Bitesize InsurTech: Covi Analytics
June 11, 2016 Chris Sandilands
Technology in regulation (“RegTech”) has grown off the back of FinTech, with startups finding ways to help financial organisations deal with the ever more complex regulatory obligations that apply across the world. Most focus on banks, but insurance carriers and brokers alike will know that this is an industry with a real regulatory burden. When looking at surveys of key concerns faced by insurance C-suiters over recent years you will see that regulation and its constant creep always rate highly.
In true entrepreneurial spirit, where there’s a problem a solution will be found. Enter Covi Analytics and its charismatic founder, Waleed Sarwar.
Covi is, we believe, the first example of Compliance as a Service (CaaS) to the insurance industry. It has created a data-driven platform to help insurers interpret and comply with regulations. The platform is geared to address Solvency II issues, with an online directory unifying an entire pack of documents to allow easy search and visualisation. It uses artificial intelligence to process the text and continually flag up relevant points and issues.
We think Covi will prove to be far more than a one-time fix – it will add value over the long term by providing metrics to support ongoing compliance. With Covi’s analytics, even legacy systems can be forced to yield up useful, secure data, aligned to compliance reporting needs.
The user-friendly dashboard allows users to see potential and actual issues. Each risk comes up as a box with simple scoring for impact and likelihood, and more information is available at a click. Covi can automate compliance functions as well as provide better data for compliance professionals to make decisions. Put simply, we think it makes compliance quicker, more cost-effective and more reliable.
Covi is currently looking to raise funds to build out the team and ramp up marketing efforts. We have no doubt they’ll get there soon. They spent the first quarter of 2016 “accelerating” at Startupbootcamp and you can see their recent Demo Day pitch here. It’s only a matter of time before RegTech spreads further from banking into insurance, but Waleed and his team have a strong head start.
