With an ever-expanding steady of unicorns and funding at an all-time excessive, insurtech is likely one of the hottest areas of fintech. In 2021, VCs have funded European insurtech startups to the tune of €2.7bn, minting six unicorns within the course of.
In September, Marshmallow grew to become simply the second Black-founded unicorn within the UK and AI insurance coverage startup Tractable additionally hit unicorn standing in June.
Sifted requested a few of Europe’s top traders which non-portfolio European startups are set to form the interval of innovation that the insurance coverage sector is experiencing.
These are the startups they selected:
Tara Reeves — managing director at Eurazeo Ventures
Eurazeo Ventures is a non-public fairness agency based mostly in Paris that invests in healthcare, tech and monetary providers.
SafetyWing — Norway
The Scandi boffins at SafetyWing present medical insurance for digital nomads. Traditional journey insurance coverage insurance policies continuously have 30 to 45 day limits earlier than you might have to return to your nation of residency. SafetyWing has made it potential for individuals to keep – and work – longer everywhere in the world with out worrying about entry to healthcare in unfamiliar geographies. They’re a picks-and-shovels enterprise powering the distant work development and have first-mover benefit in an space with significant tailwinds.
Cuvva — UK
Cuvva, based mostly within the UK, offers usage-based automobile insurance coverage. Customers are charged based mostly on how lengthy and the way nicely they drive. Customers who drove much less in the course of the pandemic had been a lot better off than ones caught paying their regular month-to-month premiums from the normal carriers. With mobile-first claims reporting and dealing with and a slick cellular app, this firm locations buyer expertise and UX on the coronary heart of all the things it does.
FloodFlash — UK
FloodFlash is parametric flood insurance coverage. If a sensor is triggered by rising water, your declare is paid instantly — no reporting a declare, assessing harm and loss adjusting and importantly, no ready. In a 12 months the place document floods hit throughout the UK, FloodFlash was in a position to get companies up and working once more with an instantaneous money infusion, whereas the sensor dramatically diminished its personal prices of claims dealing with. We know from expertise that if a enterprise is interrupted by flooding and doesn’t reopen inside 2 weeks, it’s nearly definitely not going to reopen in any respect, which is why FloodFlash’s pace in paying claims is so essential.
Qover — Belgium
Qover is an embedded insurance coverage play out of Belgium. It permits ecommerce websites to add insurance coverage into their checkouts with a single line of code. By eradicating all the trouble for its enterprise companions, and seamlessly reaching its clients through their websites, Qover is constructing an enormous guide of enterprise with out paying the sorts of CPAs most direct gamers are having to pay to comparability websites and Google. It’s a virtuous cycle that permits them to provide cheaper protection and win extra clients.
Koala — France
Koala is an insurance coverage dealer that compensates its purchasers for journey disruptions like delayed flights. A cumbersome claims course of that may take up to months is changed with a completely and nearly instantaneous digitised expertise. Koala operates a B2B2C mannequin the place its product is embedded in its journey companions’ ecosystems and its danger is underwritten by various famend insurers and reinsurers, together with French startup Seyna.
Camilla Dolan — founding associate at Eka Ventures
Eka Ventures is a London-based VC agency that invests in sustainable client know-how.
Omocom — Sweden
Omocom is concentrated on offering insurance coverage for the sharing financial system. The sharing financial system is a important side of a round financial system, which is required to assist facilitate a shift to a net-zero setting. Trust is likely one of the key limitations to the sharing financial system accelerating given the potential value of harm or substitute. Founder Ola Lowden realised the necessity for an insurance coverage product targeted on the sharing financial system whereas he was a part of a Swedish taskforce taking a look at how to speed up this market in Sweden. Omocom has gone on to design insurance coverage merchandise particularly targeted on this market and is having success throughout a number of sharing financial system verticals in addition to partnering with a few of Europe’s main sharing financial system platforms.
Laka — UK
Laka is community-based insurance coverage that’s targeted on bicycle insurance coverage. Micro-mobility together with bicycles is a burgeoning mode of transport each for commuting and e-commerce deliveries. Bicycles have a unique insurance coverage dynamic to motor automobiles, offering a chance for a specialist insurer. Laka was constructed organically with a powerful group of biking lovers.
In a standard mannequin, an insurer collects cash based mostly on what they imagine the claims will probably be and their goal margin. If the claims are decrease than forecast then their margin is greater, incentivising them to pay out fewer claims and incentivising people to declare extra because it doesn’t affect their premium.
In Laka’s mannequin, claims are acquired after which as soon as Laka is aware of what claims are in any given month they cost clients the sum of these claims plus a pre-defined margin. This signifies that they aren’t incentivised to pay out much less and people know that in the event that they declare this leads to everyone paying extra in a month. The speculation is that this community-led mannequin leads to much less fraud as a result of it highlights the collective nature of insurance coverage.
Lassie — Sweden
Lassie is concentrated on offering pet insurance coverage mixed with preventive pet healthcare. 88m households in Europe (almost 40%) personal a pet and with the growing humanisation of pets, that is main to important progress in spending on pet wellness. Pets, like people, undergo from many illnesses that could possibly be prevented by measures equivalent to elevated train and diminished calorie consumption. Lassie is trying to assist pet homeowners make wholesome decisions for his or her pets and so scale back the prices related to pet healthcare. The Lassie workforce is a super-smart and excessive power workforce that’s keen about enhancing the lives of pets and serving to their homeowners really feel safe within the information that if their pet does get unwell they are going to be nicely sorted and coated.
Lucile Cornet — associate at Eight Roads
Eight Roads is a VC agency with places of work in China, India, Japan and the UK. Most just lately, it launched a $450m fund for European scaleups.
Sprout.ai — UK
Sprout makes use of cognitive optical character recognition (OCR) and clever doc processing applied sciences to enhance claims and fraud administration within the insurance coverage sector. Traditionally, OCR information extraction instruments depend on guidelines and templates to cowl each sort of doc they might come throughout. The coaching course of might be gradual and time-consuming, on condition that an organization might have to create lots of of recent templates and rule units. In distinction, Sprout says its know-how is simple to implement and can enhance the pace, effectivity and fraud detection charges inside claims processes, main to elevated buyer satisfaction and diminished working prices. They already work with Tier 1 insurers equivalent to Zurich Insurance.
Leocare — France
Leocare has ambitions to reshape the D2C [direct to consumer] insurance coverage trade in France, with a very modern and differentiated method. It will do that by combining a mobile-first technique, a multi-line providing (residence, motor and smartphone in a single app) and versatile insurance coverage merchandise (clients can simply modify/cancel their insurance coverage insurance policies on the click on of a button). The buyer expertise — from the citation to the onboarding, the customer support and the refund of claims — is pleasant. It all occurs on a user-friendly, participating cellular utility. With that method, Leocare has 2.5 month-to-month interactions with its clients whereas conventional insurers have a tendency to work together solely as soon as each 5 years (when there’s a declare!).
Elma Care — Spain
Founded by a workforce of repeat entrepreneurs in Barcelona, Elma needs to construct higher and extra inexpensive medical insurance in Spain. They are the one insurance coverage supplier offering the care inside its app, making the affected person journey easier, extra unified and far more focused than within the conventional personal medical insurance system. They need to stroll within the footsteps of Oscar within the US or Alan in France.
Guillem Sagué — associate at Nauta Capital
Operating from London, Barcelona and Berlin, Nauta Capital is a VC targeted on B2B software program usually at Series A.
Tech11 — Germany
Tech11 is a digital property and casualty (P&C) core insurance coverage platform. The low-code/no-code platform permits insurers and managing basic brokers (MGAs) to modernise present core legacy backends, configure new customer-specific processes, onboard distribution channels and develop new merchandise. We anticipate core platforms for insurers to comply with the same sample as core banking platforms equivalent to Mambu, with a gradual begin till the inflection level occurs after which fast progress thereafter.
FintechOS — UK
It’s at a later stage now however FintechOS have constructed a variety of the backend stack for insurance coverage firms (in addition to different fintech classes too) at a time when it’s desperately wanted. The well-known consumer-facing fintechs from the mid-2010s have created disruptive merchandise and in response, client expectations have risen dramatically however the know-how to ship insurance coverage merchandise and fashionable buyer experiences at scale is lacking. FintechOS helps all the ecosystem to construct the backend it wants.
Tuio — Spain
Tuio continues to be on the seed stage however with an ideal workforce, they’re constructing a completely digital product with the flexibility to give “quotes in 60 seconds” and an ideal consumer expertise for residence insurance coverage.
Paul Morgenthaler — associate at CommerzVentures
CommerzVetnures is the enterprise capital fund of Germany’s Commerzbank. It’s based mostly in Frankfurt and primarily invests in fintech, insurtech and climate-fintech startups at Series A.
Descartes Underwriting — France
Descartes develops insurance coverage merchandise that defend companies and governments towards the monetary impacts of the local weather disaster, equivalent to floods, droughts, heatwaves, cyclones and wildfires. All merchandise are parametric and pay out a predefined quantity as soon as sure parameters are met, e.g. a sure quantity of rainfall throughout an outlined interval. Descartes makes use of machine-learning algorithms for its underwriting and information sources embody geospatial imaging, Internet of Things, sensors and sonar information. As local weather dangers are escalating, companies and governments around the globe are investing in resilience, and parametric insurance coverage performs an more and more vital position.
Finlex — Germany
Finlex offers a digital platform for brokers and insurers serving enterprise purchasers in monetary strains, together with administrators and officers (D&O), authorized, cybersecurity and monetary loss legal responsibility. Given the excessive complexity of economic strains, brokers require instruments to match the precise calls for of their purchasers with merchandise supplied by insurers. Finlex provides brokers a aggressive edge by enabling them to advise their purchasers on this dynamic market sooner, extra exactly and in a extra clear method.
Barbod Namini — associate at HV Capital
Founded in 2000, HV Capital is a German VC based mostly in Munich. Its notable investments embody Zalando, SupplyHero, Depop and HelloFresh.
Asistensi — Spain
Asistensi permits migrants to purchase medical protection for relations again residence. The protection might be purchased on-line and considerably cuts off complexities of cash remittance, coping with native companions and so on. A big a part of cash despatched by migrants to their family members of their nation of origin will get spent on fundamentals equivalent to meals and healthcare. High remittance charges and complexities related to buying well being protection signifies that typically the cash despatched again doesn’t assist the recipients as a lot because it might. By simplifying the method and permitting the sender of the cash to carry out the transaction Asistensi has the potential to considerably enhance entry to healthcare.
Insurello — Sweden
Insurello helps shoppers get honest compensation for private accidents. Personal accidents might be arduous to declare or be coated by insurances that folks don’t know they’ve, leading to lots of of 1000’s of individuals not receiving honest compensation in a interval of potential want. By delivering a straightforward to navigate resolution to shoppers Insurello has the potential to turn into a family model on this particular vertical.
Tom Matsuda is an editorial intern at Sifted. He tweets from @_tommatsuda.