Insurance

Jerry launched a car insurance comparison service in 2019 using artificial intelligence and machine learning. The company has more than 1 million customers across the U.S. and has expansion plans.

The pandemic has served as a catalyst for putting digital transformation across insurance on the fast track, and claims is one of the focus areas that is primed for implementing digital capabilities. As more claims information is captured and managed digitally, new opportunities to leverage artificial intelligent technologies arise. This leads to a vision of full automation, high levels of straight-through processing, and (logically) a diminishing role for claims professionals.

Forrester research finds that even the most tech-savvy claimants want the reassurance of a human voice handling their claim.

In other news: Hippo launches Builders Program; handdii wins the 2021 ACORD Insurtech Innovation Challenge New York; Blockchain-backed title insurance launches in five states.

Lloyd’s of London, the world’s largest insurance exchange, is pushing the industry to do better on diversity recruitment with tougher new hiring and disclosure targets for its members.

Many insurers are focused on ransomware risk protection even though other new vulnerabilities are emerging from remote work. Recent statistics point to a troubling increase in ransomware and phishing, web application attacks and other emerging cybercrime tactics.

The insurer is working with an adviser on the potential divestment of non-core commercial assets in the country, the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter is private. A sale could fetch a few hundred million dollars, and may draw interest from other insurers and investment funds, the people said.

A new report, IT’s Changing Mandate in an Age of Disruption conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit, supported by Appian, suggests that to continue with various digital transformations and increase adaptability for the future, some IT improvements must be made.

Truepic Inc., which helps companies like banks and insurers fight fraud by verifying images, raised $26 million in a funding round led by Microsoft Corp.’s M12 venture capital arm.

Nicholas is the Atlantic’s 14th storm in 2021. Half of the storms so far have hit the U.S., and Ida was the season’s worst, crashing into the Louisiana coastline before devastating New York with rain and floods that killed more than 40 people. On Monday, AIR Worldwide updated its projected losses from Ida, saying the storm probably caused $20 billion to $30 billion in insured losses. Earlier estimates were around $18 billion.

In other news: Ethos adds board members, new executives; One Inc partners with Mastercard on insurance payments; and Notion, a Comcast company, works with Honey Insurance in Australia.

Amazon will require third-party sellers to secure product liability coverage after reaching $10,000 in sales in one month on Amazon.

Challenge comes with increased awareness of structural racism in financial services.

In other news: Cowbell Cyber releases API; Discount Tire, Motorq offer data analytics platform; and Roamly announces new hire and expansion plan.

Operating under the radar in Rhode Island since 2017, the company has launched in Arizona with an eye toward more.

Almost $87 billion will have been paid in improper or fraudulent supplemental unemployment insurance claims by the time the program expires in September, according to the report from the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee on Wednesday.

A $5 billion grant program in the infrastructure bill calls for utilities to harden power lines, including by taking them off of towers and burying them underground, but that option may be a poor fit for the Gulf Coast’s topography. It’s also expensive.

SynchronoSure has three insurance products available in 48 states, and will be adding new products over the next 60 days. GigBOP, a low-end property/casualty product for the gig economy and small business accounts; a trucking general liability product designed to protect the office and garage operations for small trucking companies; and a recently announced excess liability product.

Victims’ lawyers, concerned that Century may claim it can’t pay abuse victims, argue that a related Chubb subsidiary, Insurance Company of North America, known as INA, is also on the hook because it insured the Boy Scouts until about 1996. Chubb argues that INA turned over those policies to Century during a restructuring that year.

There were about 12 funding rounds in the insurtech sector in August 2021, according to a review by Digital Insurance and with data from Crunchbase.