The Covid-19 pandemic has been an unprecedented global challenge that no one could have predicted. While there were a lot of companies hitting troubled times, there have also been those doing very well during the pandemic.
When governments around the world began locking down, forcing people to stay home and businesses to operate remotely, the digital world became critical for everyone. To ensure businesses could survive, they needed to rapidly accelerate their digitalisation. It essentially became transforming the 5 year strategies into 10 month ones. This left a huge opportunity for tech companies to accelerate.
One of the industries that was expected to do well was the InsurTech space. Insurance firms are historically lumbered with legacy systems and this pandemic forced many to update operations to meet the changing customer needs.
Recent data from FinTech Global shows that InsurTech companies have been able to remain attractive investments during the pandemic. Whilst there was a significant drop in funding levels in Q1 2020, going from $2.4bn in the previous quarter down to just $900m, it rebounded in Q2 to reach $1.2bn and then $2.4bn in Q3 – matching the five quarter high.
Health insurance company Bright Health and home insurance platform Ki Insurance both showed the opportunity InsurTech companies have had during this time, with both raising $500m in funding rounds. Lemonade and Root Insurance even managed to complete successful initial public offerings, further highlighting the appetite of insurance technology solutions.
Here is what 2020 meant to three InsurTech companies.
Tractable
Tractable, which develops AI solutions for accident and disaster recovery, has made a number of major developments this year. At the start of the year, the InsurTech set itself the goal of increase its revenues by two to three times, as well as secure new customers, enter new markets and to raise a Series C funding round.
Tractable president Adrien Cohen said, “I’m delighted to say that we’ve exceeded all of those targets, despite the impact of Covid-19. We secured a $25m Series C led by Georgian, leading VCs in applied AI; are now a company of over 160 people, with sizeable offices in Tokyo and New York; and we’ve more than doubled the number of leading insurers globally who now use Tractable – now at 20 and counting, across 12 countries, including Tokio Marine, MS&AD, Ageas and Covéa.”
One of the major milestones for the company was the partnership with Japanese property and casualty insurance firm Tokio Marine. The agreement saw the insurer become the first in the country to leverage an AI auto damage assessment tool for its claims process. A matter of months later, Tractable was able to secure its second parentship in Japan, helping insurance giant MS&AD to also accelerate its auto claims processes.
In addition to all of these partnerships, the InsurTech also managed to secure $25m in its Series C funding round, which brought its total equity raised to $55m. The investment round was led by Georgian Partners, with contributions also coming from Insight Partners and Ignition Partners. With the fresh equity, the company gained a boost to its market expansion.
All of this growth has been noticed in the industry. Tractable was recently named in the InsurTech100 and a number of other accolades. He added, “But the most important achievement – and the biggest surprise – is that we’ve been able to successfully continue to develop our AI solutions remotely, while keeping our staff safe. Building a complex AI product is incredibly difficult; doing so while everyone is working from home is even harder, especially when you are hiring rapidly. Despite that, we’ve been able to continue to develop cutting-edge technology that solves real-world problems for real customers, today. That’s a real accomplishment.”
Founded in 2014, Tractable leverages AI-powered computer vision to appraise damage in car accidents and natural disasters. The technology is powered by millions of examples to enable accurate identification of damage and prediction of repair costs. With the pandemic forcing companies to accelerate their digital operations, Tractable has been able to increase its operations.
Cohen concluded, “While Covid has had a dramatic effect on our everyday life, from a business standpoint we’ve actually seen a substantial increase of interest during 2020 – interest levels are roughly double what they were pre-Covid. That’s in part because our technology by nature facilitates remote assessment of damage, which is obviously extremely useful at the current time as it reduces the number of touchpoints in the process. However, that is the direction the industry is going anyway – Covid has just accelerated that shift.”
Air Doctor
Whilst the coronavirus began in 2019, the world did not really grasp how much it would change the world. When goals and budgets were outlined in 2019, it is likely that the coronavirus was never even mentioned. However, when countries started to lockdown in March, businesses realised they needed to adjust.
Yuval Zimerman, director of marketing and global partnerships at traveller and doctor connection platform Air Doctor, said, “The pandemic threw a spanner in the works in terms of our annual goals, and as a result, we decided to focus on very specific goals. By doing this, we managed to more than double our goal of increasing our 2020 corporate partners and expanded our clinical networks in key countries.”
The company’s change of focus clearly proved to be the right decision and it has still managed to witness some growth during the year. Due to the new opportunities in the market it was able to increase its B2B partners by 300%. Zimerman added, “It’s been a challenging year for all of us, and although our revenue took an expected downturn, we are here to stay for the long term. We do what we do for the good of the people we serve, and will continue to face challenges and operate in spite of any pitfalls, to ensure these people have access to a much needed service. This is why we have been able to lay the foundations for when we might see more of a light at the end of the tunnel with this pandemic, with more partners than we ever imagined possible.”
Air Doctor also noticed a number of other positives during the pandemic, one of which, was the ability to hone in on the company’s just cause to make medical accessibility available to everyone. “We believe in our cause, and we strengthened our purpose and raison d’être.” It also managed expand its key markets, reach even more people that are in need of its services and was named in the InsurTech100.
In the heat of the pandemic and lockdowns, Air Doctor managed to hold the final close of its Series A on $7.8m. The capital injection was led by Kamet Ventures, with support also coming from Phoenix Insurance Company.
The InsurTech helps connect travellers with a network of local doctors, which travellers can access via insurers or privately. This enables the insurers to lower their costs and to offer new services to their customers for no extra cost. While the pandemic has caused a lot of strain on business, Air Doctor is most proud that it could still help those in need.
“At a time when keeping emergency care centres as accessible as possible has been of utmost importance, providing a new and, often, better way of attaining healthcare for travellers has been a relief on healthcare systems around the world. This is what we are most proud of.”
Life.io
End-to-end digital customer experiences provider life.io has managed to help its clients return to normal during the pandemic. With the virus forcing many businesses to rework their operations, it caused a lot of panic to ensure they could remain in operation. Life.io CEO and co-founder Jon Cooper said, “2020 was a roller coaster ride, but (knock on wood) has been exceptionally good from a growth perspective. The pandemic caused disruption and confusion, but importantly for us, it condensed a 5-year innovation journey into 5 months.”
The InsurTech has witnessed strong growth during the year and was able to reach all of its yearly ambitions. Life.io, which was also named in this year’s InsurTech100, offers customer engagement technology that helps companies to improve their end-to-end digital client experience. It offers three products, Grow, Engage and Empower. The Grow solution streamlines sales and improves funnel metrics through an engagement driven needs analysis, quote, e-app and advisor dashboard whilst its Engage tool supports ongoing interactions with customers through actionable insights. The Empower solution enables a company to build a deeper relationship with a policyholder through a digital self-service portal.
Cooper concluded, “I am glad we were in a position to help them navigate this crazy time and continue to grow in and operate in the ‘new normal.’”
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