Representatives from Akur8 and Coherent shared their takeaways from Tuesday’s InsurTech Days events with the Business Record over email.
What stood out to you from Tuesday’s panel and company presentations? Are there any specific takeaways for your company?
Boriana Trifonova, Akur8: I particularly enjoyed hearing about CowbellCyber’s success story and fast evolution since the GIA! The team’s tenacity throughout the Covid pandemic as they were raising funds and developing their product particularly resonated with us at Akur8; we faced similar challenges raising both our Series A (in 2020) and Series B (2021) in the midst of Covid and opening up an US office earlier this year while keeping focused on growing our customer base.
The following comment particularly stood out for me: “keep the heartbeat going” – in making sure the team is engaged and focused despite the ups and downs of the startup journey, specifically by setting up milestones and sticking to them. Especially during Covid, we had to work harder as a startup to keep employees engaged and focused on the end goal, by providing a clear vision but keeping some flexibility to adjust course where needed.
Doug Loots, Coherent: The passion. Insurtech founders are a passionate group—they believe in what they do, they’re committed to working hard to drive change, and they’re willing to share their lessons with others (even competitors) for the betterment of the industry. It’s outstanding when you see that common trait from every single presenter. Here we are in Des Moines, in a room full of people from all over the planet who really care about the future of insurance and the difference it can make in people’s lives. The passion of all these people is what stands out the most.
I think what is very clear is the GIA InsurTech Days event brings people from all over the US and globe; we’re part of a broader community of people who believe in what we’re all doing. It’s a privilege to be in our position, to meet other emerging insurtech firms and the carriers and investors who attend. It’s our shared passion that’s going to change how the world does insurance over time.
What is the value in your company coming to Iowa? Is there anything you hope to accomplish as part of the visit to Des Moines?
Trifonova: Iowa is a key insurance hub in the US and even globally. As a company that’s entering the US market it is critical for us to be here. Given the volume of property and casualty and health insurers in Des Moines — it’s a great place to gain exposure in the industry. It is also an opportunity to engage with a strong community of insurance professionals — a community that we have found to be very welcoming and encouraging of insurtechs.
We do hope to meet with more local property and casualty insurers and engage their actuarial teams in discussions about Akur8’s solution. We look forward to some of the meetings we have set up during the networking sessions as well as a follow-up to the event.
Loots: If I were speaking to a peer, I’d say we’re here to connect and collaborate with some great companies, both large and small. Being present at InsurTech Days makes Coherent’s business stronger simply from the connections that are made and the relationships that are formed. In that sense, Coherent gains business opportunity and client brand awareness that would not have been possible without this event. At the end of the day, every business is a relationship business.
How can your company’s solution be helpful to Iowa’s insurance companies?
Trifonova: Akur8’s solution is designed for P&C and Health insurers. We modernize pricing processes with advanced analytics and empower actuarial teams to gain modeling insights faster, with better performance and greater transparency throughout the pricing process. We work with some of the largest insurance companies globally, as well as local insurers and even insurtechs.
In particular, we can help insurtech startups who are writing insurance, to set up pricing processes and an actuarial framework that is easy to update and iterate upon, thus setting a strong foundation to support their fast growth.
Loots: Our insurance clients are using Spark in several ways — most commonly as a rating engine in property and casualty insurance, but also to rerate their entire book of business across multiple states and lines (auto, home, etc.). It’s a process that would have taken most of them many months to do, and with Spark they can do it in a couple of days.
Any business that relies on complex rules or logic calculated and stored in spreadsheets can use Spark to convert that logic into APIs. It’s astounding how much business logic and data is housed in these spreadsheets. Spark enables spreadsheets to be codified, hardened, scalable, auditable, and transparent.
For local insurance professionals who didn’t attend InsurTech days, name the top things to know about your company and its solution.
Trifonova: Akur8 has a unique offering on the market: it is the only advanced analytics-based insurance pricing solution that can be used in production thanks to our ability to preserve full transparency and control over the pricing process.
Akur8 has over 30 customers in 12 countries, including AXA, Generali and Munich Re, specialty insurers Canopius and Tokio Marine Kiln and insurtech wefox. 350+ actuaries use Akur8 daily to build their pricing models across personal, commercial and specialty lines for P&C and Health.
Loots: Coherent is making the future of insurance brighter. One of the ways we do that is with our product Spark. Spark is a cloud native logic engine that converts complex business calculations, rules, and validations from Excel models into API services in seconds. It’s lightning fast and it can handle the most complex data you have. You should know we’re happy to do demos and can take any Excel file to proof-of-concept in seconds. Spark is fast—fast implementation, fast performance, and fast ROI. The software just works.
