InsurTech and the Promise of “Property Value Hedging Technology”
Gilad Shai · 2018
InsurTech is any company, or product, that leverages technology to provide value in the insurance value chain. Yet InsurTech, when made geeky-cool, is a "property value hedging technology". Each of the functions - the links of the insurance value chain - carries frictions and thus opportunities for improvement via technology. There is an opportunity for entrepreneurs to found InsurTech startups as: facilitators, enablers, and new kinds of insurers. Five key technology trends are shaping insurance: Big data and modelling, automation, connectivity and mobility, IT infrastructure, telematics and Internet of Things. A nimble startup might be able to go to market quickly with a server-less technology stack that integrates Insurance-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) components. Companies that define themselves as fast followers should harness IaaS to secure InsurTech as a factor in the Strength and the Opportunity quadrants of their SWOT analysis instead of the Weakness and the Threat quadrants.