Total new worldwide funding commitments to the InsurTech sector in 2019 were $6.37 billion - 33.9 per cent of the historical total - following a record-breaking $1.99 billion of investment in 75 projects during the fourth quarter.

This was according to the latest Quarterly InsurTech Briefing from Willis Towers Watson, which found that eight ‘unicorn making’ rounds of investment took place during 2019, creating five new privately held startups valued at over $1 billion, of only 10 InsurTechs globally that have reached this threshold. Last year also saw a 90 per cent jump in investment rounds that exceeded $40 million.

In the fourth quarter, InsurTechs raised $244 million in early stage funding. Property and casualty (P&C) insurance startups continued to take a greater share of total InsurTech investment than their life and health counterparts, continuing a trend seen since the third quarter of 2016. Early stage funding to P&C companies grew to 69 per cent, up slightly compared with the third quarter last year.

Andrew Johnston, global head of InsurTech at Willis Re, said: “2019 was the year when individual InsurTechs began to come to the fore to lead in specific parts of the market, whether in certain lines of business or in the use of particular technologies.”

He gave the example of UK-based Concirrus being the forerunner in behavioural-based analytics for the specialty markets. “But while InsurTech news is awash with the huge valuations and postulations of the art of the possible, there is also a very real story that is not so positive – individual InsurTech cessations.

“The number is very difficult to calculate, but our data indicates that during the past three years, approximately 184 funded InsurTechs might have closed their doors.”

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