With global insurance premiums exceeding $4.9 trillion in 2017, investor appetite is growing. The fundraise count in the insurtech space has increased 314% over the past six years, growing from 41 fundraises in the first half of 2014 to 170 fundraises in the first half of 2020. There were a total of 274 insurtech funding rounds disclosed so far this year.

Value raised has also increased over time, growing from $557 million in 1H2014 to $3.5 billion 2H2019. So far in 2H2020, a total of $2.5 billion has been raised.

Six mega-rounds were responsible for 69% of total funding: Bright Health ($500 million), Ki ($500 million), Next Insurance ($250 million), Waterdrop ($230 million), Hippo ($150 million) and PolicyBazaar ($130 million).

Private Equity remains a prominent buyer group

Across transactions closed between July 2019 and October 2020, the proportion of private equity acquisitions came in at a very high 39%.

Miro Parizek, founder, Hampleton Partners, said: “Private equity firms are keen to invest in tech companies serving the insurance industry, targeting solutions focused on customer experience through to digital transformation solutions for carriers.”

Partnerships between tech and insurance incumbents

Established insurers are having to maintain relevance and deliver superior customer experience in the face of ‘Big Tech’ entrants to the markets.

Amazon recently announced it will be offering auto insurance and services in combination with Acko General Insurance, with the quote-to-bind process taking less than two minutes and all policy-related communication stored on the Amazon platform.

As a result, funding and M&A activity is shifting towards more customer-centric and direct-to-consumer digital insurance options. Established insurers are improving their partnership and collaboration strategies with new technology providers.

The third quarter of 2020 saw 32 (re)insurer partnerships. These included Hiscox’s partnership with Thimble, on-demand insurance for small businesses and Verily’s partnership with Swiss Re to launch a unit to provide stop-loss insurance which covers unexpected and large employee healthcare costs.

Parizek added: “Revenue in the insurtech market is expected to reach $10.1 billion by 2025. There is no doubt that the M&A, fundraising and partnership activity unfolding at present will continue to thrive as players compete for a piece of this pie in an increasingly digital world.”

Source: Crunchbase