A total of 71 InsurTech funding transactions during the second quarter of 2018 marks a record high, although the total of $579 million invested is down 20 per cent against the previous quarter, according to Willis Towers Watson.

The consultancy firm’s latest industry report found that the second quarter also set a new record for the volume of incumbent participation in InsurTech investments.

This time last month, Juniper Research stated insurance premiums generated by InsurTech services will exceed $400 billion by 2023, up from an estimated $187 billion in 2018. Meanwhile,

Produced in collaboration with CB Insights, the analysis focused on InsurTech for the life and health insurance industry and how the complexity of change occurring within the value chain is much greater than in other insurance subsectors.

New forms of underwriting data are expanding exponentially as a result of advances in the understanding of the human body and the proliferation of wearable sensors that track activity and monitor behaviours, noted Willis Towers Watson.

InsurTech companies are developing tools to harness this data in order to create insightful information to enhance products. As the ecosystem for data and analytics continues to develop, one potential outcome may be greater convergence between health insurers and life insurers, it suggested.

Emerging technology enables the development of customised insurance offerings that better align sales incentives and help to resolve compliance issues.

InsurTechs are also providing access to around-the-clock services using artificial intelligence, machine learning and chat-bots, all in an effort to place greater emphasis on risk mitigation and prevention. For life and health underwriters, they provide increasingly better tools to predict life expectancy and the probability of illness, while giving insurers with an opportunity to develop real time dialogues with their customers to increase engagement.

Greg Solomon, head of life and health Reinsurance at Willis Re International, said the application of InsurTech in the life and health sector ranges from the explicit use of new technologies to distribute and underwrite insurance policies, to more indirect usage such as wellness, where technology is deployed simply to make policyholders healthier and happier.

“But everything overlaps – innovations are either driven by (re)insurers or used by them, or engaged by prospects and policyholders, which affects (re)insurers' experiences – the change will be profound, but many incumbent carriers have some way to travel yet.”

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