Lloyd’s announced the latest cohort of InsurTech startups that will join its Lloyd’s Lab innovation accelerator program. Their focus will be on COVID-19 products and services.

The InsurTechs will look at new types of insurance to support the COVID-19 response; help the Lloyd’s market to assess COVID-19 risks, and help Lloyd’s customers to adapt to a changing workplace. Three key themes will be in play: data and models; new insurance products and markets, and response to COVID-19.

The new Lloyd’s Lab teams will join Praedicat, Metabiota and Dialogue, three teams specially selected in June to work on Lloyd’s COVID-19 response.

More than 140 applications were received from across the world for the fifth cohort of the Lloyd’s Lab, which begins Sept. 7, 2020. The 10 successful teams were selected after presenting their ideas in a competitive process during a virtual pitch day on July 29, 2020. This is the second completely virtual Lloyd’s Lab cohort following the successful completion of cohort four.

In July, the Lloyd’s Lab ran its first “Fusion” program, a new three-day event designed to test early-stage start-up ideas aimed at dealing with COVID-19 and other systemic risks. Three of the teams who took part in Fusion – Ryskex, Hivemind and Geollect – have been successful in their application to the fifth cohort of the lab.

In the first four cohorts, start-ups, entrepreneurs and businesses have presented ideas ranging from live-streaming drones to event-based parametric insurance solutions for catastrophic flooding and on-demand insurance for the gig economy. Examples of success stories so far can be seen in alumni members such as ClimaCell, Parsyl, Layr and Flock.

“This cohort of InsurTechs will play an important role in our response to the COVID-19 pandemic and to help us develop the new models and insurance products of the future. We will undoubtedly need new products and services for insurers to deliver confidence and security against future waves of this pandemic and other systemic risks of the scale we have seen in 2020,” commented Trevor Maynard, head of Innovation.

Lloyd’s described the 10 teams selected for cohort five of Lloyd’s Lab as follows:

• Ryskex provides a blockchain-based ecosystem for “Alternative Rysk Transfers” and innovative insurance solutions. Its focus is on uninsurable risks in today’s insurance environment. (The company is headquartered in Berlin, Germany)
• Hivemind Technologies provides a software platform for managing human-in-the-loop data preparation. Its newest product, AGORA, is a tool for eliciting and aggregating expert judgements using a prediction market mechanism. (Oxford, UK.)
• Geollect is an agile geospatial intelligence and analysis company, providing dynamic insights for decision support to a network of global clients in the defence, maritime insurance and cruise industries. (Bristol, UK)
• KnowRisk is a consortium of companies bringing the insurance and audit industries together for the first time. The platform builds a digital twin of site and supply chain risk by combining insurance, audit and internal company data. (London, UK)
• Predata is an AI company focused on uncovering predictive behaviors in online activity. The company has built a global comprehensive predictive analytics platform for geopolitical risk, enabling customers with global exposure to discover, quantify, and act upon dynamic shifts in online attention. (New York City)
• Thimble, the business insurance start-up known for its monthly and on-demand policies, is developing a low-limit, first-line-of-defence, parametric contingent business interruption coverage to protect SMBs from COVID-19 and future pandemics. (New York City)
• Blink Parametric is focused on parametric insurance innovation and transforming the complex products of its insurance and InsurTech clients into simple, intuitive, real-time, online services via its customisable platform. (Cork, Ireland)
• HazardHub provides a comprehensive, detailed set of peril risk and property characteristics is a lightning-fast API. They deliver over 800 characteristics for any location in the US, allowing insurers to better understand the risk of a property before committing to an underwriting decision. (San Diego)
• Hailios is an Internet of Things (IoT) and data analytics company that empowers the insurance industry with real-time, ground truth weather data. They have tight focus on severe convective storms and an ability to sense multiple characteristics of hailstorms. (Colorado Springs, U.S.)
• Inclusivity Solutions designs, builds, operates and innovates digital insurance solutions that enable financial inclusion and address the protection gap in emerging markets. They partner with mobile operators, banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions to deliver simple and affordable insurance cover through mobile phones. (Cape Town, South Africa)

Source: Lloyd’s

*A version of this story ran previously in our sister publication Insurance Journal.