Insurtech Has Arrived: A Primer

Fintech has been a booming sector for a few years, and now Insurtech has arrived. The innovation ecosystem offers a fresh way for insurers to inject life into their innovation strategy.

When Celent asked a panel of insurers to rate the importance of innovating in the next three to five years, 86% noted it was critically important. The imperative to innovate is widely agreed across the industry. Celent has written several reports on the ways of innovating within the four walls of an insurer, but this report looks at the ways to do so outside the organization. As the line goes, “There are no facts inside your building, so get outside.”

There has been a lot of movement in Insurtech in the last six months. Several large global insurers have announced sizable funds being put aside for investments and innovation ventures. Two insurance-specific accelerators have been launched, and Insurtech Meetup groups have sprung up from Frankfurt to London to the Bay area.

“Given just how nascent this external innovation ecosystem is, it’s not surprising that only a handful of insurers are really leveraging the new way of innovating,” says Catherine Stagg-Macey, an executive advisor with Celent’s Insurance practice and coauthor of the report.

The aim of this report is to lay out the innovation landscape from an insurance perspective, serving as a primer to those new to the sector. One of a series focusing on innovation leveraging external parties, this report elaborates on the insurance innovation ecosystem, providing definitions and examples. Future reports will explore how to leverage this ecosystem, and what capabilities are required within insurers to do so.

This 25-page report contains four charts and six tables.