A comprehensive update on insurtech, both sides of the Atlantic. If you have a membership to TechCrunch ?
We enjoyed sharing our thoughts with Alex Wilhelm and Anna.
‘Stephen Brittain, a director and founder at Insurtech Gateway, told The Exchange this week that the road ahead for insurtech startups is still expensive, answering our question regarding capital requirements and outsized rounds by saying that huge deals are a requirement if your business is working on providing insurance — companies like Lemonade in the U.S., to pick an example.
He added, tongue-in-cheek, that smaller amounts of capital are required to scale a neo-insurance business if you are willing to acquire lots of cheap and unprofitable customers.
The tension between growing a book of insurance business and growing a profitable book of insurance business will forever remain part of the insurtech conversation.
“There’s a big tension between the growth mindset and risk management mindset. If the risk is simple and understood, then speed of execution is all that matters. But more complex spaces, like cyber risk, for example [are] so poorly understood [that] the smart money is helping define this risk before building out distribution,” he said, which necessarily entails large raises and investment.’