The Insurtech Australia AGM will be held at 3.30pm AEDT on Tuesday, 18th February 2020 at Stone & Chalk Boardroom, Level 4, York St, Sydney.
Forms are now available for Nomination as Director and Consent to Act (click here) and Proxy Form to nominate a representative to attend and vote directly on your behalf (click here).
The Inspire Insurtech Interview’ series are interviews to inspire your fellow insurtechs. We’d like to share who you are, what you do, what we can expect from you in the future. This month we are talking we talk to Jordan from Integrity Life. Enjoy!
Tell us Integrity Life’s brief pitch
We’re here to improve life insurance in Australia through disruptive technology, a laser focus on customers and their needs, and a culture that empowers people to change the game for good! Whether through innovative ‘first-to-market’ products or our co-created agile technology platform, we’re recreating life insurance, as it’s meant to be.
So how did Integrity Life begin?
Like most start-ups. With no systems, capital, business, license, staff, or plan. Just a really clear vision for what we wanted to achieve and why.
How has Integrity Life evolved since inception?
We now have more than 80 staff across the country, a full license to operate as an insurer, major international investors, an award-winning Adviser platform (and multiple awards for design innovation), and the whole industry buzzing. We were just recently named one of LinkedIn’s Top Startups for 2019.
What is your team currently working on 2019 or what have you accomplished recently?
Most recently we’re thrilled to launch Five+. This one is BIG. It’s an only-one-of-its-kind in market insurance package for small to medium businesses to allow them to offer a perk that is usually reserved for large companies – that is, a life insurance policy and salary continuance. It allows small business (like we were!) the type of business-continuity that is normally reserved for the big guys. We thought it was time someone supported businesses with as few as 5 employees.
How does Integrity Life ‘give back’?
We set out to make life insurance better in Australia, and a huge part of what we mean by that is being there for people when they need it most, and we’re starting with our own people. Aside from providing the perks you would expect (ping-pong tables, heaps of team events) we are looking at ways to support our people so they can support the people in their lives. We’ve invested in training 12 staff as ‘Mental Health First Aid Officers’ and have a program to support mental health at work and in life. Coming soon, we will be expanding this to include sponsorships that support people in living life to the fullest. Watch this space!
What is Integrity Life‘s biggest challenge in today’s markets?
Being an innovator and disrupting an industry with highly complex products.
Anything else you’d like to say that we didn’t ask?
Thank you for chatting with us and taking an interest in Integrity!
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The Inspire Insurtech Interview’ series are interviews to inspire your fellow insurtechs. We’d like to share who you are, what you do, what we can expect from you in the future. This month we are talking to Paul Brandis from DevCon Technologies – devcon.tech
Tell us DevCon Technologies’s brief pitch
DevCon has developed a claims management platform called Prime Ecosystem. Through the Prime Ecosystem platform, we are connecting Insurers with their Supply Chain with a simple, powerful and customisable platform; reducing claim lifecycles and costs, whilst bettering the customer experience.
So how DevCon Technologies begin?
We saw a major gap in the market initially for the Insurer’s Supply Chain, where Insurance Repairers/Builders were trying to use commercial construction platforms to manage the intricacies of the Claims Process but these platforms were falling short on a number of areas. One of the key areas is that the Insurance assessment/repair process is generally not linear and the software needs to be able to handle that, plus having the different contractual requirements from the different Insurers/Adjusters tracked and reported on.
How has DevCon Technologies evolved since inception?
From initially starting as targeting the Insurance Supply Chain, DevCon has now also developed a platform for the Insurers directly, to improve and streamline their Repair and Supplychain Management processes. The key differentiator of this product (Prime Assess) is that it has a digital connection to the Insurance Repairers already leveraging our Prime Build product, which provides increases efficiency in the assessing, quoting and reinstatement of building and contents claims.
What is your team currently working on? Any accomplishments you’d like to tell us about?
Our newest product we have been developing is Prime Restore, which is targeted towards the Restoration supplychain of the Insurers and Adjusters. This will encompass both the job/workflow management as well as key requirements around asset/inventory management and moisture mapping and reporting.
How does DevCon Technologies give back’?
We give back to the Insurance community by providing a level of support above and beyond for our client panel, especially smaller repairers and restorers who are trying to make a difference in their region of service. We strongly believe that the industry needs a more regional approach to the supply chain to deliver a better customer service to the Insured.
What is DevCon Technologies’s biggest challenge in today’s markets?
One of our biggest challenges is getting the incumbents to be open to partnering or even integrating with a smaller startup/scaleup in the Insurtech space. Through APIs and a collaborative approach, we believe that the savings in costs and timeframes would be substantial, but without the focus from the Insurers and Adjusters, we aren’t able to provide the support to our clients to then deliver a more proactive resolution and reinstatement of the affected property.
Sydney, 1 October 2019 – Australian actuarial and analytics firm Finity Consulting has acquired dbn actuaries, a specialist private health insurance (PHI) actuarial firm based in Sydney.
dbn provides Appointed Actuary services, pricing, capital management, financial monitoring and strategic advice to a large number of Australian private health insurers. Merging the dbn business with Finity’s established PHI team will significantly increase the depth of expertise available to both Finity’s and dbn’s clients.
“Building more scale in the PHI consulting market through this acquisition positions Finity well to deliver an even broader range of actuarial and analytical services tailored specifically to the needs of Australian health insurers. The environment for our PHI clients is a challenging one given the evolving expectations of customers, regulators and other stakeholders, but our goal at Finity remains the same – to deliver insights and strategic capabilities which support our clients as they innovate and grow. The dbn team bring an impressive set of skills to Finity and we are very excited to be working alongside them,” said Finity Managing Director, Scott Collings.
Established in 2014, the dbn team of nine actuarial staff provides Appointed Actuary services to 25 Australian PHIs. Their broad industry knowledge and insights are highly sought after in the health insurance market. When coupled with the advanced analytics capabilities and suite of data products developed by Finity, the combined team will provide a powerful and unique offering for private health insurer clients.
“Finity’s health insurance team have been respected peers of dbn for many years. More recently we have worked together on a number of key health insurance industry projects through the Actuaries Institute. Finity is a natural fit for dbn, mirroring many of our working philosophies to empower insurers with the practical yet deep insights that actuaries provide,” added David Torrance, Director, dbn actuaries.
We can also announce that Finity will be further strengthening its PHI team with the addition of Andrew Matthews, who was most recently Chief Actuary at Australia’s largest health insurer Medibank Private.
The dbn team joins Finity’s Sydney office on 1 October, while Andrew will join the Melbourne office in November.
-ENDS-
About Finity
Finity is a leading independent actuarial and analytics consulting firm with 150 staff including actuaries, statisticians, management consultants, data scientists & engineers, and software developers. We have deep domain knowledge in insurance, finance, climate risk and healthcare. In 2018 Finity was a proud recipient of the Insurance Industry’s Professional Services Firm of the Year award in both Australia and New Zealand. www.finity.com.au
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2019 Australian Insurtech Delegation Wrap Up
LAS VEGAS | MONDAY 23 & WEDNESDAY 25 SEPTEMBER 2019
Last week, Insurtech Australia hosted our third annual Insurtech Delegation which this year was to the US encompassing a day of private sessions including Ted Stuckey, Andrew Johnston, Insurtech Gateway UK founders, Insurtech Israel delegation and an afternoon of local and international pitches. This was followed by 2 intense days at Insurtech Connect with the mission being creating connections, opportunities and gaining insights. The delegation was made up of 13 insurance executives coming from organisations including QBE, Munich Re, iptiQ by Swiss Re, Austcover, IAG, Centrewest, AON, JB Hifi Solutions, Envest, Insurtech Gateway together with 8 insurtech organisations including Evari, Claim Central, Codafication, Floodmapp, Cover Genius, JRNY, Advisr and Coverhero.
Some of the main themes and observations from Insurtech Connect I experienced were:</span
1. AI …was everywhere and is the current buzzword for insurtech. From underwriting applications, automating parts of the value chain, new business models and improving customer experience.</span
2. The changing expectations and demands of customers continue to drive many of the innovation activities in the insurance space. Self-service was mentioned multiple times with the view being this is not seen as a burden by the customer but rather being given control. It is accepted that when it comes to self-service offerings there really is no digital divide between generationsThere is no doubt that self-service will be creeping into the value chain more and more with insurtech players enabling this capability in various forms.</span
3. Cyber risk continues to have significant impact and the demands in this space are constantly changing with not enough qualified experts to meet the demand. The question remains as to whether the industry would be well prepared in the face of significant and multiple incidents.</span
4. Partnerships and collaboration in insurtech are still a major focus compared to disruption. The problems in the insurance industry are bigger than what one company can fix on their own. ITC is really about connections at the end of the day and what partnership opportunities may come from these connections and it was highly evident that most attendees were certainly making the most of it.</span
5. There is growing focus on moving insurance from the transactional product based offering towards a more purposeful offering, encompassing elements of prediction and risk mitigation as well as protection. The challenge remains how insurance brands generally migrate towards becoming a go-to brand and transforming a ‘need’ to a ‘want’ and how further value is brought to the customer which in some cases, will likely be through insurtech partnerships.</span
6. Culture is on the tip of all incumbents’ tongues and the idea that all insurance companies out of necessity need to and are becoming more innovative. Simply focusing on digital transformation without a focus on cultural transformation is likely to fail.</span
7. Insurtech is well and truly cross border. Whilst ITC was US focused, multiple international delegations were present and not being from the US was certainly no barrier to having meaningful opportunistic discussions
8. Diversity, or lack thereof, is still very evident in this industry both in attendance but particularly looking at the speaker and panel lineup. In saying that, the standout speaker for me across the 2 days was Kara Swisher – more of that please!</span
A special thank you to Munich Re and QBE, both founding partners of Insurtech Australia that helped support the coming together of the delegation and program as well as Austrade in the lead up. We look forward to the next one!</span
GUEST POST: Charmian Holmes, The Fold
Currently, managing the settlement of insurance claims is not a regulated financial service in Australia because it is excluded from the definition of ‘financial service’. This is set to change very soon as the Hayne Royal Commission has recommended that claims handling should be regulated as a financial service.
Without a doubt, third party claims administrators (TPAs) and underwriting agencies/MGAs will need to be licensed or authorised under a licence. Insurtechs and other service providers who support insurers with claims handling platforms or ‘full service’ solutions may need to assess their operations to determine whether their activities will be regulated.
Whilst it is possible to become an authorised representative of an insurer that holds an AFS licence, there are pros and cons – so it’s worth assessing the feasibility of having your own AFS licence.
Claims handling licensees will be subject to the same basic requirements as other AFS licensees, for example:
– to provide their services ‘efficiently, honestly and fairly’;
– to have adequate financial, technological and human resources; and
– to comply with financial services laws and licence conditions.
The industry is waiting to see what the change will look like and the Federal Governmenthas indicated that it will pass legislation before the end of 2019.
Don’t panic! It’s likely there will be a ‘transition period’ for licensing to allow the industry to prepare for the changes.
For more information about the regulation of claims services, click here for an article published by The Fold and Finity Consulting in their Royal Commission Response series.
The Fold Legal has handled 500+ licence applications and variations. For more information about what is involved with AFS licensing, get in touch with Charmian Holmes or Sonia Cruz – we’d be happy to help.
‘The Inspire Insurtech Interview’ series are interviews to inspire your fellow insurtechs. We’d like to share who you are, what you do, what we can expect from you in the future. This month we are talking to Blair Nicholls from Blue Zebra Insurance – bzi.com.au
Tell us Blue Zebra’s brief pitch
We are an underwriting agency that is a different breed in insurance. We’ve delivered an insurance platform using modern technology, we leverage external data sources to deliver quotes efficiently & understand the underlying risk better and introduced insurance product innovation to brokers. Our product innovation and modern platform is helping brokers to grow their businesses and service their customers better.
So how did Blue Zebra begin?
We saw a big gap in the market to support brokers to efficiently deliver much needed advice to their customers. Most of the main insurers either have a direct to market strategy or a strategy that contains heavy distribution channel conflict and brokers felt they had limited options for long-term partners. Based on research and the collective experience of the founders, we knew there was an opportunity to deliver something different in the market. We started building our technology in late 2017 and by May 2018 we had written our first insurance policy.
How has Blue Zebra evolved since inception?
For the first 9 months we didn’t really do any active marketing, we just built something that was well received by our customers and word of mouth did the rest. Since we launched, we’ve taken on board feedback and upgraded our platform more than 40 times in 14 months. Our ‘pilot’ started in May 2018 with 5 brokers with just Home insurance. 2 months later we delivered Motor insurance and by that time we had around 30 brokerages working with us. Then in November 2018 we released Landlord to our 100 broker partners. In February 2019 we started offering instalments billing and since that time we’ve started to deliver renewals and we now have our SME product that will launch before the end of the year. Today we have more than 300 brokerages from every cluster group working with us. We consistently have more than 1,000 users on our system every day and more than 3,000 brokers have bound business with us. The consistent enhancements to the platform are one of the things that keep people coming back. In simple terms, if our customers want something we deliver it.
What is your team currently working on? Any accomplishments you’d like to tell us about?
The SME product will really shake up the market. We’ve listened to brokers about how to deliver a great user experience and we’ve built something that we know will be well received. The behind the scenes data integrations mean that the quote flow and understanding of the risk is fantastic. From a claims perspective we were delighted to see that we recently received an 87% home insurance claims satisfaction rating by our customers, which was 20% above the average of the top six insurers. We’ve had a fantastic partnership with Insurx, our claims management TPA (part of Claim Central), to deliver this result. Insurx really focus on providing a connected claim experience to our customers, which is completely aligned to our methodologies – and the results speak for themselves. It’s amazing what can be achieved when like-minded businesses combine forces like this.
How does Blue Zebra ‘give back’?
Our product innovation is something that is giving something different back to the Broker market. For Home, for example, there is the option to add a Home Business Extension to an Accidental Damage policy. For motor, we have a comprehensive plus product that is targeted mainly at new vehicles, but it has some great benefits included. For Landlord, we have an Essentials product that is a Landlord cover targeted at landlords of apartments designed to support brokers, for example, to partner with significant distribution sources to sell an easy to use product.
What is Blue Zebra’s biggest challenge in today’s markets?
Our ambition is to grow to a $1bn business with around 20 staff. To do that we need a) great technology; b) great people; and c) strong support from brokers. For the technology, getting the priorities right has always been a focus to deliver so much so quickly. For the people, we’ve been very selective about who we’ve brought into the team and this has meant that the people on board have had to really work hard, get their hands dirty and help build the business from the ground up. In the end, it means we all understand the business intimately and can respond to our brokers in real time …. but it hasn’t been easy to find the right people that can work in such a fast-paced environment. As we’ve grown, our strongest supporters have been those brokers that have really helped us experiment and roll out our products. We are moving at pace and that means we start with a minimum viable product, which is often quite skinny, but we are able to respond and make corrective action quickly. The best brokers are those that are here to co-create something special and enduring.
Have you partnered with any other businesses to improve the BZI offering?
Our partnership with Insurx, our claims management TPA part of Claim Central Consolidated, has been instrumental in satisfying our customers. Insurx has an incredible claims management platform that manages claims from end to end, and is streets ahead of any other product on the market. But more importantly when you combine that technology with the mindset and culture of putting the customer first and connecting them to their claim through more visibility and better communication, you really have a winning formula. Insurx have a similar approach to building and deploying technology to our team at Blue Zebra. We’ve been impressed by how they have worked closely with us to move our arrangements (technology, commercial agreements, service team) from a ‘start-up’ to a ‘scaling’ business to better support us maturing as a business. Since partnering with Insurx, the feedback from both brokers and customers on their claim experience has been phenomenal and it’s this sort of partnership that opens your eyes to the exciting possibilities when you partner up with like-minded businesses.
‘The Inspire Insurtech Interview’ series are interviews to inspire your fellow insurtechs. We’d like to share who you are, what you do, what we can expect from you in the future. This month we are talking to Libby Roberts from Leap4Ward – www.leap4ward.co
Tell us Leap 4Ward’s brief pitch
Leap4ward is digital skills training, delivering a cost-effective, quality controlled and evidence-based program which guides people to overcome the physical and mental barriers which hinder their recovery and return to work from injury or illness.
So how did Leap 4Ward begin?
Our founder, Libby Roberts, has 25 years’ experience in the workers compensation industry, running a successful rehabilitation provider, WRM. As a psychologist, Libby understands what drives people to make positive changes in their behaviour and what mindset is required to facilitate positive change. We believe that by helping individuals to thrive we can have a positive impact upon families and our community. Developing the Leap4ward program as a digital tool, allows us to deliver our evidence-based program in a cost-effective and scalable way, to a much wider client base than the traditional face to face model.
How has Leap 4Ward evolved since inception?
Our program, and the product design itself, has undergone many iterations since its conception! We are about to pilot our MVP with an insurer which will allow us to test our content with real people. We will then take those results to the wider insurance market.
What is your team currently working on? Any accomplishments you’d like to tell us about?
Our team is currently working on ensuring the MVP is pilot-ready. We are also meeting with product and UX experts to get advice on further developing our App once the MVP has been tested. Our founder, Libby Roberts, recently graduated from the Sydney cohort of the Founder Institute and won third prize at B2B Rocks in June.
How does Leap 4Ward ‘give back’?
Leap4ward’s vision is flourishing individuals, families and communities. 10% of our profits support charities which help the most vulnerable in our community. Our founder’s teenage daughter suffered from anorexia for 3 years and was in and out of hospital. Our charity partner for 2019 is the Butterfly Foundation who are committed to supporting anorexia sufferers and their families through this terrible illness.
What is Leap 4Ward’s biggest challenge in today’s markets?
Our biggest challenge is convincing insurers that digital delivery of rehab programs will be just as effective as face to face programs. Being the first to market has its own set of challenges and finding early adopters who are willing to embrace change is exciting.
Anything else you’d like to say that we haven’t asked?
We love collaboration – especially with our customers, the insurers! So, if you’re curious, and willing to revolutionise the way we help people get back on their feet after an injury, contact us at leap4ward.co
24 July, 2019 : FinTech Australia & Insurtech Australia are pleased to announce the relaunch of Insurtech Australia, which will now operate as an independent industry association from 1 August 2019.
Insurtech Australia joined FinTech Australia at formation after finding a common vision for their respective member communities. FinTech Australia has provided governance, policy advocacy and operational support to Insurtech Australia since 2017. The partnership has produced a thriving Insurtech Australia which now represents a key value driver for insurance-focused tech startups in Australia.
“For the industry to be at a point where we are able to support sub-industry groups is a great step in the right direction for us,” General Manager of FinTech Australia, Rebecca Schot-Guppy said.
“Our overall goal is to grow the influence and support for fintechs around the country. “We will continue to work closely with insurance tech companies and Insurtech Australia to ensure the best outcomes in this sector going forward.
“This will include representing insurtech’s interests in a regulatory and policy environment including our work on relevant policy such as Open Banking.
“Insurtech companies are welcome to participate with both industry associations.”
Rita Yates, CEO of the newly formed Insurtech Australia, echoes this sentiment.
“We will continue to work alongside FinTech Australia to create the best possible environment for our respective tech startups to thrive, both locally and as a springboard into other markets”
“The ability for us to now operate as an independent organisation is a reflection on the growth of the insurtech ecosystem here in Australia over the past two years. With an active membership and highly engaged set of industry partners, this is an exciting time for us as an organisation.”