Insurtechs must deliver ROI on AI, clarity on price

Startups have a reputation for putting innovation first, profit second. But the insurance industry has less patience today for vendors that don't deliver results.

"For two years, the industry funded pilots. Now leadership wants results," said Martin Henley, chief executive of mea Platform. 

Sean G. Eldridge, CEO of Crosstie, concurs: "The next six months will favor companies that can solve specific operational problems quickly, prove ROI and fit into existing systems without forcing customers into a disruptive transformation project."

These insights and more came from Digital Insurance's new Meet the Insurtech Leaders series. Read more below and click the links for each executive's full profile.

What is the biggest opportunity for insurtechs?

Sean G. Eldridge, CEO of Crosstie

"The biggest opportunity is helping insurers move from AI experimentation to production deployments that create measurable value. Many organizations have tested AI tools, but fewer have embedded them into real workflows in a way that improves cycle times, reduces cost, improves customer experience or gives employees meaningful time back. That creates an opportunity for insurtechs that understand integration, change management, and have solutions that are built to be enterprise-grade. The next six months will favor companies that can solve specific operational problems quickly, prove ROI and fit into existing systems without forcing customers into a disruptive transformation project."

Martin Henley, CEO at Mea

"Budgets are shifting from experimentation to production. For two years, the industry funded pilots. Now leadership wants results that show up in what they are measured on, and that shift rewards a very different kind of insurtech than the one the market backed last time."

David Moscatelli, CEO and co-founder at Go Abacus

"Consumers mostly buy insurance either out of fear or because they're mandated to do so. There are genuinely great products in this industry that don't get adopted, not because they're bad, but because they're hard to explain; why someone needs them, what they actually do and, once purchased, the experience with the product itself is often poor, because the product is complex. That's not really the insurance company's fault — it's genuinely hard to have an answer ready for every possible coverage question. The opportunity is for insurers to use this technology to be far more prescriptive about coverage and how it relates to people who are shopping for it and those who already have it."

Ashwin Agarwal, CEO and co-founder at Advocate Technologies

"Commercial insurance is one of the world's largest risk-pricing markets, and it remains an asset class without a transparent data layer. The opportunity for insurtechs right now is to build the benchmark layer this market has never had: real transaction records that let buyers know whether they're paying for risk or paying for the fact that nobody else can see the spread. Whoever builds that trusted, transparent pricing layer first sets the terms for the entire industry."

Tom Young, the founder of DataCrest

"To combine industry knowledge and tech innovators to improve the insurance buying and selling experience. We're at an inflection point for ease of doing business being the differentiator."