Happy Holidays. 2019 has been a headline year for InsurTech.

As we look back, 2019 will be marked as the year InsurTech has gone mainstream. 155+ VC investments amounted to $4B raised per Accenture. 4 M&A deals made headlines: AssuranceIQ (by Prudential), Cover Wallet (by Aon), Indio (by Applied), and Fast Technologies (by Verisk). 6 unicorns were born: Wefox, Lemonade, PolicyBazaar, Hippo, Next, and Root.

2019 is the first year of InsurTechNY. Here is a recap of our year and what we learned.

2019 Recap

Summer: Just an idea. The three of us came together with a simple concept. Make a home for InsurTechs in the NYC area. NYC has the most InsurTechs and second most InsurTech investors of any city, but there was no single community to bring people together.

Aug: Investing in InsurTech: Fad or Long-term Value. 3 VCs and an angel investor debated if InsurTech investments were a fad or if they can create long-term value. The verdict: they can and have created long-term value, but Series-A deals are overvalued now. Too many CVCs have moved upstream to Series-A, which is creating a gap for Seed and Series-B deals.

Oct: Customer Engagement and the Future of Distribution. We hosted a panel and two educational talks on the legal environment. We learned startups must be aware of rebating and tying regulatory constraints in distribution, even if they don’t sell insurance. Digital ecosystems are playing an important role in new underwriting methodologies and they are also creating new distribution channels. It has never been more important for insurers to build relationships with InsurTech communities where they can find solutions to fit their needs.

Dec 5th: War Stories Working with InsurTech Startups. We led two panels: a startup panel and a carrier panel. The startups taught us that you must plan extensively ahead of pilot projects and have a checklist on what boxes must be checked to achieve a commercial contract. The carriers taught us that you must have a clear and transparent process for working with startups and dedicate entrepreneurial-minded team members to projects.

Dec 10th: Big Data, Analytics, and Enterprise Privacy. We held a full day of panels and sessions on data and privacy and hosted the NJ assemblyman who sponsored a privacy bill. Almost every citizen has had their personal data hacked at some point from major hacks like Target, Home Depot, Marriott, and First American Title. As a result, almost half of the states are contemplating privacy regulations. The leader, California, has a law going into effect on Jan 1st.

Spring InsurTech Conference

Our next event will be a full-day conference on March 19th. We will have 7 panels, 6 Ted style talks, and 20 startup pitches. Due to limitations on space, we have created a waiting list to hold spots for attendees before we release the tickets. Please sign-up for the waiting list.

Join the Waitlist

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Upcoming NY Area Events

Spring 2020 Conference: Transforming the Buying Experience (Join the Waitlist)
Mar 19 | 8:00 AM – 6:30 PM | 6th Ave. & 23rd St. (Flatiron district)
– Featuring 25+ speakers, 20+ InsurTech Investors, & 20+ Insurtech pitches
– Pitch & Demo competition featuring top 20 startups

InsurTechNY Competition (Opens Jan 6th, Details to come)
Jan 6 – Feb 7 (Available via F6s)
– Tracks for Seed and Growth stage startups
– $300,000 in prizes available to winners

InsurTech American Coalition (Conf. Call)
Jan 8 | 2:30 PM – 3:30 PM EST
– United voice for regulatory & legal concerns by InsurTechs

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Sponsors
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InsurTech New York Area Deals and Opportunities

A curated mix of December insurance financings, exits, partnerships, and opportunities in the New York area.

Sproutt ($12M Raised, Guardian): Life Lines. Insurance broker that uses AI to match people with life insurance providers.

Sunday Insurance ($11M Raised, Quona Capital): P&C Personal Lines. Insurance policy for cyclists that uses machine learning to determine premiums in real-time.

Third time’s a charm. December 5th marked our third InsurTechNY event in NYC and we passed the milestone of 333 people attending our events!

At our event, we hosted two panels: Making the Proof of Concept Work (startup perspective) and War Stories Working With Startups (insurance carrier perspective). Here are three learnings from the panels.

1. Get it right upfront. You must get the business and technical alignment done upfront. Ask, “if we check these seven boxes is there a path for us doing business together.” – Zander Steele @ Hyperscience.

2. Know the process, make it clear. Some insurance carriers have a better-defined process than others. For some, it is the same process as the vendor or consultant process. However, that is not a best practice, “startups are not at that point and don’t have the same materials to answer [traditional vendor] questions.” No matter what you decide, “make sure it is clearly defined.” – Dawn LeBlanc @ InsurTech Hartford Hub

3. Keep it in perspective. Most proof of concept projects are staffed as a side project for the stakeholder in the carrier. The carriers “I have seen most successful in this space have a dedicated team with an entrepreneurial spirit. They are ready to ride a mustang. And, they are ready to dedicate time to go through the bumps and bruises that come with the startup experience.” – Daren Moreira @ Eversheds Sutherland

To see the full recap, check the registration page of our next event. Access the Recap (Video at the bottom)

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Upcoming NY Area Events

Big Data, Analytics, and Enterprise Privacy 2.0 (Save $400, Code: InsurTechNY-VIP, 3 Left)
Dec 10 | 9:30am – 4:30pm | 8th Ave & 50th St. (Midtown)
– Featuring NJ Assemblyman Andrew Zwicker, author of the NJ Data Privacy Bill
– Speakers: privacy leaders from Pandora, Interpublic Group, Fireye, Morgan Stanley, & more

InsurTech NY: Spring 2020 Conference (Join the Waitlist)
Mar 19 | 8:00 AM – 6:30 PM | 6th Ave. & 23rd St. (Flatiron)
– Featuring 25+ speakers, 20+ InsurTech Investors, & 20+ Insurtech pitches
– Pitch & Demo competition with $300k in prizes

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InsurTech New York Area Deals and Opportunities

A curated mix of November insurance financings, exits, partnerships, and opportunities in the New York area.

Lemonade ($300M Raised, SoftBank): Personal Lines. Customizable property and casualty insurance policies at a flat monthly rate in 27 U.S. states.

Coverwallet (Undisclosed Amt, Acquired by Aon): Small Commercial. A leading digital insurance platform for small and medium-sized businesses.

HealthCare.com ($18M Raised, Second Alpha): An InsurTech startup and nation’s preeminent source helping consumers compare and enroll in health insurance and Medicare plans.

Financial Venture Studio (Venture Studio Program): Chance to be selected for the nation’s premier program for seed-stage FinTech & InsurTech startups. Selected companies will receive up to $1M investment. Apply.

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Looking to Volunteer

We are looking for a volunteer than can help us with a study comparing the Insurtech ecosystem in NYC to other top cities for Insurtech. If you are interested, please contact us at contact@insurtechny.com.

In case you missed it, we hosted another sold-out event on Oct 22. We heard from M&E and Locke Lord on new business models and rebating issues in distribution. Then our panelists held a discussion on the future of engagement that beamed with optimism. Three lessons we learned from the event:

1) Rebating laws inhibit innovation. Most states have laws in place that prevent rebating premiums for using products that improve health and safety. This forces InsurTechs to jump through extra hoops to meet exceptions to the law or introduce workarounds like dynamic pricing.

2) The gig economy merges lines of business. Gig economy workers quickly switch between contexts when they drive passengers, host guests, or deliver services. That means they have liability like a business but still buy insurance like an individual. New solutions that blur the lines between personal and business insurance are necessary to adapt.

3) The average life broker is 60 years old. This means there is a coming wave of change. Carriers must deal with orphaned policies, transitioning books, and new expectations from millennials agents.

For additional details, check out yesterday’s article in Digital Insurance about the event here.

You can also catch the full recap on the registration page of our next event. Access the Recap (Video at the bottom)

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Upcoming NY Area Events

Making the InsurTech POC Work (Early bird till 11/8, Save $10)
Dec 5 | 5:30pm – 8:00pm | 6th Ave. & 23rd St. (Flatiron)

Enterprise Privacy 2.0: GDPR, CCPA, and Beyond (Save $100, Code: InsurTechNY)
Dec 10 | 9:30am – 4:30pm | 8th Ave & 50th St. (Midtown)

Intelligent Automation for Insurance and Banking (Save 20% off, Code: BFSI2020_InsurtechNY)
Feb 24 – 27 | NYC

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InsurTech New York Area Deals and Opportunities

A curated mix of October insurance financings, exits, partnerships, and opportunities in the New York area.

Young Alfred ($10M Raised, Gradient Ventures): Personal Lines. Digital MGA built to connect insurance carriers to the digitally-savvy shopper.

Quantemplate ($12M Raised, Route 66 and Transamerica): Multiline. Machine learning to unify, cleanse, and transform insurer and reinsurer data.

InsurTech Munich Hub (Accelerator Program): Gain access to the insurance innovation ecosystem in Europe. InsurTechs looking to make strides in Europe should apply.

This Fall has been a busy season for New York insurance innovators. The major event of the season was ITC, chaired by fellow Manhattan resident, Jay Weintraub. At InsurTech Connect, we hosted Escape the Overwhelm, an escape room experience, for New Yorkers. If you are keeping score, The A-team escaped in 40 minutes and the B-team did not make it out.

Flash forward to last week, we joined a small group of entrepreneurs in Des Moines at the Global Insurance Accelerator for GIA week. GIA featured one NYC InsurTech, Protosure, and one of our upcoming speakers, Jane Wang from Optimity.

Keep reading to find recent NYC InsurTech deals and upcoming NY Area InsurTech events.

Upcoming NY Area Events

The best way to know the InsurTech community is to be part of the InsurTech community. We host events every other month and feature our partner’s events in the NY area. Our next event is Oct 22 and is almost sold out. Don’t despair, you can join our partner organization for their Symposium in Nov and then catch us again in Dec.

Customer Engagement and the Future of Distribution (3 Tickets left)

Oct 22 | 5:30pm – 8:00pm | 8th Ave. & 50th St. (Midtown)

InsurTech Hartford Symposium (Save $100, Code: INY-SAVE100)

Nov 5 – 6 | Full Day | Hartford Downtown Marriott (Hartford, CT)

Making the InsurTech POC Work (Early bird, Save $10)

Dec 5 | 5:30pm – 8:00pm | 6th Ave. & 23rd St. (Flatiron)

InsurTech New York Area Deals

A curated mix of August and September insurance financings, exits, and partnerships in the New York area.

Rhino ($21M Raised, Kairos and Lakestar): Personal Lines. Security deposit alternative startup with users in more than 300,000 rental units.

Thimble ($22M Raised, IAC): Small Commercial Lines. Short-term liability coverage for small businesses and independent workers in partnership with Markel.

Broker Buddha ($4.5M Raised, Vertex Ventures): Commercial Lines. A platform that simplifies the commercial insurance application and renewal process.