart and flexible to make the most of new opportunities and stay ahead of the game. ICE InsureTech is one of the companies that is helping the insurance industry do that, using its experience of building digital policy administration and claims management systems to tackle legacy issues and drive innovation. CEO Andrew Passfield talks to Robin Merttens on Podcast 152 about the company’s ICE platform, providing more...
Aug 22, 2021•29 min•Ep. 152
There has been no shortage of founders looking to transform insurance over the last five years, but turning innovative insurtech ideas into successful businesses is an incredibly tough challenge. Jerad Leigh is the co-founder of Supercede, one of many companies we’ve worked with at InsTech London that have made the leap from 'early stage' to ‘established'. He joins Matthew on Podcast 151 to share his experience of that journey and some great advice on how to build a business. Talking points incl...
Aug 15, 2021•43 min•Ep. 151
Recorded after the InsTech London Summer Party, our first public event since Covid-19 restrictions were lifted, Matthew and Robin catch up for their quarterly partners’ chat. The conversation covers their pick of the latest insurance and insurtech news stories, reaction to our report on embedded insurance, and even Robin’s restaurant recommendations. Talking points include: Face-to-face events and our return to The Steel Yard Insurtech investment and lessons learnt from the last five years Embed...
Aug 01, 2021•34 min•Ep. 149
Founded in 2010, CoreLogic has established itself as a leading provider of location and property intelligence, with more than 500 insurers and reinsurers now using its products. Mick Noland, General Manager for Insurance, joins Matthew to discuss the company’s growth over the last decade and the unique data sets that CoreLogic is creating for its insurance clients. The conversation also covers recent investment in CoreLogic, how the company integrates with third-party providers, and the developm...
Jul 25, 2021•25 min•Ep. 148
While insurtech, start-up funding and data and technology developments are important to all of us, we also need to understand how the major insurers make money, what their needs are from technology and how they address the challenge of change. William Hawkins, Director of Research for Europe at investment bank KBW, joins Matthew to share insights from his team's research into the mainstream world of insurance. With incumbent insurers spending an annual IT budget of $200 billion how much is earma...
Jul 18, 2021•36 min•Ep. 147
Skyline Partners and AEGIS London have launched a new parametric product to provide US small and medium business owners with cover in the event of a shooting. The Active Assailant policy uses police department data to define when an event has taken place, triggering a non-damage business interruption cover payment of up to $50,000. An initial launch is taking place in Dallas, Texas with the aim of scaling the policy out to other states across the US. Skyline Partners Co-founder Gethin Jones and ...
Jul 11, 2021•36 min•Ep. 146
Archipelago is aiming to improve the data shared between insurers and their corporate clients related to property risks. Archipelago is going directly to the original data sources - upstream from insurers to the risk manager and building owners. This is then collated and shared on a platform with brokers and selected insurers. Co-founder and CEO Hemant Shah, previously founder of catastrophe modelling company RMS, joins Matthew to discuss how Archipelago is improving risk reduction and better ac...
Jul 04, 2021•36 min•Ep. 145
The attraction and vast potential for ‘embedding’ insurance products has made it one of the hottest topics of 2021. Robin Merttens chats to Simon Torrance on Podcast 144 about the opportunities offered by embedded insurance and insights from the InsTech London report, Insurance: to Embed or not to Embed. Talking points include: The definition of embedded insurance Embedded success stories from around the world Why customers like embedded solutions Third-party distributors and platform business m...
Jun 27, 2021•43 min•Ep. 144
Tesselo is one of the companies looking to help its clients manage the impact of climate change, using satellite data and remote sensing to monitor tree and crop health and support forest owners and farmers in mitigating risks. The company, based in Lisbon, is now exploring insurance applications for its data and analytics and was recently selected to join Cohort 6 of the Lloyd’s Lab. Matthew talks to Chief Strategy Officer and co-founder Marine Utgé-Royo on Podcast 143 to discuss how Tesselo’s ...
Jun 20, 2021•33 min•Ep. 143
The Managing General Agent (MGA) business model, by which companies can underwrite risks without retaining capital, has proved popular among insurtechs looking to use new technology to improve underwriting. So how do you set up a successful MGA? Matthew was joined by leading figures from tech-enabled MGAs when he hosted a panel at the 2021 Virtual KBW European Financials & Insurtech Conference. The panelists were Elizabeth Jenkin (Chief Commercial Officer at Nimbla), Graham Elliott (CEO of A...
Jun 13, 2021•30 min•Ep. 142
Robin steps back in as host this week to find out more about Sotera Heritage from co-founder Elizabeth Marston. Sotera is using AI and machine learning to create irrevocable digital identities for ancient antiquities, helping insurers to accurately verify objects and provide tools for law enforcement agencies in the fight against the illicit sale of stolen artefacts. Talking points include: Digital fingerprints for antiquities Creating patterns through image recognition Tracking high-value objec...
Jun 06, 2021•22 min•Ep. 141
Gamma Location Intelligence helps insurers to understand property-based risks by providing accurate location data to support underwriting decisions. The company combines its own data sets with information from partners and third parties to provide a clearer view to clients on risks including flooding, subsidence, fire and crime. Chief Commercial Officer Richard Garry joins Matthew to discuss Gamma’s approach, its technology solutions and how clients are making use of its data. Talking points inc...
May 30, 2021•21 min•Ep. 140
The accelerated shift to digital over the past twelve months has raised the profile and importance of pricing platforms in insurance. AkinovA is one of the companies finding success in the space, with its digital marketplace allowing buyers and sellers to carry out transactions wherever they are in the world. Matthew talks to Co-founder and CEO Henri Winand on Podcast 139 about how the platform helps in the creation of new insurance products and gives the owners of the risk a better way to optim...
May 23, 2021•36 min•Ep. 139
Insurance policies may leave businesses exposed to uninsured economic loss in the event of a hurricane or earthquake, because of excess, deductibles and exclusions. New Paradigm Underwriters offers parametric insurance products which use the wind speed of hurricanes and shake intensity of earthquakes to determine payouts to their clients in North America. Co-founder Evan Glassman joins Matthew on Podcast 138 to discuss New Paradigm’s technology and how to build parametric products. Talking point...
May 16, 2021•34 min•Ep. 138
Covid-19 caused an overnight demand for digital primary healthcare services accelerating major improvements in how we all access and interact with providers. Dr Anushka Patchava, Deputy Chief Medical Officer at Vitality, joins Robin on Podcast 137 to discuss what that digital shift has meant for life & health insurers over the past 12 months, and the challenges that still lie ahead to achieve true digital engagement and improve access to health data. The conversation also covers Anushka’s ex...
May 09, 2021•26 min•Ep. 137
Flood is the most pervasive hazard in the United States, but despite the huge scale of the risk there are major challenges around the provision of adequate flood cover based on accurate, real-time data. JBA Risk Management has spent the past decade developing flood models covering 99% of the world’s landmass and has leveraged that experience to provide new flood hazard maps and real-time modelling for US insurers. Matthew finds out more on Podcast 136 from Jane Toothill, Managing Director, JBA R...
May 02, 2021•27 min•Ep. 136
