With technological developments like artificial intelligence, economic challenges like pickier investors and greater geopolitical risk, and growing pressure on carriers’ margins, the current state of insurance and insurtech demands creative operational strategies.

The Financial Revolutionist sat down with three leaders in insurtech to gauge the state of insurtech operations in 2023—and learn best practices that can help challengers succeed in a fluid market landscape. 

Rob Schimek, CEO of bolttech

bolttech is a Singapore-based insurtech offering a tech-enabled platform for protection and insurance. It has raised more than $490M in venture funding, including a Series B and B++ equity round totaling $246M, which saw participation from Tokio Marine, MetLife, Khazanah Nasional, and LeapFrog Investments. Rob Schimek, bolttech’s CEO, offered the following takeaways about insurtech operations:

• Insurtech can mean many things. The insurtech space includes a wide range of players—from distributors, to underwriters, to claims solutions, to technology providers. “I think that different parts of that space have been impacted in different ways,” Schimek said. 

• With that in mind, distribution—and discipline—are key to bolttech’s winning strategy. “I think it’s much tougher to be in the underwriting balance-sheet space,” Schimek said. Distribution can scale its footprint more quickly than its cost base in a way that other parts of insurtech cannot. bolttech has demonstrated financial discipline, including through its hiring practices. To Schimek, the traditional tech-giant practice of growing headcount rapidly and then excuting layoffs is “the exact opposite of financial discipline.” Investors saw bolttech’s savvy recruiting practices as one of several reasons to invest, Schimek suggested.

• It’s a buyer’s market. bolttech has invested in both organic and inorganic growth. In October, the insurtech acquired Poland-based Digital Care, an embedded protection company, which can help bolttech expand its reach in EMEA. Schimek said current market conditions made it a “really interesting time” for inorganic deals. The company’s recent fundraising round gives it the “dry powder” to grow inorganically, Schimek said, and continue attempting to fill the $1.8T gap in the global protection space.

• Global ambitions require global ops. Given the range of markets in which bolttech looks to establish itself, Schimek said his being based in Singapore rather than the US helps the company adopt more international and kaleidoscopic operational and growth strategies. 

• Keep an eye on AI. Schimek said artificial intelligence may create major changes in insurance and beyond. “It's whether or not you embrace and understand how to use and adapt to the new world” that will help leaders succeed, he suggested.

Ben Jennings, CEO of Embroker

Embroker is a SF-based digital-native business insurance company. The firm specializes in covering startups, law firms, startups and officers, and tech errors & omissions. Founded in 2015, Embroker has raised more than $140M in venture funding, including a $100M Series C in 2021, which saw participation from FTV Capital, Gaingels, MassMutual Ventures, and others. Ben Jennings, CEO of Embroker, sees strength in: 

• Diversifying verticals. A lot of insurtech’s growth has come from offering insurance to like-minded tech companies. Moving into new verticals, like law firms, has let Embroker tap into new growth opportunities—offering much of its existing solutions without a proportional increase in its operational costs. Across sectors, end users “should be able to buy in their bunny slippers on a Sunday morning” using Embroker’s self-guided flows, Jennings suggested.

• Leveraging speedy—and local—tech operations. Jennings hopes to roll out a new vertical every six weeks through efficient tech ops. Part of this new effort has entailed hiring more talent within North American time zones, rather than its existing tech base in Belgrade, Serbia. “The bulk of our work is done in North American time zones, so having some support here in this time zone is helpful,” Jennings said.

• Emphasizing stability. Because of increased macro risk and geopolitical risk, Jennings anticipates more customers—and, crucially, investors—choosing reliable carriers and insurtechs. “There are hundreds of hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars, in venture money sitting on the sidelines right now waiting to be invested in the right companies,” Jennings said. “There are going to be some really strong winners next year or the year after.” Maintaining operational discipline can offer long-term benefits and investment. 

Farooq Sheikh, Head of Insurance at Unqork

Unqork is a NYC-based codeless enterprise application platform, which helps clients structure and sustain complex applications. Founded in 2017, Unqork has raised more than $365M in venture funding, including a $207M Series C in 2020, which saw participation from BlackRock, CapitalG, and others. The tech leader’s insurance team prioritizes:

• Clients’ cost reductions on the claims side. Unqork’s solutions help bring more automation to two ends of insurance clients’ claims spectrum—the small claims end and the catastrophic end. The middle section of claims can then become the focus of human employees, according to Sheikh. This doesn’t lead to headcount reductions, Sheikh said, but rather “making sure those people are focused on the middle area where there's a high amount of fraud.” Human beings can then adjudicate these claims, and don’t require spikes in headcount when catastrophes like earthquakes or floods hit. Insurance clients can then process claims and help end users more quickly, and also upskill existing talent from a development, underwriting, and change management perspective. “That’s where we are most effective and helpful,” Sheikh said. 

• Matching insurance operations to new technological developments. New technologies require new insurance products. Grab bikes and Lime scooters, for example, largely did not exist as a category ten years ago in the US. Mobility changes require new forms of underwriting and distribution compared to preceding technologies. Unqork is also looking at other nascent products, such as driving cars, which may shift liability from drivers onto manufacturers and platforms. “There are a lot of creative capabilities that are getting developed to provide offerings and deploy those solutions,” Sheikh said.