Some of the most exciting innovation coming out of the InsurTech movement is focused on small to midsize businesses and the brokers who serve them. New players are challenging the old model where the big carrier does it all—insuring the multimillion-dollar construction project in a major city, global events such as the Olympics and the local main street dry cleaner with the same infrastructure and resources.
Executive Summary
InsurTech isn't just driving new technology; it's also creating new opportunities for industry partnerships, writes Hugh Burgess, founder and CEO of Vindati, a New York-based MGA. He argues that insurers who don't have the technology to automate their smaller business can outsource it to partners such as MGAs, freeing up internal resources to focus on properly addressing the needs of their increasingly complex businesses.Insuring larger complex businesses is becoming even more involved every day, with new emerging risks, a surge in natural disasters and social media shining a light on it all. These larger complex risks require more of a human touch and higher service levels than ever before— and that’s where the leading insurance carriers really shine.
The future of small business insurance is quite the opposite. Smaller books of business require a process that is simple, fast and low cost. Ultimately, this means automated resources rather than human ones. But many carriers don’t have access to this kind of nimble and newer technology, so they’re continuing to give human attention to every account. This clearly isn’t the most cost-efficient or resource-efficient strategy.
