The biggest contribution of InsurTech to the insurance industry may well be talent—technology talent, insurance talent, just raw talent.
Executive Summary
"One key to solving insurance talent gaps is to support entrepreneurs who draw talent into the industry," writes Adrian Jones in this update on the talent picture for InsurTechs. Based on his tally of 99,000 people working at 400 notable InsurTech companies, Jones finds that roughly half the companies included in the analysis froze of reduced headcount in the back half of 2022. That means that established insurers who work to update employee value propositions, internal tech stacks and cultures have an opportunity to seize the moment and attract the future leaders of the industry to their doors.I recently tallied the headcount at over 400 notable InsurTech companies and identified over 99,000 people. That’s more than work at Allstate and AIG combined. And it’s up from 66,000 at the end of 2020.
Entrepreneurship has always been part of the insurance business. Talented underwriters have often put their name on the door of a new syndicate at Lloyd’s—which has attracted entrepreneurs for centuries. Successful agents spin out and start their own distributors. Cat modelers and underwriters find a billion dollars and a dog to start a new reinsurer in Bermuda—or so the joke goes.
What’s new is venture capital. According to FT Partners, nearly $50 billion of VC has been invested in startups in insurance since 2015. (Before that, amounts were so meaningless that it seems nobody bothered to keep track.)
