Event highlights: Emerging Ecosystems and Platforms for Insurance | InsTech

Missed the event or looking for a summary of what you heard? Read the details here or listen in on episodes 54 and 55 from the InsTech London podcast. Novidea & SalesforceBen Potts – Novidea UK Managing DirectorFrederico Venturieri - Salesforce EMEA Financial Services GTMIn 2018 Salesforce Ventures invested in Novidea, a global broker management platform designed specifically for brokers, MGAs and insurers.

Novidea currently services more than 14M+ policies in 16 countries. Corporate customers include Hyperion Insurance Group and MarshBen Potts, “We build all of our platforms on Salesforce and focus on the things that Salesforce is good at - data analytics, workflow, and automating as much as we can. ” In September 2019 Salesforce launched their first insurance specific product, the Financial Services Cloud.

Salesforce also operates AppExchange an “app store” for their products. Frederico Venturieri talked about the need for ecosystem partnerships. “As we try to penetrate the London market and commercial lines we need to work with all of you in the room in a partnership.

” CongaCiaran McCullagh - AVP Strategic AlliancesConga is an Independent Software Vendor (ISV) and part of the Salesforce ecosystem that provides end-to-end digital document transformation.

Ciaran McCullagh, “At Conga we take big data from Salesforce and create the whole range of documents used within the insurance industry, from anti-money laundering documents to invoices to quotes to contracts, working closely with complementary partners like Novidea and FinancialForce. ”Ciaran also made the point that digitisation assists in regulatory adherence, version control, and is ecologically friendly.

“Microsoft Word came out 40 years ago, and customers are still printing out the documents. ” FinancialForceDavid Pinches - Marketing Director EMEADavid Pinches, “We work seamlessly with other ISVs, so for example when we work and supply alongside Conga, they assist with financial transactions that need to be digitized into documents: invoices, statements, debt chasing letters.

”FinancialForce, another ISV working within the Salesforce ecosystem delivers professional services automation, enterprise resource planning and financial management solutions. In the second half of the evening, we heard from insurtech companies with many interwoven links in the platform ecosystem space.

Guidewire SoftwareRene Schoenauer - Director, Product Solution Marketing, EMEAGuidewire, a new InsTech London corporate partner, delivers a platform providing software, services and a partner ecosystem for insurers. Rene Schoenauer gave an example of how Guidewire fits into the platform ecosystem. “Rather than being competitors, we have a solid partnership with Salesforce.

We built a close integration between our core systems and the Salesforce platform to have one unified front-end experience for users. ”Whereas Novidea focus on MGAs and Brokers, Guidewire focuses on insurers. Guidewire has its own ecosystem of Independent Software Vendors which includes Betterview, an aerial telematics provider.

” AXA PartnersKelly Ward - Sales, Marketing and Distribution DirectorAXA Partners, active across 33 countries, is an AXA transversal business unit offering a wide range of solutions in assistance services, travel insurance and credit protection. Kelly Ward is concerned less about platform ecosystems in the B2B space, and more the ecosystem of services and insights at the disposal of the insurance customer.

He gives connected homes as a good example. “The home is now a really complex organism, lots of things need fixing. Historically we would only act if there was an event, but why don't we just do that anyway as a preventative measure?

The ecosystem I'm thinking about is to benefit that person here and now, thinking about all the things they need to do in their life. ”Kelly went on to describe the kinds of problems AXA Partners want solutions to. The home is a great example because there are often so many stakeholders involved in addressing damage, especially in a rental/landlord scenario.

How can technology, asks Kelly, effectively knit these parties and actions together in a fluid user-friendly manner? There is also the matter of cost-effectiveness. What would the perfect connected home cost?

"We talked to customers, priced it, and it was over £600. We then asked the same customers how much they were willing to pay for it - the answer was £127. How do we solve this disparity?

”AXA Partners are not short of insurtech start-ups approaches, summarised Kelly Ward. ’ The answer is ‘Yes, we do, we've been dealing with that problem for quite some time’. I say to start-ups, tell us why it's a problem in the customer's eyes, tell us what solution you've got, tell us how it works commercially.

” ICE InsureTechAndrew Passfield – CEOAl Robertson – CTOFounded in 2004, ICE InsureTech provides software to insurers, MGAs and accident management companies. The ICE products are enterprise-grade, modular digital software solutions for the management and processing of claims, policies, billing and rating, with integrated analytics.

The ICE solution is IoT enabled, covering all lines of business across both personal and commercial insurance. ICE stands for Insurance Component Environment, and the company are part of the Acturis Group.

Andrew Passfield on platform ecosystems, “It's about providing a service almost out-of-the-box with a number of providers, so customers don't need to go and build a direct relationship with company A and company B and company C.

”Andrew sees ecosystem interaction on two key levels – improve ICE’s own platform and customer utility, and also leveraging the infrastructure of what he calls ‘the big boys’, such as Google and Microsoft, the big cloud providers.

Digital Matrix Systems (DMS)Mark Dreux - Head of Strategy and Business DevelopmentMark Dreux discussed insurtech ecosystems in the data analytics space, “We're trying to make it so that if there are 30 data sources out there the insurer wants to work with, we funnel it through one pipe. We take on connecting to all these different data sources.

We try to normalise them so that when you're ingesting it, you're only connecting to one place. ”Founded in 1982, Digital Matrix Systems (DMS) is helping clients leverage data to make better-informed business decisions. DMS helps financial services and insurance companies predict and manage risk.

Asked about how to choose data sources, Mark Dreux talked about a new product launch called “Test Drive”, which enables insurers to do just that, with data. “It lets existing DMS clients and data sources test and takes the legal hurdle out.

”RiskbookJerad Leigh & Ben Rose Co-FoundersRiskbook is a “hyperconnected reinsurance marketplace”, enabling underwriters and brokers to go beyond their personal networks to identify risks and capacity.

Jerad Leigh identifies two problems for brokers and underwriters - managing large placements with a lot of underwriters on them, and unique risks – these have historically meant reliance on personal networks in order to find the right capacity. Riskbook, says Jerad Leigh, is an ecosystem in terms of being a global reinsurance marketplace.

“What we're primarily focused on is improving the working lives of brokers and underwriters around the world. ”Ben Rose also highlights a good example of how matching risk and underwriting, without platform assistance, can be imprecise and labour intensive.

“As underwriters, we would constantly network and conference in the hope that someone would remember us and bring something we actually wanted, though that rarely happened - we normally took what we were given. See more in our Emerging Ecosystems and Platforms for Insurance agenda.