Lighthouse #4

May 31

Curating the best insurance, insurtech, innovation and leadership content for you.

Ron Arnold
11eight | Linkedin | twitter

Subscribe

A ship is safe in a harbor, but that’s not what ships are built for.

William Shedd

Insurance

Amazon Building Capability – Preparing To Have A Real Crack At Mainstream Insurance?: Amazon has announced a partnership with Netradyne - known for its fleet safety platform Driveri that captures and analyzes 100% of driving time, identifying areas for improvement as well as driver recognition opportunities. Check out the video - https://lnkd.in/gBbrdB4 Additionally, Amazon Web Services has launched 5 new services that help industrial and manufacturing customers embed intelligence in their production processes - gathering data that is no doubt useful for risk assessment, product definition and pricing. These also open the way for 'education and mitigation' services. Add to this Amazon's activity in India with digital insurer Acko, payment platforms and massive customer reach and small business reach. If I was a mainstream insurer, I would be preparing for Amazon emerging as a serious competitor in home, auto and SME insurance, and related services. Read more. Source: Coverager

Tesla Getting Serious About Motor Insurance? Watch out insurers, Tesla has launched another insurance product, promising owners rates 20%-30% lower than other insurance providers. Tesla Insurance will only be available to owners in California initially. Tesla CEO Elon said it will be “much more compelling than anything else out there.” The company argues that Tesla Insurance will be able to provide insurance at a lower cost by leveraging the “advanced technology, safety, and serviceability of our cars.” In short, Tesla is saying that its deep insight and familiarity with its own vehicles gives it a better understanding of the technology and repair costs. This helps eliminate fees taken by traditional insurance carriers. I think what is more important is the data will help them cherry pick the good drivers. It won’t be long before the other MV manufacturers are embedding insurance in the new car proposition using tech and data to make the proposition easy, simple and frictionless for the consumer. A big challenge for incumbents and there is no easy competitive response - the incumbents don't have the data and they have no position in the sales cycle! Read more. Source: TechCrunch

Ikea Goes Into Banking – adding to its Insurance efforts in partnership with Swiss Re: Ikea’s owner has acquired a 49% stake in Ikano Bank. The bank’s retailer-friendly products could enable Ikea to follow the lead of other large retailers exploring buy now, pay later offerings. It ramps up Ikea’s ability to build a fin services relationship with its customers. This move follows its partnership with Swiss Re’s digital insurance arm iptiQ. The partnership has launched HEMSÄKER, a home insurance offering initially available in Switzerland and Singapore. According to a statement from Swiss Re, iptiQ’s business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) model allows it to collaborate with firms such as IKEA to provide various services to customers such as new insurance offerings on the iptiQ digital platform. More point of sale competition for insurers....with the ipitQ platform offering the potential for a slick and simple digital interface for the customer. It also continues the trend of the big reinsurers finding direct to customer digital distribution opportunities. More things for mainstream insurers to watch and worry about! Read more. Source: Insurance Business Magazine

Aon’s new usage based fleet solution: Global insurance broker Aon has launched a personal car leasing product that includes pay-on-use insurance, giving customers the advantage of saving money when they are not driving. The company will adjust its insurance premiums according to how far a car is driven, using a telematics system to track cars. Called Flee, the product has been designed for the employees of Aon’s business clients, and tailored to meet the needs of the ‘new normal’ as workers prefer to avoid public transport and mix working between office and home. Read more. Source: Fleet Europe

IAG Calls for Access to Motoring Data: IAG says driverless car manufacturers must share vehicle use data and technical details if insurers are to continue offering cover. It wants a standardised interface that all manufacturers would use to share proprietary information in the same format, allowing insurers to compare and assess the risk of each manufacturer’s Automated Driving System (ADS). A standard platform for sharing has merit. I think it is tougher to argue that manufacturers (and drivers) should be forced to provide access to the data. Some thorny issues to be worked through here! The manufacturers are in a very powerful partnering position – they do and will increasingly hold some very powerful risk data. Read more. Source: Insurance News

Another potential competitive vector for insurers: ASX listed fintech lenders Plenti and Wisr have reported that their most recent quarter was a record. One of the most significant drivers for both stocks was growth in car loans. Plenti Group for example made loan originations of $130.9 million and its total loan portfolio reached $508 million. Another potential competitive vector for insurers, the likes of Wisr and Plenti move on a regulatory compliant, digitally enabled car insurance offering at the point of sale. Read more. Source: Australian FinTech

Happy to share driving data – as long as you don’t know who I am: New data suggests car users across the UK are happy and increasingly willing to share vehicle data, as long as their anonymity is maintained. But they are not happy to share it for everything. Key findings:

74% were OK with the technical status and operating health of their vehicles being shared
75% were OK with sharing of data around external traffic, weather & road conditions
Car users were deeply uncomfortable with the sharing of more vehicle-related personal data, as a result of the potentially higher risk of individual car users becoming identifiable through the data
91% were somewhat concerned about their car being hacked
45% were uncomfortable with sharing their location in general
Almost 50% were uncomfortable with sharing data around their driving ability, including usage of connected safety and convenience features, such as automatic parking assist and emergency braking.

Thought Leadership and Innovation

How To Get More From Your Corporate Innovation: Several studies suggest many executive leaders are disappointed with the impact of their innovation spend. A useful collection of insights in this article on what needs to change based on interviews with some leading innovators.

> Be More Strategic
> Be More Accountable For Results
> Focus More On What Concerns Leaders Now
> Achieve Impact At Scale
> Embrace Experimentation And Data-Driven Funding (For Real)
> Need To Decentralize Innovation
> Focus More On Solving The Big Issues Of Our Time

Insurtech

Hippo Likely To IPO via Merger: Hippo Insurance is one of those insurtechs I recommend people follow. Why? They have a clear vision, are super customer focused, truly understand the power of data in driving customer experiences. Anyway, it is in negotiations to go public through a merger with special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Reinvent Technology Partners, that includes Zynga Inc, founder Mark Pincus and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman as its lead directors, according to a report on Bloomberg. The combined company is set to be valued at more than $5 billion.

Marble Insurance Digital Wallet Raises US$2.5m: Marble, “a digital wallet and loyalty platform for insurance,” has raised $2.5 million in seed funding. Marble’s investors include IA Capital Group, MS&AD Ventures, Reciprocal Ventures, Fintech Ventures Fund, The Takoma Group, and HU Investments. Marble, a company that encourages users to upload their insurance policies so that it can later provide them with relevant insurance offers and potential savings. Once you upload the policy docs, the information is displayed in your ‘insurance wallet’ section. This is one of the first I have seen. I would imagine with some volume, some good analytics and some good UX some people will be attracted to the idea of a simple, low cost insurance shopping service. Read more. Source: Coverager

Commercial Insurance Rater Briza Closed An US $8m Series A Funding Round: This brings its total funding to date to $11 million. Briza’s mission is “delivering commercial insurance to the world.” In practice, that means empowering developers to create user experiences, and democratizing commercial insurance APIs by allowing them to be consumed by as broad an audience as possible. The company has not accepted investment from any insurance brokerage or insurance carrier. This unique posture allows Briza to work conflict-free with insurance agents, brokers, carriers, wholesalers, MGAs and technology providers alike. Read more. Source: Coverager

Trustlayer Proof-Of-Insurance Risk Management Platform Raises US$6.6m: Quite an interesting business model. Doing the work of pulling together key compliance documentation for "business partners". TrustLayer pitches its technology as a collaborative risk management application that enables automated verification of certificates of insurance, licenses, and compliance documents for a client company’s business partners. It relies on artificial intelligence and machine learning technology. Read more.

#Diversity

#startup ecosystem diversity is a problem. Women get less than 3% of #vcfunding globally, yet they typically outperform their male counterparts (BCG). Access to capital, training to help build new skills & access to networks of power are key challenges. Here I share the stories of inspirational women in the start-up ecosystem and important educational pieces.

Female founders under fire: Are women in the startup world being unfairly targeted? This article summarises some of the challenges facing Female Founders. Here are some stats that highlight how difficult it is for Female founders in the start-up eco-system:

> Female founder-CEOs run only 4% of the “unicorn” startups valued at more than $1 billion - female founders of unicorns are even more rare than female Fortune 500 CEOs, who currently run 7.4% of the US's largest companies.
> Only 2.6% of VC funding goes to companies with all female founding teams female
> VC funding for companies founded by women dropped to $434 million in the third quarter last year its lowest level in three years—and about 1% of the $37.8 billion invested in all startups during the same period.