October 14, 2021
Agency Experience
Carriers are aiming to create a competitive advantage with their digital agency experience
What: According to a recent survey by Celent, carriers are viewing agency portals (and the agency experience overall) as key growth drivers. 94% of carriers surveyed aim to have an above-average or world-class agency experience, and 65% rate their current experience as average.
From Celent report: One of the strongest factors affecting the experience of quoting is the percentage of applications that can be straight-through processed without the intervention of human underwriting.
Why it matters: 50% of all carriers have not even started working on external APIs, and as more business moves to marketplaces and 3rd party systems, the need for those APIs will only grow in importance.
Read: Beyond the Portal: P/C Carriers Vie to Create Better Agency Digital Experiences
Industry Challenge
Q3 insurtech fundraising achieves $2.18 Billion
What: With $2.18bn raised in Q3, the insurtech sector is growing quickly. However, this is a dip from record-setting Q2, in which $2.72bn was raised.
Why it matters: The massive investments so far this year in insurtech show how large the opportunity and need for industry modernization is. Lack of APIs, insufficient portals, and problematic communication solutions are a few of the challenges that insurtechs are working to fix, and we can expect investment money to continue flowing until these problems are solved.
Read: P&C insurtech deal volume strong in Q3 but fundraising value down from Q2
FAANG news
Amazon set to expand its insurance offerings into the UK
What: Amazon’s Business Prime program is expanding into the UK and offering contents insurance, cyber coverage, and professional indemnity insurance.
Why it matters: In the US, Amazon is providing its insurance coverages through multiple carriers. This approach diverges from Amazon’s UK approach, where Amazon is currently only using Superscript as a carrier.
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