Admiral, Amazon and acceleration (of all things digital)

Hello all.

A huge thanks to those who took part in our recent survey; our attempt to better understand how insurance companies are re-planning for the new world.

We had over 70 responses and some crazily aligned thinking.

The key takeaways:

• Everyone is reviewing strategy (probably not that surprising!)
• The focus is on near term (0-3 years) digital activity
• The greatest challenge is how to accelerate digitization

The report explores the traditional blockers to accelerating digitization and how, with the right knowledge and collaboration, insurance companies can reduce their time to value dramatically.

In other news, it was great fun hosting the quiz last week. Congratulations to Nigel Walsh of Deloitte (who I can only assume got sight of the questions ahead of time) and thanks to all those who got involved. I’m sure we’ll run another one soon – this week things got a little too busy.

As with most parts of my life, I’m not too keen to get back to the old ways, so forgive me if the format of Sø.Nws varies over the coming weeks as I explore new structures:

GOOD TIMES
With the exception of absolute standout businesses, it’s tough to raise at the moment. And it’ll get tougher until the tail-end of the summer. And even then, who knows really?

But there is good news. There’s still a bunch of companies closing the rounds they’ll have kicked off in the pre-Covid-19 world.

One, I’m sure most of you will have picked up is Alan, the French health insurer. They raised €50m in a Series C funding round led by Temasek – bringing their total funding to €125m in four years.

It also reminds me I need to chase my tortuous travel insurance claim from last month…and not renew with my current insurer.

—

But good news isn’t just about the tech innovation.

I loved reading about our friends at Southern Cross returning premiums of NZ$50m (approx. £24m) to its 880k members and 4k business customers. Well done you guys.

Also, in the UK, Admiral is the first of its kind to offer compensation to its drivers affected by lockdown measures. The insurer is set to return £110m to the owners of the 4.4m cars and vans it covers, with customers receiving an automatic £25 refund.

Final call out, Swiss Re has announced it’s opening access to its proprietary Life Guide underwriting manual for 90 days, with the aim to support Life and Health insurers review the way they assess risk in these unprecedented times.

TOUGH TIMES
Naturally, it’s not all rosy out there.

I’m going to keep this pretty light touch as there’s enough bad news to read out there…especially when you wake up to the news Donald Trump suggests people could receive injections of disinfectant to cure the coronavirus. WTF? He is such a dangerous man.

Following Metromile’s employee cut of 50 earlier in the month, Slice followed suit by letting go of a third of its staff (around 28 employees). And UK’s Lenny, a short-term auto cover startup (underwritten by Covéa), announced it’s closing the business after its backers could no longer offer the funding needed, blaming the timing of Covid-19.

Tough times. That is for sure.

INTERESTING TIMES
Who doesn’t love keeping an eye on what the Amazons and Googles are up to?

This week we clocked Amazon sent out a health insurance survey to its sellers, suggesting (maybe?) that the company is looking into how it could use its insurance interests to help small businesses.

And another chapter in ‘the giants are coming’ story, the Google Cloud Healthcare API has hit the shelves (although not without a bit of controversy). Joining the likes of Microsoft and Amazon, it enables data sharing between healthcare applications and systems built on Google’s cloud architecture. Super interesting.

RANDOM TIMES
A couple of more randomly timed announcements that made me smile this week.

Blink chose this week, of all weeks, to launch Blink Luggage, its new travel insurance solution. Handy.

And Babel Cover, in partnership with Atlas and Piprate, launched its bicycle insurance for competitive cyclists and athletes. Okay.

—

And so that is it for me this week.

A reminder for all those who’d like access to our Accelerating Digital Innovation in Response to Covid-19 report, drop me a line and I’ll ping you over a copy.

And if you haven’t read ‘The Future of Telehealth’ report we published earlier this month, you probably should. It’s a good ‘un.

Have good weekends all. Keep safe out there.

Matt

Sønr is a world-leading market intelligence platform created specifically for the insurance sector. It is used by small and large insurance companies, around the world, to accelerate corporate innovation.

It provides intelligence on market trends, competitor playbooks and disruptive tech companies globally. It also has a number of features that help you track and manage scouting activity across your organisation.

If you enjoyed this email, please forward to a friend and suggest they subscribe. If you didn’t do feel free to unsubscribe from this list or let me know what you’d rather read about.