The changing face of InsurTech in Commercial Property

Grace Hopper, American Computer Scientist is said to have famously said:

‘The most dangerous phrase in our language is – we have always done it this way.’

Interestingly her team is credited with popularizing the term “debugging” for fixing computer glitches; inspired by an actual moth removed from a computer relay.

Commercial Property insurance has been largely driven by players with massive risk appetite. Although insurance industry accounts for more than 3%*(see footnote) of the US GDP, it is perceived as slow to adopt new technologies. Compared to ecommerce or travel industry, traditional insurance carriers have been not as quick to leap frog from traditional systems. While popular apps like amazon, tripadvisor, yelp etc. have been rapidly deploying new technologies to retain existing & capture new customer base, legacy applications continue to drive the bread and butter for large insurers.

However, last decade has seen arrival of smaller players who through directly or by collaborating with large players have transformed the policy admin journey. This article attempts to capture some of the leading insurtech players in the policy admin commercial property value chain:

Trov is a cloud based direct to consumer app that offers micro duration policies for specific items. This app is a big shift from the traditional insurance model where the touch point happens once a year to buy a new policy or renew an existing policy. The flexibility in the duration and coverage terms is expected to attract more customers. During the Onset of COVID, Trov offered coverage for last mile delivery that allowed organizations to deploy drivers rapidly for home delivery.

Cytora enables underwriters to arrive at faster underwriting decisions by leveraging its data APIs that pull risk information related to the prospect – mostly company data. Additionally, the product also provides AI capabilities that allows Underwriters to estimate accurate loss predictions based on engineering data and determine whether the insured has the appetite to assume the risk much earlier in the underwriting process.

Small and Mid-Size Markets (SME) are volume driven and today’s digital world presents massive data about the enterprises. DFP’s AI solution enables hand design elements that allows UW to incorporate manual inputs in addition to vast data scrubbed and analyzed by its algorithms on bound as well as prospect information.

Instanda is looking to capitalize the increasing product customization and lower distribution needs by providing an end-to-end platform spanning digital engagement, distribution and underwriting. The platform aims to provide a no-code capability that will enable business users to rapidly deploy underwriting solutions based on changing product configuration, thereby removing dependency on technology teams and proliferating time to market.

Hope you enjoyed reading this article. Are there any promising InsurTech stories that you would like to share?

*https://www.statista.com/statistics/1040495/property-casualty-direct-insurance-market-size-usa/