Oxbow Partners publishes the 2019 InsurTech Impact 25
February 28, 2019 Chris Sandilands
Oxbow Partners has today published its 2019 InsurTech Impact 25, revealing the 25 technology-led businesses it believes to be well positioned to have a major impact on the European insurance industry.
The report, now in its second year, includes detailed profiles of the 25 Member companies addressing the question industry leaders are all asking: “Which InsurTechs can add value to my company?” Also covered in the report is a thorough analysis of InsurTech trends along with hypotheses about their impact on (re)insurers and brokers, as well as a review of the progress made by last year’s Members.
Impact 25 Members were selected by Oxbow Partners based on an assessment of the impact and sustainability of their strategy, execution capabilities and existing traction.
The 2019 Impact 25 members are:
- Distribution: Finabro, FloodFlash, Inshur, Yulife, Zeguro
- Distribution Support: Broker Insights, Element, Hokodo, Laka, Ottonova, Tremor
- Data & Analytics: Concirrus, DQPro, InforceHub, Metabiota, Pharm3r, Shepherd
- Operations: Artificial Labs, Digital Insurance Group, Insly, McKenzie Intelligence, OnSiteIQ, Whitespace
- Claims: Bdeo, Snapsheet
Oxbow Partners chairman Stuart Davies said: “This year we have selected 25 InsurTechs that we think are worthy of senior executives’ attention. We included a broad range, including a programmatic auction platform for reinsurance placement, a gamified B2B2C life insurance platform and a German ‘full stack’ health insurer.”
The report highlights examples of collaboration with the traditional insurance market, including data and analytics for risk selection and pricing, specialist insurance systems for certain products or channels, and claims.
The 25 selected firms are more heavily weighted to distribution InsurTechs than last year. Members include Inshur, which targets ‘gig economy’ drivers and Finabro, a pensions platform in German-speaking Europe. A new category called ‘Distribution Support’ was added to reflect an emerging business model where InsurTechs help incumbents with distribution but do not sell products themselves. Broker Insights (a firm set up by a former Aviva executive), German ‘full stack’ insurer Element and Hokodo (set up by the former Group COO of Aspen) are all examples in this category.
Another significant development is a shift towards commercial lines.
Chris Sandilands, a partner at Oxbow Partners and the report’s lead author, said:“InsurTech is continuing to evolve. We’re seeing some business models such as pricing analytics mature, and some really interesting propositions targeting personal lines and SME emerge. We’re happy that hype around possible disruption has calmed over the last year, and that leading insurers and brokers are now taking a considered approach to the opportunities InsurTech offers them.”
Investment in InsurTech held up in 2018 but there are signs that investors are increasingly focused on larger, later stage investments, says the report.
Davies warns: “This could favour InsurTechs in the US, where investor pockets are traditionally deeper. European insurers might find that InsurTech quickly moves from being a universe of early stage experimenters to a group of aggressive, US tech companies attacking their markets. Lemonade has already announced its plan to enter Europe in 2019. Insurers must be prepared.”
The success of last year’s 25 Members underlines the rigorous nature of the Impact 25 selection process, adds Davies. “We are delighted to see that all of last year’s Impact 25 Members had a great year – testament to our robust selection process which is also central to our InsurTech advisory work, one of the themes in our insurance strategy and operations practices. As we said last year, there are no prizes for insurers or brokers who are active in InsurTech but select the wrong partners.
ENDS
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Notes to editors
Oxbow Partners is a management consultancy serving exclusively the insurance industry. We work on strategy and transformation, digital and M&A topics in general insurance, life insurance and pensions. Our agile approach, senior teams and deep sector expertise allow us to deliver projects for clients faster than traditional consultancies.
Our Chairman is Stuart Davies, former Group CEO at Sompo Canopius.
In 2018 we were ranked one of the top 10 management consultancies in the UK for insurance in a Financial Times study.
