InsurTech Connect 2017 recently took place in Las Vegas and is described as …

“the world’s largest InsurTech event offering unparalleled access to the largest and most comprehensive gathering of tech entrepreneurs, investors and insurance industry incumbents from across the globe”

On this basis, Premonition had to attend and show the insurance world more about the future of litigation analytics.

We asked Nathan Huber, our Director of Business Development, to explain more;

What were you hoping to achieve from attending InsurTech Connect?

Premonition originally focused much of its efforts and firepower on the legal space and this was very productive for us. However we started to receive so many enquiries from the insurance industry that it became apparent how much value they would gain from our system. Insurers get sued the most and they are always looking to improve their operational and risk models.

So we headed to the RIMS conference in Philadelphia earlier this year. This event was massive, everyone in insurance is there and we had an amazing time discussing all the potential applications for our data with risks managers, claims departments, re-insurers and even other third party vendors who wanted to use our data to power their products.

One of the clear messages we received from that event was, that we had to be in Vegas for the InsurTech Connect conference.

What were your overall impressions of the event?

Insurance is an industry ripe for innovation. The conference had a dynamic energy that was palpable. Everyone was looking for new ideas and solutions.

The conference was managed very well and everyone was interested in engaging new ideas rather than just networking, socializing or catching up.

There seemed to be a genuine thirst to innovate and to find out more about the emerging tools and technology and how this can be integrated to move this space forward.  From a business development perspective, that’s what you want when attending these events and I really liked that aspect of our time there.

The organizers utilized a creative way for attendees to set up rotating meetings at the various tables, almost like speed dating, where you could network with a number of great people within a short period of time. That led to some really positive connections.

Did anything in particular stand out to you? 

From our perspective, one perfect piece of timing, was that our attendance coincided with the announcement of bringing Ty Sagalow on as our Chief Insurance Office. Ty is not only an engaging personality, he is amongst the most well-known and respected figures in insurance innovation.  As Chief Innovation Officer of AIG, Zurich, and Tower Group, not to mention his most recent role as Chief Insurance Officer at Lemonade, “The Uber of Insurance,” He has spent the last 35 years uncovering the waves that are likely to change the insurance industry

I was with Ty during the event and you could see his phone blowing up with people calling and coming over to our stand to congratulate him. We were already generating lots of interest, but having Ty with us created even more “buzz,” so to speak.

Did you see appetite from insurers for partnering with insurtechs?

Absolutely. There is an enormous appetite to find out what technology is going to transform the space.   We had conversations with people in claims as well as carriers and re-insurers seeking to improve their risk modelling and underwriting. There is tremendous opportunity for Big Data and AI to bring value to all of these.

For example, insurance companies have always based their risk models on data, but in the past, and despite the fact that litigation is one of an insurer’s biggest expenses, litigation and lawyer performance data has been opaque and difficult to obtain. It certainly has never been available on the scale and accessibility that we are bringing to the market. Now, for the first time, the industry has access to this data to measure their risk exposure and find top-performing lawyers.

Within the insurance market, there is an absolute thirst for data and they understand the value proposition immediately. They need data. We have data. So the conversation quickly turns to “We absolutely want to do something with you. Let’s figure out how to integrate this into our modelling and work flows.”

Any other emerging technologies and products that excited you?

We were kept busy throughout, so I didn’t get the chance to engage with every vendor. However, a couple companies stood out to me:

Carpe Data (https://carpe.io) has a strong product, and like Premonition, they’re also doing innovative things with data to assess and manage risk.

The other company I enjoyed learning about was Claimatic (http://www.claimatic.com) They are doing some innovative things in regards to managing and automating the claim cycle.