Techsurance - your insurance technology readings🗞
Summer 2021 and September
Hi everyone,
Apologies for the long silence, back to school has been pretty intense here at Direct Assurance, hence the delay in sending this newsletter. Plenty of InsurTech news over the summer and in September, as we continue to witness strong fund-raising, M&A and partnership momentum. The InsurTech space shows no sign of abating.
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Very interesting survey conducted by Breeze this summer to ask Americans about their insurance preferences. Key takeaway is that although Insurtechs are a a serious breed of new entrants to deal with in the future, they remain relatively unknown and untrustworthy to most generations compared to traditional carriers (see graph below). But behaviors are changing fast. More info here 📰 Breeze
Sonr and Insurtech Insights release the Future 50 Europe Insurtechs. Following the launch of the Future 50 Americas in June, Sonr and Insurtech Insights partner again to cover European Insurtechs. Unsurprisingly, you’ll find most of the winners in the distribution part of the value chain, tackling P&C lines. The report also highlights the rise of usage-based insurance, the tackling of untapped customer segments, new risks to insure (climate change, cyber), and wellbeing becoming key in everyone’s mind 📰 Insurtech Insights
💲 VC fund-raising and M&A news
DealerPolicy raises $110 million Series C investment round led by Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s growth equity fund. DealerPolicy, which functions as an insurance agency in the lower 48 states, connects car buyers with insurance quotes. According to the company, it reaches a network of over 1,000 dealers, 40 insurance carriers, and has written over $200 million in total premiums for car-buyers nationwide since establishing the company in 2016 📰 Insurtech Insights
Envelop Risk Analytics raises $130 million Series B round led by Softbank Vision Fund II. Cyber (re)insurance continues to be hot in 2021. Envelop Risk provides pricing, risk analysis, and underwriting focused on the global cyber reinsurance market to insurers and reinsurers. The firm has underwritten over $250 million of business since 2018 📰 Coverager
Insurify closes $100 million Series B led by Motive Partners. Insurify is an insurance comparison website that features auto, home and life insurance. Customers can instantly compare insurance quotes from both large and regional insurance companies through real-time integrations and AI-powered recommendations. Insurify’s ambition is to create the best virtual insurance agent on the market 📰 Coverager
Vouch Insurance announces a $30 million Series B1 investment led by Redpoint Ventures and new $60 million Series C round led by SVB Capital and Ribbit Capital, raising a total of $90 million to accelerate its growth. Founded in 2018, Vouch is an insurance platform for startups that offers a range of products including Business Property, General Liability, Directors & Officers, Employment Practice Liability, and Cyber Coverage. Vouch has also become a licenced carrier, and is developing new products (work from anywhere coverage, new cyber coverages, embedded insurance capabilities). Vouch has also become the preferred business insurance provider for startups like Brex, Carta and WeWork 📰 Coverager
Marshmallow raises $85 million Series B funding round that included Investec, Passion Capital and SCOR, reaching unicorn status. Marshmallow is a London-based car insurance provider. It offers car insurance to foreign drivers living in the UK. Partners include AXA 📰 Coverager
Sunday raises $45 million Series B from Tencent and other investors. Sunday is a Bangkok-based full-stack Insurtech that sells online motor and traval insurance in D2C and also serves employers with health coverage. It reports serving 1.6 million customers to date 📰 TechCrunch
Open raises $31 million Series B to launch in New Zealand and the UK. Open is an Australian Insurtech that boasts 70,000 customers to date. Open partners can easily embed insurance into any app or website APIs using the insurtech’s platform. It makes it simple to share data, prepopulate quotes, and offer personalised savings. 📰 Insurtech Insights
Hong-Kong based digital insurance platform OneDegree raises $28 million in a new fund round. It provides digital insurance products for pets, homes and businesses. The company currently has 90,000 customers and is known for its core pet insurance products. To date, the company has raised ~ $70 million 📰 Insurtech Insights Coverager
Brazil-based Pier raises $20 million Series B funding round led by Raiz Investimentos. We rarely talk about Brazilian Insurtechs, Pier’s fund-raising is a great opportunity to do so. Pier sells insurance for smartphones and automobiles through a digital platform. It is seeking regulatory approval to expand its operations in the automotive sector and also sell home and life insurance 📰 Coverager
Sayata raises $17 million Series A round led by Team8 Capital and Vertex Ventures, two high profile Israeli VC firms. After its pivot from a cyber risk assessment platform, Sayata now is a commercial risk platform working with insurers and MGAs 📰 Coverager
DigiSure raises $13 million round led by Morado Ventures to develop its embedded protection insurance for the (shared) mobility space 📰 Coverager
Guidewire acquires HazardHub, a provider of API-driven property risk insights to the P&C insurance industry. Founded in 2016, HazardHub offers geographic risk datasets Coverager
Alan launches a new service for its customers, Alan Mind, after acquiring US-based mental health app Jour for €20 million, and continues to build its healthcare superapp. Alan is more known for its health insurance products—it covers 200,000 people through their employers, but is tirelessly building an app with health services like teleconsultation (in partnership with Livi), mindfulness (in partnership with Headspace), a map to find doctors nearby (Alan Map), a service for young parents (Alan Baby), and more. Through Jour’s acquisition, Alan will offer, starting at €5/employee/month, a mental health app with the possibility to book virtual appointments with mental health professionals 📰 TechCrunch
Allianz X acquires GT Motive. Allianz X is the digital investment arm of European insurer Allianz. It has acquired a majority stake in GT Motive, a UK-based SaaS provider that develops solutions for estimating and managing automotive insurance claims, as well as maintenance and mechanical breakdowns. It operates in 28 countries 📰 Coverager
🚀 New products, partnerships, collaborations and more
Farmers will use Boston Dynamics’ robots for catastrophe claims and property inspections. Farmers will use Boston Dynamics’ robot dogs Spot to assist with in-field catastrophe claims handling and non-catastrophe property inspections. Farmes is one of the first national P&C insurers to deploy a robotic quadruped 📰 Coverager
Lemonade launches new pet health insurance offering. Lemonade Pet launched a new preventative care package designed for puppies and kittens under two years old, providing coverage for procedures like spay and neuter, microchipping, flea medication, and up to six vaccines or boosters. The $2 billion US pet health insurance industry tends to focus on coverage for accidents and illness, rather than preventative care for young pets, making Lemonade’s new package especially appealing for parents of young pets 📰 Insurtech Insights
Tractable partners with Graphcore. Tractable will leverage Graphcore’s IPU to boost and accelerate its research and development efforts. In fact, Tractable’s business is highly computationally demanding, requiring the use and continued development of advanced AI models 📰 Graphcore
Israel’s Planck partners with Sompo, Japan’s second largest insurance companyn. As part of the partnership, Planck will help Sompo automate commercial insurance underwriting for its 30 million customers. Planck’s platform gathers data that is publicly available about businesses, applies machine learning to generate insights, and helps companies assess the level of risk more accurately. 📰 Calcalistech
Home 🏡 and car 🚗 insurance news
Lemonade’s telematics plan is taking shape, as it files for its new car insurance offering with several US states. Remember, Lemonade plans to launch Lemonade Car, its auto insurance offering, before the end of the year. Lemonade plans to attract responsible and tech-savvy drivers interested in telematics. It plans to rely on Octo’s DriveAbility Score 3.0 to provide users with more accurate and fairer pricing, as well as on TrueMotion (acquired by CMT) to collect and analyze telematics data through the Lemonade app. Lemonade’s telematics program will also feature a “try before you buy” feature 📰 Coverager
Hippo opens innovation & growth center in Tel Aviv. US-based homeowners Insurtech Hippo Insurance opened its first international office in Tel Aviv to fuel the growth and innovation behind Hippo’s home protection business 📰 Insurtech Insights
Luko launches new credit insurance product in France. Deep diving into the home vertical, and after claiming 150,000 home insurance customers in France, Luko now tackles the €10 billion French credit insurance market and hopes to disrupt it with credit insurance 50-70% cheaper than the market average, a 10min long, 100% digital buy and quote process 📰 Challenges (in French!)
Leocare launches new claims bot named ClaimCare. Leocare is a French online MGA that sells auto, home, motorcycle, and smartphone insurance. It just unveiled a new claims bot to automate claims handling through its mobile app and offer an “Uber Eats” like experience, with the added promise of compensating customers in less than 24 hours 📰 L’Argus de l’Assurance (in French!)
Acheel, a French full-stack neoinsurer offering home, pet and supplemental health insurance, launches a new product for non occupants. In addition, Acheel plans to launch three new products before the end of the year, namely auto insurance, motorcycle insurance, and credit insurance 📰 L’Argus de l’Assurance (in French!)