Insurtech

There are many important legal issues to consider when operating in the heavily regulated and ever-changing insurance ecosystem. Discussed are some of the key issues to consider when contracting, to demonstrate what is truly important and where insurtechs should focus, whether it concerns program administrator agreements or other types of partnership, master services, or marketing agreements.

Lemonade Car, a telematics auto insurance product, is now live in Illinois and will roll out across the U.S. soon.

There were nine rounds of more than $20 million this month.

At this point in the insurance sector’s lifecycle, change is inevitable. Now more than ever, especially with the rise of technology and insurtechs, competition in the space is cutthroat. And that is why first and cheap are no longer going to cut it.

Digital Insurance spoke with Maroun Mourad, president of global underwriting and leader of the life unit at Verisk about life insurance technology and what’s ahead for the industry.

In other news: Algorithm calculates number of good health years; Hiro rebrands to Locket; Alliant launches diversity initiative.

15 startups will take part in hybrid virtual and in-person program

In other news: Allstate closes $400M sale of New York life, annuity business; USAA partners with Blink by Chubb; Zurich North America implements Chisel AI.

Flood insurtech Neptune Flood has acquired Jumpstart, another insurtech that offers a parametric product for earthquake response.

Haven Technologies will make the platform behind MassMutal’s Haven Life available as a software-as-a-service insurtech.

Insurtechs have secured more access to capital in the last few years and by the end of 2020 the total market cap of listed insurtechs surpassed $22 billion, according to the World Insurtech Report 2021.

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.

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.

Arturo, a spin-out of American Family Insurance, was founded in 2018 and is a real estate data and analytics startup.

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.

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.

In other news: Breeze's new hire; Guidewire acquires HazardHub; New York Life partners with Empathy.

Consumers still trust established traditional insurance companies over newer insurtech startups. A majority of respondents said they would prefer to buy a policy from companies like AIG over startups like Lemonade.

In other news: Nexar partners with New York’s Black Car Fund and Hannover Re collaborates with ExamOne.