Hello! The next release of the ‘Inspire Insurtech’ series where we interview inspiring insurtechs to find out who they are, what they do, what we can expect from them in the future, and more is here!

For this feature, we have CINCH Insurance with Founder, Warren Burns. Enjoy!

Tell us Cinch’s brief pitch

Cinch is a tool that provides families and small businesses access to all of the their insurance information, regardless of vendor, from a single source.  Log in to Cinch and you can see all of your policy information, take out new cover as when you need it, renew your current policies and even make a claim, all from one dashboard.

Cool!

So how did Cinch begin?

Cinch began as a sense of frustration with the kinds of technology that were being provided to manage your relationship with the industry.  As we began to work with some insurers and brokers we got to understand that they shared our frustration.  The insurance technology market had been under invested in compared to other similar sectors.  Software that had been built in the 90’s was still in common use across the industry and customers were feeling the pain through low levels or automation, heavy reliance on paper and poor user experience.

Well done!

How has Cinch evolved since inception?

We originally aimed to build a robo advice business that was aimed at the SME sector.  We had experience building financial advice algorithms and had a strong data science team.  Through our interactions with potential clients we learned that the advice side of things is not where clients are feeling the pain.  The main pain point we came across was how distributed and obfuscated your insurance information was.  Multiple insurers, each with multiple brands, fronted by brokers meant that even a simple insurance portfolio was difficult to interact with.  We are now concentrating on being the central place where all of your data lives, personal and business, and giving users the ability to control who has access to their insurance information.

Awesome!

What is your team currently working on 2019 or what have you accomplished recently?

We have two big accomplishments that we are celebrating recently.  We gained agreement from another one of the bigger insurers to work with the Cinch platform.  They have agreed to provide policy information for users of the tool and will also provide quotes and renewals through Cinch which is great news for us as we need everyone to collaborate in the best interests of clients for this to work.

The other big news this week is that we have signed an agreement with a medium sized broker to run their affinity lines through the Cinch For Affinity tool.  This really enhances our ability to reach our intended audience and offers the Broker access to a technology solution that enhances their brand.

Great! We’ll hear more about this space!

How does Cinch ‘give back’?

The truth is that we are not in a position to yet.  We are bootstrapping ourselves to market and all of our attention is on getting this amazing technology launched.  Perhaps in the future we will start a charity that holds parties for 80’s era insurance executives so that they can dress in double breasted suits and regale each other with stories about how much better the parties were back then.

That’s a good one!

What is Cinch’s biggest challenge in today’s markets?

Our view on this has changed.  We originally worried that regulation and compliance would be our biggest hurdle.  Our conversations with regulators have been nothing but positive and helpful.  We are focused on the challenge of participation.  We need all participants to look at us as an opportunity to make everyone’s lives easier and not a technology threat that is here to automate people out of the loop.  Relationships, Risk Management and Reputation are key to success in insurance, we are purely a technology business that supports each one of those principles.

Well said!

Anything else you’d like to say that we didn’t ask?

The number of insurers who still use 1993 ANZIC codes is a statement that tells us all we need to know about where the industry is right now.

Thank you!

The awesome CINCH Insurance team!

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Hello! The next release of the ‘Inspire Insurtech’ series where we interview inspiring insurtechs to find out who they are, what they do, what we can expect from them in the future, and more is here!

For this feature, we have wiCover with co-Founder and CEO, Nick Evans. Enjoy!

Tell us wiCover’s brief pitch

wiCover enables insurance companies to meet the technology expectations of the modern digital customer. We build digital customer experiences to change the way insurance is consumed. As a technology business providing front-end digital insurance platforms, we create solutions that reduces user friction, reduces costs and resources; and increases transparency.  wiCover provides our technology as a Service, we take care of the ever evolving technology requirements and the insurance company focusses on developing the product and the distribution channels. Customer experience leads into Customer Effort: what additional effort are you forcing your customer to undertake to do business with you? What friction can be removed to drive a better customer experience?

wiCover operates in Australia, South Africa, Dubai, the UK and our teams provide services in the US and Asia. We provide services to global insurers, listed entities, InsurTech startups, MGA’s, brokerages and provide the same level of UX, design, technology, security, encryption regardless of whether you starting your business or changing a 100 year old business. In some markets, we are building interfaces between large insurers and the brokers to enable brokers to enjoy the speed that customers are now expecting from digital direct insurance offerings. We solve a specific problem in insurance – the customer experience. Each customer is different, in some spaces, we are enabling customers, and in other markets we are enabling brokers. We are not an admin platform. We do integrate into existing technology partners to enable customers to digitally access sales, service, claims and create additional engagement opportunities.

Cool!

So how did wiCover begin?

wiCover say the opportunity to remove the friction and frustrated created when filling out paper forms for claims and new business; and to reduce the reliance on call centres for sales and service. We built a lot of really cool technology that we expected insurance companies to “want” or even “need” to assist with their digital plans while connecting with new age customers. We found that most of the insurance businesses we engaged with loved new technology presentations, even though they had no capabilities to use the technology and were not selling insurance online. We found our sweet spot in creating digital front end customer technology that allows insurance companies join the digital age. Our as a Service model allows speed to market, reduce time to market, reducing the technology invest and building long term partnerships that create value. Now we challenge insurance companies with the statement: your customers are digitally enabled, are you?

That’s an awesome origin story!

How has wiCover evolved since inception?

We started out building technology solutions for insurance businesses to own and slowly (these lessons are not always quick!) realised that we had better opportunity following the Software as a Service model that reduced the upfront costs significantly for insurance companies to create a meaningful digital presence for their customers. We also made a few mistakes in our hosting solution and were losing business opportunities as a result. We started again from scratch after 18months and a few tough lessons to meet the needs of the market. We take our role in providing powerful digital customer experiences seriously and will continue to push the limits of what insurers believe is possible in meeting their expectations. Long live the Customer!

Keep moving forward!

What is your team currently working on 2019 or what have you accomplished recently?

We are delivering solutions to clients in Australia, Africa and Europe which keeps our DevOps teams very busy. It feels right when your business learns lessons, takes action and we reap the benefits and enjoy successes. Our focus on adding to our wiCover Core platform capabilities, continue to reduce the cost to create digital solutions and expand our client base in Australia. We have seen huge appetite for digital solutions in the Australian Insurance market and look forward to driving future successes. Each client deployment has a totally unique user experience, so each week we are working on something new, creating something of value and learning new tools and tricks.

Great! We’ll hear more about this space!

How does wiCover ‘give back’?

wiCover creates and participates in events, summits, interviews that helps focus attention on InsurTech industry and particularly shines the attention on solving customer problems. In Africa there is a massive opportunity to extend financial services to previously uninsured markets by decreasing the cost to connect and distribute insurance products and we aim to provide the technology that will connect that new customer to the insurer. We are all about the customer experience changing the way insurance is consumed and we aim to bring that purpose to life with each client deployment being to closer to that goal.

Cool!

What is wiCover’s biggest challenge in today’s markets?

We face challenges of potential clients thinking we just build websites and cannot understand why they need to invest in their digital customer experiences. Having come face to face with our own technology limitations and slayed that dragon, our challenges of scaling into new markets rapidly are creating the challenges of video technology limitations meeting time zones! Other challengers we face are fear of replacing people by digitising insurance services. We actively say that technology enables relationships and does not replace the need for the human connection. Technology can automate processes that creates efficiencies and reduces friction, and then allows people to provide the human touch. 

Having deployed teams onto 3 continents to face the challenge head on, managing those teams has its own set of challenges. We have amazing partners in some territories that make the transition from newcomer to market credibility extremely smooth and we cannot thank them enough. We are allowed to think Global and act local due having existing business networks in those territories. InsurTech Australia and it’s community would count as part of those we are thankful to be part of.

Thank you!

Nick Evans together with Wimpie van der Merwe and Ronald Gall are the founders of wiCover

The awesome wiCover team!

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Hello! The next release of the ‘Inspire Insurtech’ series where we interview inspiring insurtechs to find out who they are, what they do, what we can expect from them in the future, and more is here!

For this feature, we have Galileo Platforms with co-Founder and Chair, Annette King. Enjoy!

Tell us Galileo Platform’s brief pitch

We provide a policy administration system using blockchain technology. We are a B2B business and our clients serve the retail insurance clients who need general, life or health insurance.

The benefits are:

1. cost structures are lower and more flexible, opening up new revenue opportunities by serving new clients

2. product and service innovation is fast and cheap. Experiences can be designed and delivered simply, without being held back by system constraints or time-consuming regression testing

3. service improvements for everyone from the retail client, to the call centre, to their financial advisor or digital broker, the insurer and reinsurer.  Everyone deals in real-time, secure information

4. data is captured so that behaviours, marketing results, product proposition and claims outcomes can be analysed (manually or through AI) and optimised.

Awesome!

So how did Galileo Platforms begin?

We started the business in Hong Kong in 2016.  The co-founders came together with the idea that there were major improvements needed in the insurance industry, and that created a business opportunity. We had worked together and knew each other from industry.

Good origin story!

How has Galileo Platforms evolved since inception?

We spent the first 3 months strategizing where the biggest business opportunities were and conducting research in a number of markets across Asia-Pac. We have pivoted a few times, to concentrate where we see the greatest demand. For example, we had a B2C proposition but saw more demand/less competition in the B2B space. We also see more agility in decision-making in the P&C and Health Insurance product lines than in Life insurance, and initially we thought it might be the other way around. Things are ever evolving, and it’s great to be able to switch things if we need to, to keep very focussed on our client demand.

That sounds exciting!

What is your team currently working on 2019 or what have you accomplished recently?

We completed our Series A funding in 2H2018, so we completed the build-out of the team and spent most of Q4 in heavy marketing mode.  There were a lot of insurtech conferences in Asia-Pac, particularly Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia as well as Insurtech Connect in the US, so we generated a lot of exposure and great client contacts.

We’re finalising the build of the platform and about to commence some more proofs of concept for clients in 3 different countries, which will then move into “go live” production.

Great! We’ll be watching this space!

How does Galileo Platforms ‘give back’?

Firstly, our purpose is to enable better financial inclusion.  The cost economics of our platform and the scalability it provides means that we can provide a service that enables insurance to be provided for a few dollars.  This can be for low-income people or it can be “incidental” insurance, meaning that the insurance purchased is designed and delivered to easily wrap around a lifestyle or business choice.  For example, we can help connect health insurers and medical-providers for real-time claims settlement, weather parametric insurance for crops, connect car repairers or builders to insurers, or improving large scale efficiencies across an entire industry such as insurance in superannuation.

We speak at conferences, of course, and participate heavily in the start-up and fintech communities in Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore. I also volunteer on the Actuaries Institute Council.

As a team, we have yet to select a cause for volunteering, but that’s on the cards.

Cool!

What is Galileo Platform’s biggest challenge in today’s markets?

The long decision-making process of financial institutions and change management.  Both my co-founder, Mark Wales and I, spent decades working in large insurers so we know the process and a lot of the people… the good news is that because I’ve been a CEO, CFO, CMO and Board Director, and Mark has been a CIO, we can speak knowledgeably with all C-suite and board decision makers. We often assist with ideation, providing helpful information for business cases as well as bringing to life the ideas of our client’s team.

We work with both incumbents and disruptors.  They know their retail clients and design the proposition they want to take to market … we make it happen for them fast and economically, and their operating costs are a fraction of what they would be on a legacy system.  They focus on designing and iterating their proposition and pricing, and we do the back-end heavy lifting of record-keeping and transactions amongst all parties in real-time.

Awesome!

Anything else you’d like to say?

The insurance industry has been slow to respond to changing consumer lifestyles and consumer expectations.  New skills have been brought into most companies to design better outcomes for their retail clients … but it is hard to do given current systems and infrastructure.  Blockchain really gives a set of tools to help you bring to life your designed client experience, easily adapt it and focus on your differentiators of brand, proposition, service and human touch, with a backend running everything real-time and automating as much as possible for you.  This is a designer’s toolkit as well as significantly reducing operating costs.

I’ve been in the insurance industry 30 years, and I think this is a very exciting time of change! It’s pretty clear which organisations are focussed on the future and able to grab the opportunities.  I’m luckily in a position to be working with those organisations that are creating the insurance of the future – it’s energising!

Thank you!

    Annette King, Galileo Platform’s co-Founder and Chair

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A message from Leo Bremanis, Adviser, Trade and Investment Services and Technology, Australian Trade and Investment Commission (Austrade)

Leo.Bremanis@austrade.gov.au | www.austrade.gov.au

Opportunity – Austrade Fintech Delegation to India: Fintegrate Zone 2019 Conference (Mumbai, 25 February-1^st March 2019)

Austrade is seeking expression of interest for a potential mission to Fintegrate Zone 2019, organised by eminent Indian Startup accelerator Zonestartups India, 25^th February-1^st March, 2019. You are invited to express your interest in this great opportunity.

This is a great time to explore the fintech opportunity in India. India’s Fintech software market is expected to double from a current USD 1.2 Billion to 2.4 Billion by 2020 (NASSCOM forecast). This is attributed to rising consumer demands and expectations, rising E-Commerce and smartphone penetration.

• Central and State governments have pushed for mass financial inclusion and innovation, in order to link the population into a more inclusive and efficient financial, economic and digital space.
• Regional regulatory sandboxes and Fintech associations have also been continually set up to lend substantial support for the thriving Fintech industry, which will only grow to new heights on the back of India’s overall robust economy.

The above has seen rising investments and innovation in various Fintech hubs, including the likes of Vizag, Mumbai and Bangalore.

Why Fintegrate?

• Fintegrate focusses on the future of technology in financial services within India and beyond its borders. It is one of India’s largest thought leadership conferences – a combination of conference tracks, workshops, meetups, CXO Roundtables, startup exhibits and demo nights. It commenced in 2017 to bring all the stakeholders from financial services together under one roof.
• Fintegrate 2019 will bring together a host of banking, financial services and insurance stakeholders from banks, end users, investors, and startups. The major areas covered will be Data Analysis/P2P Lending/Payments/KYC/Machine Learning/Robo advisory/Wallet/Wealth management/Fraud prevention/Blockchain/Data Collection/Chatbots/AI.
• Zonestartups India, the organising Incubator, is supported officially by the Indian Government’s Department of Science and Technology.
• With 18 different conference tracks, the 2018 edition saw 50 Indian and 9 international fintech startup booths, 390 B2B meetings, 74 investor meetings and 300 corporates participating.
• Zonestartups is the only Accelerator with official backing from the Indian Government’s Ministry of Science and Technology. The event is one of the largest Fintech-specific gathering all major Indian stakeholders of the industry.
• International Fintech startups/entities have the option to apply for speaking slots and showcasing booths at the event. Both are free of cost and based on merit- if interested, please get in touch with Leo.Bremanis@austrade.gov.au  

For reference, the 4 major verticals at the 2018 3-day conference included:

• Interactions with a curated list of the top 50 Indian fintech startups, seeking to meet potential clients and corporates across banking, insurance, financial services.
• 18 conference tracks ranging across banking, insurance, financial services, financial markets, financial technologies, financial inclusion, data analysis, partnerships and 107 speakers from across the globe. Other tracks included Insurtech, the role of Government, the future of payments, big data, Blockchain and more.
• Several ‘zones’ including a B2B Zone, with startups interacting face to face with large corporates (participating firms included Yes Bank, Accenture, Yes Bank, L&T, BCG, Microsoft, IDFC Bank, DCB, Adani Finserv); an Investor Zone involving a number of VCs and Pes; a showcase zone with Video/stage/booths showcasing innovative fintech entities.
• Workshops organised to provide insight into niche domains and enable participants to learn and build innovative Fintech solutions.
• Website: http://fintegrate.zone/

Supplementary Program

Outside of the Fintegrate conference in Mumbai, delegates will have the opportunity to join an additional supplementary program, to meet various key stakeholders within financial services in India and beyond on a curated supplementary program, through programming in Mumbai, New Delhi and Bangalore.

Mumbai

• Outside of the 3-day Fintegrate conference, participants will meet potential customers and contacts through tailored one-on-one appointments in Mumbai.
• Clients to meet with key Mumbai-based BFSI and fintech stakeholders to understand the strategic and commercial opportunities for Australian Fintech companies in India. This is a chance to learn about market access, entry and expansion strategies for India. Participants will also have the opportunity to meet with major Indian banks in Mumbai, along with their innovative fintech programs. Examples include ICICI bank’s fintech program, as well as Barclay’s RISE accelerator.
• Introduction to Maharashtra State’s Fintech Hub to understand the State Government push to support the Fintech Startup ecosystem further and register for the State’s Fintech registry.
• Major Corporates and IT integrators based in Mumbai include 3i Infotech, L&T Infotech, Oracle financial services software ltd, Tata Consultancy Services, Rolta, and Hexaware. Introduction to other leading Fintech incubators, a mixture of bank-backed and standalone entities: Reliance Gennext/Startupbootcamp India/Yes Fintech/DICE Fintech Ace.

New Delhi

• Participants will meet potential customers and contacts at tailored one-on-one appointments in Delhi. This includes opportunities to meet Indian IT companies like HCL Technologies, Tech Mahindra, Polaris Group, NIIT Technologies, Birlasoft and others.
• Meetings with key Government stakeholders (NITI Aayog, Invest India) and industry body NASSCOM to understand the strategic and commercial opportunities for Australian Fintech companies in India. Learn about Government policies and various Government programs.
• Participants will have the opportunity to meet with major Indian banks based out of Delhi/NCR and accelerators/ incubators operating in this space.

Bangalore

• Participants will meet potential customers and contacts at tailored one-on-one appointments in Bangalore. Opportunity to meet large Indian IT companies like Infosys, Wipro, Cognizant and Mindtree.
• Opportunity to meet NASSCOM 10000 Startups, an initiative by one of the most active industry bodies NASSCOM (https://www.nasscom.in/)
• Opportunity to meet with other major accelerators/incubators operating in this space.

*Dates in each city subject to change as per interest of companies who submit EOIs. The central Fintegrate conference is on 27 Feb/28 Feb/1 March. If interested in only the Fintegrate Program in Mumbai, do let us know.

Benefits

Benefits for Australian Fintech companies attending:

• Opportune platform to meet a plethora of IT companies, leading Indian corporates, banks, insurance companies and end users of financial technology solutions. Various showcasing platforms allow for generating awareness of your fintech solutions.
• Understand the regulatory environment in India and interact with policy makers and local Government representatives.
• Opportunity to meet a host of Indian investors, as well as to meet with the brightest Indian fintech startups and entities.
• Fintegrate is an opportunity to learn from and meet other foreign Fintech entities who have successfully entered the Indian market.

Cost of attendance

• AUD $1,650 per entity, which includes Fintegrate attendance, business matching and entire supplementary program. Accommodation and domestic/international transport costs are at delegates’ expense.
• For firms interested in only attending Fintegrate with Austrade’s assistance around the event and not taking part in the supplementary program, the cost will be AUD $550 per entity. Accommodation and domestic/international transport costs are at delegates’ expense.

EOIs

Places on this mission are very limited. To express your interest in this opportunity, please contact Leo Bremanis, Trade & Investment Adviser, Fintech, at Leo.Bremanis@austrade.gov.au

EOIs close COB AEST on Monday 28 January 2019

Interested in receiving the latest updates from Insurtech Australia?  Sign up for our newsletter and join the Insurtech Australia Community Group on LinkedIn.

Hello! The next release of the ‘Inspire Insurtech’ series where we interview inspiring insurtechs to find out who they are, what they do, what we can expect from them in the future, and more is here!

For this feature, we have Mercurien with CEO, Michael Graham Enjoy!

Tell us Mercurien’s brief pitch

Mercurien’s long term vision is to build a business model and system that enables the digital monetisation of the traffic on the road network using high fidelity data gained from GPS/Telematics systems. Our philosophy from day one was to generate per second driving data and keep it all – knowing that the price of transmission and storage costs were only ever going to get cheaper.

Road usage charges are here in many ways already. We pay registration, insurance, parking and tolling charges but they are using old analogue systems like payment terminals and RFID toll tags. Location technology opens up everything from pay-how-you-drive insurance to “park and walk away” to tidal tolling based on congestion.

Our current focus is insurance. Especially in the light commercial motor fleet insurance market where we are having a significant positive impact on the safety, costs and taxation outcomes for our clients. Crash rates for our customers are declining by between 40% and 60%. We have seen instances where fleet operators claim back Fuel Tax Credits of over $500,000 and this in fact lays off the costs of insurance for the whole fleet.

We work out of Stone and Chalk in the Sydney Startup Hub but so much of the work we do is virtual, so we are big users of conferencing technology.

Awesome!

So how did Mercurien begin?

We started when people wondered what telematics is. We literally had to explain the concept and demonstrate how is worked. For the first five years we did pilots to pay the bills – from auto clubs to corporations – and this is how we managed to scrape by with investment from founders, family and friends keeping us going.

Good origin story!

How has Mercurien evolved since inception?

Dramatically. The advent of AWS has been revolutionary for us. We used to run servers in our offices and buy hardware at $450US a piece. So, the cost of operations has dropped a lot but the complexity in what we do has increased exponentially. Now we use multiple third party and proprietary data for speed limits and Fuel Tax claims. We now have almost 50M kilometres of data in per second increments with every risk event time and date stamped and ranked by severity of events. It’s almost a risk map of the roads in high detail.

We have found a first-rate US based hardware provider and settled on an outsourced model for most functions that are usually in house – like development, finance and marketing. This has allowed us to dial resourcing up and down as demand varied.

Eventually we decided that commercial fleet insurance was the place to be and we now have our AFSL and capacity from an international insurer. That means we are a fully formed underwriting agency and our focus is on assisting clients in the light commercial market sort out their risk and taxation on fleet operations. It’s a massive sector with over 3.2 Million light commercial vehicles registered in Australia with very low penetration of what is known as ‘telematics’ or In-Vehicle Management Systems – IVMS.

The model has also evolved so that it applies in most western industrialised jurisdictions because they all require insurance, safety is imperative, and a fuel tax regime applies in all of the US, Canada and Europe to name a few. Light commercial motor is around $750Bn is premium per year

That sounds exciting!

What is your team currently working on 2019 or what have you accomplished recently?

First of all, a big focus on the insurance sales side of things so a huge effort going in to develop relationships with insurance brokers across Australia and I’m happy to say we have written business in the last quarter!

Secondly, we are pushing hard on our FleetRisk proposition (www.fleetrisk.com.au) which is focused on fleet risk mitigation and river management and coaching. The latest development here is the creation of around 600 45-60 second micro videos linked to driving style.

This is a big step forward and will allow us to use ML and AI to tailor driver feedback at scale in an automated and personalised way.

We have also built detailed ‘Return on Investment’ calculators to help our users and potential users build a business case for what we do. The positive impacts of what we do are profound at the commercial and organisational levels. Even more so with Director Responsibility obligations getting tighter and tighter.

Recently we have expanded our offering to include partnerships with Fleetcoach and SleepFit. Fleetcoach is online driver training and SleepFit is a workplace sleep hygiene improvement program. We see both of these as integral to the end-to-end management of fleets. In particular sleep health is a vastly neglected aspect of our lives and work.

Great! We’ll be watching this space!

How does Mercurien ‘give back’?

In the normal course of our business our focus is on stopping people crashing cars. It is actually that simple. With 46% of all workplace injuries involving motor vehicles anything we can do to decrease that is a great start.

We also like to talk at industry events and functions both about our business and other crucial aspects like mental health for founders and their families and close associates.

Cool!

What is Mercurien’s biggest challenge in today’s markets?

We do face the normal day to day sales issues so nothing new there. But fleet management by and large is an information/knowledge asymmetry. Fleet Managers and operators have a vast amount of information that they get from their fleet leasing providers but not a lot of it turns into actionable knowledge.

The biggest challenge we face is the reaction of fleet managers sometimes when we highlight the improvements that are possible. It’s almost that they feel like they will be subject to scrutiny for not action sooner.  For example, we met a company recently that was overpaying its FBT bill by about $3.4 million. That’s the kind of number that should get the attention of the CEO!

The other challenge we face is getting to enough Insurance Brokers to explain the process approach and benefits – once they see it they totally get it.  Getting people to change how they have done business for years can be hard but the progress of getting the message out there has been very positive.

Awesome!

Anything else you’d like to say?

We have a team of really dedicated, smart people who see the potential in the fleet and insurance space. I’d urge any broker of fleets or fleet managers to have a chat with us about improving their risk, tax and costs outcomes because the returns are substantial. It really is a great opportunity to get your fleet fit in 2019!

Thank you!

    Michael Graham, Mercurien’s CEO

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Hello! The next release of the ‘Inspire Insurtech’ series where we interview inspiring insurtechs to find out who they are, what they do, what we can expect from them in the future, and more is here!

For this feature, we have RDT with Director of Operations (RDT Asia), Neil Regan Enjoy!

Tell us RDT’s brief pitch

RDT has been pushing the boundaries of general insurance technology for 27 years and our reputation for innovation is nearly as old as the company itself.

Our holistic solution Atlas provides insurers and MGAs with a complete end-to-end insurance software solution.  Clients have control over pricing, data validation, fraud identification while improving their customers’ experience and getting ahead of their competition.

Most recently we’ve developed the technology behind TRiCE, a smartphone app which instantly returns an accurately priced, properly underwritten quote after asking the customer only five questions.

Equator is the data enrichment and orchestration solution behind the TRiCE app, and this was created by RDT while working in collaboration with insurers.  It provides better and faster assessment of risks at the point of quote, drawing on data from third party information feeds to calculate and price the risks.  With Equator, insurers can manage their rates centrally and can handle over 50 million quotes a day.

Our policy administration solution, Landscape, handles all policy, claim and accounting information.  Its flexibility makes it a powerful tool for any size of insurer or MGA.

Our products are built, tested and deployed using Agile methodologies, providing clients with a regular opportunity to review progress, amend requirements as necessary and adjust work backlogs.

We offer our products as an Azure based managed service, clients can host on their own hardware, or a combination of both.

Impressive!

So how did RDT begin?

RDT began 27 years ago as three 20-something year old friends with one insurer as a customer.  We worked in two cramped rooms above a fast food shop in Bromley, southeast London.

Now we have teams working in spacious, custom-designed headquarters in Kent (UK), offices in Halifax (UK) and Adelaide (Australia).  We currently have 110 staff and 20 customers including Direct Line, Markerstudy and RAA in Australia (an ongoing customer for over 8 years).

We have been a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner for 13 years and we annually reinvest 30 per cent of our turnover into research and development.

Coolio!

How has RDT evolved since inception?

We have adopted agile methodology to design and build our products.  Software engineers, testers and managers collaborate in teams of six or seven in two-week sprints to produce tranches of finished code.

We also use DevOps, a work style that involves automating all stages of software construction, testing and deployment, leading to faster, more dependable development.

We constantly reinvest into the latest tools and techniques to keep staff motivated and our products leading edge.

Working like this encourages innovation and helps developers write accurate, bug-free code quickly.  It also facilitates the quick launch of products, as customers can begin generating income with a “bare bones” version of a system months sooner than if they waited for the whole solution to be full finished.

Some of our customers were nervous about the change and took a while to be convinced, but four years later they are all on board and it has become a selling point – one of the first questions prospective customers often ask is: “are you agile?”

Awesome! 

What is your team currently working on?

The TRiCE mobile phone app that we developed has expanded its offering to add more lines of business.  Originally, the app was designed for short-term motor and gadget insurance, and this was swiftly followed by annual motor insurance.  Over the last few months we have added travel and pet insurance.

We were also recently advised by one of our Equator customers that they successfully processed 11 billion quotes through Equator in the previous year.  That is 11 billion quotes which were enriched with data from external sources, the risks were accurately assessed and customers provided with quotes created from the powerful rating engine.

Exciting! We’ll make sure to watch this space!

How does RDT ‘give back’?

The company has grown into a global family since its inception.  We recognise the input that all our staff make to the company and we hold a summer social event to which they and their families are invited.

We have some dedicated staff who go to the local schools and provide recruitment advice to the children there and promote working in the IT industry.  We have signed up to a social pledge that recognises the value of candidates no matter their background or family circumstances – it takes diversity another step forward.  The pledge represents a commitment from the company to try to help people gain valuable training and experience in the workplace.

RDT dedicates money each year to Shine – a charity which provides specialist advice and support for spina bifida and hydrocephalus, as well as to African Revival – a charity providing access to quality education in Uganda and Zambia.  As well as this, we regularly hold charitable events within the office.  The events which involve cakes are the most popular, and it helps that we have a few eager bakers among our staff!

Love it!

What is RDT’s biggest challenge in today’s markets?

Insurance companies tend to make decisions slowly and it took us years to build a solid customer base.  Staffing remains a challenge.  There’s a shortage of good IT professionals, and more than 70 per cent of our staff happen to be IT professionals, so recruitment is a constant battle for our HR department.

We created a great working environment to help with recruitment and retention, which works well.  But while RDT’s staff is culturally diverse, women techies are rare.  We run apprenticeships and offer summer internships to sixth formers, but girls never apply and it seems that they are not being encouraged to learn to write code.  From a business perspective it restricts our ability to hire people, but it is bad for everyone – failing to engage half the future workforce will limit progress.  We have started sending recruiters to local girls’ schools to drum up interest and hopefully start to make a change.

What are your thoughts on our monthly topic?

Several customers (new and existing) have approached RDT for what we call test and trial/incubator systems.

These test and trial/incubator systems are lightweight systems that are not tied to an existing (main) PAS (Policy Admin System) or infrastructure and therefore allow Insurance companies to launch and trial new products being able to tweak these products easily without interfering with this main PAS.

If these products are successful, they can be integrated into an Insurers main PAS at a later date.

RDT are utilising their existing technology stack, Atlas, to allow Insurers to accomplish this quickly and easily provider the insurer with a flexible solution.

The first live instance of this being TRiCE, detailed above, which has been live in the UK for just over 1 year.

Awesome!

Anything else you’d like to say?

Following on from RDT’s growth in the UK we are looking to replicate in Australia by investing and expanding our Australian operations.

RDT have recently increased their Australian team size and have relocated to larger offices in the Adelaide CBD.

Thank you!

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Hello! The next release of the ‘Inspire Insurtech’ series where we interview inspiring insurtechs to find out who they are, what they do, what we can expect from them in the future, and more is here!

For this feature, we have Cover Genius with co-founders, Chris Bayley and Angus McDonald. Enjoy!

Tell us Cover Genius’s brief pitch

Cover Genius’ vision is to enable the World’s largest eCommerce companies to sell insurance to their global customers. Our platform XCover, is an end-to-end platform, and our APIs are used by some of the world’s largest insurance companies including Booking.com, a cornerstone partner. Founded by former leaders from Google and Yahoo, Cover Genius has won several international awards and its Australian entity was recognised as the fastest growing company in Australia in 2017 with a growth rate of 1600% for the 3 year period to 2017.

Cover Genius’ HQ is in Sydney, with offices in London and New York. It is the fastest growing Insurtech in APAC (excl. China). In addition to XCover, Cover Genius’ microservices architecture includes APIs for machine learning-based dynamic pricing and data analytics (called BrightWrite). We offer a claims platform and an API for instant payments and automated assessment, called XClaim, which uses natural language processing.

Impressive!

So how did Cover Genius begin?

We started the business for a few key reasons that we experienced first hand. Insurance was a huge headache for online businesses that wanted to sell it. It turned out that providing insurance products that are compliant with local laws in 80+ countries was no mean feat. Getting global coverage from a global insurer meant dozens of separate contracts in each market, and it also meant that the distributor would need to build the end-to-end insurance stack themselves because the global insurers lacked APIs and platforms. For us to achieve global scale this also meant taking and making payments in 90+ currencies and handling customer service and claims 24/7 in 40 languages.

Our “full stack” approach has meant that we have developed outstanding competency in all components of the value chain including policy administration, licensing, communications, pricing and claims, all of which have been made frictionless through the application of technology.

Like most founders we were chief executives and the cleaning service crew. Every job was our job. Despite our rapid growth, the concept of home still permeates the business. We’re now a global family of 70 people, and we’re doing our best to ensure that family vibe will always persist within our culture.

Coolio!

How has Cover Genius evolved since inception?

Within the span of four years, Cover Genius’ capability has evolved from a platform that distributed a single line of insurance (car rental insurance) to one that sells millions of policies per year across many verticals and insurance lines for dozens of companies, making us  one of the fastest growing insurtech start-ups in the APAC region. Our growth has been derived from an obsession with frictionless service design and the application of technology to solve deeply rooted customer pain-points, and we’ve consequently disrupted the status quo for insurance distribution. We are the first entrant into the highly competitive B2B insurance distribution space in over 50 years.

Our offering now spans all types of contents insurance (what we call “product insurance), travel insurance, property insurance, insurance for the share economy, marine/cargo, commercial and more, in dozens of countries and all 50 US states.

True to the famous maxim that “software will eat the world”, we e believe that there will be a massive shift of value from traditional insurers to ecommerce companies, who will in turn utilise their data and platform strengths to offer flexible, personalised, and valuable coverage in an accessible digital format. We’re one of the few insurtechs delivering on that promise. When we began in 2014, we understood that customers demanded transparency not obscure exclusions, especially as digital innovation provides customers with that freedom in other industries. Another powerful trend that will change the insurance industry is the utilisation of machine learning to extract insights from data libraries, and optimise their offering accordingly to empower customers.. Our BrightWrite data analytics platform warehouses the torrents of data that we collect during the customer journey, and we work with our partners to deliver customer-level insights for optimisation. With our XCover and XClaim platforms, and the Machine Learning-based BrightWrite API, we are applying instant data insights to an industry chockablock with legacy systems and practices.

Awesome! 

What is your team currently working on?

Our current focus is twofold: Extending XCover for many more insurance lines (we launched 4 last month) and growing our instant payment capabilities within the XClaim platform. Our expansion into US, ably led by Mitchell Doust and long term presence in UK has meant we’re also launching several new clients each month and continuing to optimise product and price recommendations for partners. On the People front we recently added two key hires to ensure we attract and retain great talent and that we sustain our great culture, at global scale.

Exciting! We’ll make sure to watch this space!

How does Cover Genius ‘give back’?

At Cover Genius we give back through Industry participation. We are a founding member of Insurtech Australia, and when possible, represent the local insurtech ecosystem on the global stage. As founders of the business, we spend time within the Australian  start-up community and speak of our experiences, positive and negative, to help other founders on their journeys. Our staff are involved in community projects including MS Australia, Surf Life Saving Australia, Miracle Babies and SIDS

Love it!

What is Cover Genius’s biggest challenge in today’s markets?

We’re a global business that services other global businesses. From translations to currency risk and local market nuances, providing a quality, relevant product to our global partners requires significant work ethic, attention to detail, and sensitivity. When you’re working on a global scale, there’s always more to learn.

Thank you!

The genius behind Cover Genius, co-founders Chris Bayley and Angus McDonald!

Interested in receiving the latest updates from Insurtech Australia?  Sign up for our newsletter and join the Insurtech Australia Community Group on LinkedIn.

Hello! The next release of the ‘Inspire Insurtech’ series where we interview inspiring insurtechs to find out who they are, what they do, what we can expect from them in the future, and more is here!

For this feature, we have Edmund with Director and Founder, Christopher Lynam.  Enjoy!

Tell us Edmund’s brief pitch

Edmund is Australia’s first dedicated digital cyber insurance provider. We’re improving how small and medium businesses protect themselves from the financial impact of cyber risks.

We have developed a market leading, security posture driven algorithm with the capability to underwrite cyber insurance for small and medium enterprises (“SME”) in more than 3,500 occupations.

Our digital distribution platform enables SMEs to quote and buy cyber insurance cyber insurance online in under 8 minutes on desktop, mobile or tablet.

It’s Radically fast Cyber Insurance.

Impressive!

So how did Edmund begin?

Our founders were looking at a number of Insurtech opportunities, one of which became Edmund. To be honest it just made sense, how else should businesses be able to buy Cyber Insurance if not digitally?!?

We pitched the concept to our partners at Munich Re Syndicate at Lloyd’s, they loved it, agreed and we started work!

Coolio!

How has Edmund evolved since inception?

At a rate of knots. We began in development in October 17, launched to market in April 18 and we’ve been working with customers ever since. We’ve worked closely with our Emergency Response partners, KPMG to provide what we think is the market leading offering.

Breach response is everything, we see it as the most valuable part of what we do. When a business owner or executive is confronted the highly stressful situation of a breach of company, customer or employee data, they need immediate help. Edmund gives them access to the best team in the game, something that would probably otherwise be cost prohibitive for most SMEs.

Nice! 

What is your team currently working on?

Like all start-ups we’re constantly testing, measuring and adapting to make our solution faster, easier and simpler. We recently revamped to the customer experience to make it easier for smaller customers and we’re about to complete development integration with Macquarie to allow monthly billing.

We’ve recently been invited by  Global Insurance Accelerator (GIA) to participate in their InsurTech Week 2018 in the US. It’s encouraging to be invited to such an event, particularly alongside a fellow Aussie Fintech in Flamingo https://flamingo.ai/ .

Exciting! We’ll make sure to watch this space!

How does Edmund ‘give back’?

As you can imagine we’re passionate about people enjoying a safe and secure digital experience.

We’re proud partners of the Government’s Stay Smart Online staysmartonline.gov.au and take every opportunity we can to promote safe online practices, not just for our commercial customers but the community in general.

Stay Safe Online week is 8-14 October and we’d encourage other members to get involved.

Love it!

What is Edmund’s biggest challenge in today’s markets?

We’re in fast moving and highly competitive niche class of insurance. This provides us with daily challenges in staying informed about emerging risk and attracting new customers. Thankfully, we run quick and lean and we’ve built our offering around what customers actually want, which allows us to adapt and overcome most challenges faster than some of our more traditional peers.

Good on ya!

Anything else you’d like to say?

Change your Pa55w@rds regularly and don’t click on emails if you’re not 100% sure where they came from!

Thank you!

Edmund is Australia’s first dedicated digital cyber insurance provider. Click here for a short video!

Interested in receiving the latest updates from Insurtech Australia?  Sign up for our newsletter and join the Insurtech Australia Community Group on LinkedIn.

Hello! The next release of the ‘Inspire Insurtech’ series where we interview inspiring insurtechs to find out who they are, what they do, what we can expect from them in the future, and more is here!

For this feature, we have Audeamus Risk with Managing Director, Aleksandar Kovacevic.  Enjoy!

Tell us Audeamus Risk’s brief pitch

An enterprise version of the FitBit watch. We are the world’s first resilience intelligence platform – recently launched module 1 is the Business Interruption Insurance B2B.

Cool pitch!

So how did Audeamus Risk begin?

The idea was sparked over a decade ago, when one the first properly structured Insurance Linked Securities (ILS) instruments was issued through so called Blue Wing Ltd SPV in 2007.  An ILS bond was designed to protect London Docklands area against Thames river floods.  At the same time Business Continuity Management started significantly to mature and for someone who used to be on both sides of the table, putting these two emerging domains together was very logical and represented potentially a very sound business case.  However, full potential of this convergence was only realised in 2015 with the announcements of several new standards and advancement of ICT technologies. Even upon filing a comprehensive patent same year, no one could have predicted how quickly market would evolve and commence diversification towards different types or risk transfer?  Luckily, Credit Suisse completed its first Operational Risk ILS-type transaction in May 2016, which proved that the industry is definitely heading in the same direction. Our module 1, BIAX beta-platform was consequently launched in July 2016.

Impressive!

How has Audeamus Risk evolved since inception?

We have successfully completed first part of beta testing in Australia and results produced so far are very encouraging. Since launching the platform in mid-2016, our innovative solution has earned numerous accolades not only locally but across the world. This includes recognition by Marsh and AON.  We have been also invited to present at the leading industry conferences in Australia and overseas. Home-page and the News section of our website contains partial information about our activities.

Nice! 

What is your team currently working on?

Audeamus Risk is continuing to fine-tune its product and develop market opportunities across different industries and geographies. We are currently working on several strategic partnerships and alliances with globally operated entities.

Exciting! We can’t wait to hear more on these developments!

How does Audeamus Risk ‘give back’?

The core purpose of our existence is to enhance Societal Security through efficient risk transfer, fairer pricing and greater transparency.

Awesome!

What is Audeamus Risk’s biggest challenge in today’s markets?

It is definitely a slow change within the incumbent companies.  Knowing that the a large portion of risk is still uninsured, it is very difficult to understand why Insurers adamantly refuse to change dysfunctional business and pricing models?  While the cyber and other types of emerging risks are notoriously difficult to price; refusing to adopt new reality and continuing to use legacy systems and methodologies may prove highly detrimental to both insurers and clients alike.

We cannot agree more!

Anything else you’d like to say?

We are very proud to be a founding member of Insurtech Australia and are delighted to see how the organisation has evolved since its launch last year.

Thank you!

Audeamus Risk monitors resilience across the countries and continents

Interested in receiving the latest updates from Insurtech Australia?  Sign up for our newsletter and join the Insurtech Australia Community Group on LinkedIn.