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It's my life
Hi there,
Last week, Munich Re announced a partnership with drone startup PrecisionHawk to improve insurance assessments in the aftermath of natural disasters.
In prior newsletters, we'd highlighted Swiss Re's new insurance tech accelerator in India and Munich Re/HSB Ventures' investment in smart sensor startup Helium. Today, we chart the growing strategic moves by the two reinsurance giants in startups and accelerators over time.
Q&A: Yaron Ben-Zvi, CEO, Haven Life
Within the insurance tech landscape, life insurance has not seen the same degree of startup formation as other areas such as auto and renters/homeowners in P&C.
That despite the fact that, while the US population has grown by 84 million over the past 30 years, individual life policy sales have plummeted.
While not quite a startup, MassMutual's online life insurance agency Haven Life wrote its first term life policy just one year ago in Massachusetts and by January had expanded to 42 states (it's not yet in the NY or CA markets).
With its one year anniversary in the books, we chatted with Haven Life CEO Yaron Ben-Zvi (@yaronbz) on current challenges in life insurance innovation, building within a larger corporation, and potential partnerships down the road.
On challenges of reaching new life insurance customers
The customer challenge is still very much communicating what the need is for life insurance and when you need it. I think people often don't understand the basics of what the product is, when it's relevant, and how much it actually costs.
Number two, especially for younger people, is thinking about things like their finances and their mortality feel very nebulous and far off and so often times having that discussion, unless in the context of other points of your financial life, becomes difficult.
That's on the engagement level. Part of the challenge too for reaching different customers is that you're dealing with a very complicated regulatory environment that makes it difficult to innovate and you're dealing with a pretty difficult technology and data environment. As you think about how you want to do things differently in life insurance, all of those become challenges.
On building Haven Life inside MassMutual
We are structured as a separate entity and we run as a separate company with our own culture and our own space, but we partner with MassMutual very closely because when you're buying a Haven Life policy, you're buying the financial backing of a big institution. We do our own technology, our own marketing, and customer service but also rely on MassMutual for legal compliance and policy support.
Initially, a lot of the steps we took early on were about bridging the cultural gap and building trust that, as a startup especially in life insurance where you're selling promises to pay policies that are hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, you are being prudent and careful because small mistakes can make a big difference.
On potential future distribution partnerships
Where we're focused as a brand is on the self-service customer who's very technology-focused, might still need help along the way from a person, but wants the experience of doing this by themselves online.
That doesn't mean we're not interested in partnering with others. Wherever there are brands talking to younger customers that are tech-savvy and are interested in the self-service experience, that's where we believe we can fit.
Whether that's with specific aggregators that are open and transparent or other financial brands online who are already talking to our customers about other parts of their life, those are the conversations we are just now starting to have.
Hope you have a great rest of the week.
Matt
@mlcwong
p.s. Next week's newsletter will be sent on Wednesday to include coverage of our Future of Fintech conference panels with Lemonade, Hiscox, Union Square Ventures, and more. Catch the livestream.
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The most-read research briefs of the month.
Munich Re and its subsidiaries have been more active than rival Swiss Re on the startup investment and partnership front over the last year. See the post.
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This Week in Insurance Tech
A curated mix of recent articles on insurance tech financings, exits, hiring, product launches, partnerships, & perspectives.
Dealflow
TechMahindra acquires Target Group. The UK-based business process outsourcing and software provider for insurance, lending and investment firms was acquired for £112 million.
Finextra
BenefitElect raises $220K. The Oregon-based startup offers an online portal for benefits administration.
CB Insights
By Insurers
AXA Strategic Ventures backs Wellth. The New York-based startup provides a mobile app using rewards to help people with chronic conditions stay healthy.
MedCityNews
Partnerships
CoverHound partners with Redfin. The company will also be launching a new brand called CyberPolicy focused on cyber insurance for the small business market.
Carrier Management
MunichRe partners with PrecisionHawk. The partnership with the drone startup will speed up loss assessment and estimation of losses in natural disaster aftermaths.
Unmanned Aerial
Allianz Global Assitance Canada partners with PassportCard. The partnership allow travellers to pay for medical claims in real-time. UK-based PassportCard is a joint venture of White Mountains and DavidShield.
WDRB
Coverfox partners with Oriental Insurance Company. This partnership will distribute the India-owned enterprise's motor insurance product on Coverfox.
Economic Times
Company & Insurer News
Bright Health picks Colorado as first market. The Minneapolis-based startup is teaming up with Centaura Health as UnitedHealth and Humana exit the state's exchange.
Denver Post; Bloomberg
Trov launches in Australia. The on-demand insurance startup, which went live Sunday starting with electronics coverage, is planning a UK launch later this year.
Sydney Morning Herald
Knip appoints 19 year-old as group CTO. Jan Thurau has previously served as head of IT of the Swiss mobile insurance management startup.
Cash.online
Blog posts & articles
Sharing economy, human cyborgs highlighted in Swiss Re's new list of emerging risks. The latest roundup of emerging risks to watch out for from Swiss Re's SONAR report.
Insurance Journal
Goldman Sachs blockchain report highlights title insurance benefits. According to the 88-page report, blockchain's potential role in title insurance could see between $2B and $4B in savings through reduced error and manual processes.
Coindesk
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