In the next few years, you might be saying goodbye to that file cabinet of insurance policies.
The eight startup founders presenting at last night’s Global Insurance Symposium represented the latest graduating class of the Des Moines-based Global Insurance Accelerator, which has graduated 26 startup companies from the program as of Wednesday, director Brian Hemesath told the crowd.
Each pitch rejected the most common accusations leveled at large insurance companies – the inability to innovate – offering white-label and mobile-to-consumer solutions to the headache of policy shopping. Here’s a brief roundup on this year’s GIA participants.
AUTHORITYDATA: Insurance companies haven’t yet dug into the benefits that households operating under the Internet of Things (IoT) smarthome devices can offer, co-founder Tom Smith said Wednesday. His take: let AuthorityData work between the consumer and the insurance company. AuthorityData uses smarthome devices installed by the homeowner to determine a property score based on risks mitigated by IoT devices.
BYEO: Co-founder Avril Gomez and her family spent nearly a year after her father’s death trying to track down all his assets, including a life insurance policy he had never shared. Byeo is an app intended to protect other families from the same stress. Users can designate a digital vault on byeo for all sensitive information, organize insurance policies and designate beneficiaries paper-free, designate a digital executor for social media, and write or record posthumous video messages for loved ones.
INSUREDMINE: InsuredMine consolidates all of a customer’s insurance policies into one paperless suite – creating value not only for the customer, but also for their agent, who can use the data to identify what assets a client has and what new policies the client can benefit from. With the client’s permission, InsuredMine can also access the client’s social media accounts and send triggers to an agent’s inbox when InsuredMine identifies a new policy the client is eligible for, co-founder Raution Jaiswal said.
INSURMI: Founder Sonny Patel’s Insure Chat product is the white-label chatbot that serves millennials and legacy insurers alike, Patel said. The insurmi chatbot offers digital natives an instant online guide to identifying coverage needs, getting a quote and applying for a policy in minutes – while insurance teams track the chatbot’s progress on a dashboard, and can customize the chat bot based on the specialty product being sold.
JAUNTIN: Insurance can be on-demand, co-founder Maya Strasser said. Jauntin’s mobile platform allows consumers to turn their insurance policies on and off with the swipe of their finger – paying only for the coverage they use, be it one week or one hour. For travelers, the platform reminds users to turn on their policies when they approach geo-fenced national borders or an airport, but the implications of micro-policies can stretch well beyond traveling, Strasser said.
LVLFI: Founder Alex Devoto wants to decrease the levels of health insurance claims through mobile games. Devoto’s mobile games platforms lets employers and insurers alike incentivize employees through active mobile gaming, tracking the user’s steps through wearable tech and ultimately decreasing the risk of claims from disease or injury.
PROTECTRISK: Founder Asseged Major’s platform aims to streamline the commercial insurance marketplace, matching the right consumers, brokers and insurance underwriters together, especially when businesses require high-risk or specialty coverage.
RISKPOSSIBLE: Risks for insurers are never static, co-founder Michael Desiato said. RiskPossible designed the Continous Underwriting Engine to help property and casualty insurers continuously assess risks by monitoring public and proprietary data sources – from monitoring a public Facebook page to identifying new licenses granted by a state to a business. Once the engine identifies an industry-specific trigger, the underwriter is alerted to take action on a policy.