The INSURTECH Book

The Best InsurTech May not be InsurTech

By Jannat Shah Rajan

Venture Capital Investor, AXA Strategic Ventures

InsurTech is broader than meets the eye, or proper noun in this case! Some might like to segment InsurTech from FinTech, and perhaps rightly so – FinTech has been associated thus far with banking activity: payments and foreign exchange has certainly evolved in the past two decades, during which time it is fair to say that InsurTech was neither a buzzword, nor was there much by way of advancement in the insurance industry. A wave of comparison websites emerged in the early 2000s,¹ as did strong niche non-life insurance brands such as Direct Line in 1991, followed by esure and Churchill in the UK, but none of this propelled the industry – price comparison and competition (all else remaining equal) could only lead to compressed combined ratios and compromised bottom-line performance, industry-wide. But for me, “financial institutions” encompass insurance companies since insurance is a financial arrangement, and naturally includes banks, asset and wealth managers, and all other participants in the financial industry. And so, for me, InsurTech, is a subset of FinTech, but we should be clear on what InsurTech literally means. It’s about solving the problems of the US$5 trillion insurance industry² and innovating for the future of the industry. InsurTech players can either be directly active in the industry, or can equally provide services in and around it that make the experience ...