TOP 25 INSURTECHS
KYND
Founded in 2018 in London by Andy Thomas, KYND is a London-based provider of “transformative” cyber risk management solutions. Its technology is designed to make assessing, understanding, and managing cyber risks easier and quicker. KYND’s platform gathers and processes data to assess cyber risk for businesses and presents instant insights in “plain English”.
In September 2022, the insurtech partnered with Hylant, a US privately owned insurance broker, to tackle challenges and opportunities born out of the hardening cyber market.
Prior to this, in January 2022, Kynd secured £3.25 million from UK and Ireland-based growth capital investor BGF to accelerate its global expansion plans and launch new products.
“KYND’s platform gathers and processes data to assess cyber risk.”
Ladder
Just over a year ago, Ladder raised $100 million in Series D financing to continue building what it describes as “the digital life insurance company of tomorrow”. At the time it also stated that it had “become the first fully digital life insurance company in operation” after issuing its first policies through Ladder Life Insurance Company.
In October 2021, the insurtech stated: “The addition of our fully operational carrier makes Ladder the first 100 percent vertically integrated life insurtech, built on a proprietary technology platform and powered by ever-compounding machine learning models.”
Prior to this, the insurtech had already reported strong growth in its flexible life insurance offering, a product that is available digitally in minutes.
Since 2017, Ladder has worked to rebuild every step of the life insurance stack from product design to user experience, underwriting, instant issue, and policy administration.
The company was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California.
“Ladder has worked to rebuild every step of the life insurance stack.”
Ledger Investing
Financed by venture capitalists and strategic insurance industry investors, startup Ledger Investing is a marketplace connecting insurance risk with capital. In June 2022, it raised $75 million in Series B funding as part of plans to “democratise insurance risk capital”.
The company plans to use the funds to accelerate revenue growth across its insurance-linked security (ILS) brokerage and asset management businesses, launch data infrastructure service products, and recruit more than 200 employees.
Prior to this, it had also placed more than $400 million in premium into the capital markets, and said it is on track to exceed $1 billion by the end of the year.
“The company plans to use the funds to accelerate revenue growth.”
Previsco
Flood forecasting insurtech Previsico is a global provider of real-time, street level flood prediction and analytical solutions, which work to build round-the-clock resilience.
It was set up in 2001, by co-founder professor Dapeng Yu at Loughborough University, to pioneer 2D flood modelling software. Its big breakthrough came in 2014 following devastating floods in Somerset, in the UK, when the UK government’s Cabinet Office approached Loughborough University to help develop the next generation of flood forecasting technology.
More recently, in July 2022, Previsico has partnered with Generali to further enhance flood resilience for the insurer’s clients and build greater resilience to climate change.
In September, it hired Johnny Stubbs, previously UK head of insurance at Getsafe, to the role of partnerships manager to drive business development across the UK and US insurance markets.
“Previsico has partnered with Generali to further enhance flood resilience.”
Skyline Partners
Skyline creates and delivers specialised parametric products which pay policyholders based on the occurrence of specific events such as temperature or rainfall, rather than on measured property damage. This approach simplifies the claims process, removes the need for claims adjusting, and enables insurance to cover intangible losses.
In April 2022, Skyline partnered with Munich Re and Howden to develop a product that protects farmers in Jamaica, which has low insurance penetration rates, and is experiencing increasingly frequent and severe weather events, like much of the Caribbean. The product focuses on the Jamaican Co-operative Credit Union League (JCCUL) and protecting it against non-repayment of micro-loans from farmers in the event of extreme weather.
JCCUL is estimated to provide loans to 100,000 smallholder farmers in the country. Loans are used to pay for essentials such as seeds, day-old chicks, and farming equipment. However, adverse weather events could jeopardise farmers’ loan repayments, which in turn could risk the JCCUL’s ability to offer financial support.
In response to this issue, the parametric insurance solution will replace lost funds as a result of farmers defaulting on their loans in the event of an extreme hurricane.
“This approach simplifies the claims process.”
