Record insurtech investment in Q1
According to the latest Quarterly Insurtech Briefing from Willis Towers Watson, global investment in insurtech broke records in the first quarter of the year. The first three months of 2019 saw worldwide investors in the sector complete the highest ever number of transactions, the highest ever number of property & casualty (P&C) transactions specifically, and the highest ever volume of Series B and Series C funding rounds.
According to the latest Quarterly Insurtech Briefing from Willis Towers Watson, global investment in insurtech broke records in the first quarter of the year. The first three months of 2019 saw worldwide investors in the sector complete the highest ever number of transactions, the highest ever number of property & casualty (P&C) transactions specifically, and the highest ever volume of Series B and Series C funding rounds.
Q1 of 2019 was the third consecutive quarter in which more than US$1 billion in funding was secured, with 85 deals being announced, with a total value of $1.42 billion. This represented an increase in the number of deals of 35 per cent compared with the final quarter of 2018, and 54 per cent of deals took place outside of the US, an ongoing trend on which Willis Towers Watson has been keeping an eye. In the UK, for example, the number of deals rose by 50 per cent. In China, however, the number of deals dropped by 38 per cent.
“The sheer volume of hopeful insurtech companies and hype is becoming increasingly difficult to rationalise,” said Dr Andrew Johnston, Willis Re’s Global Head of Insurtech, “and one could argue that much of the space is akin to the fable of the emperor’s new clothes. We are seeing, however, that a number of insurtechs are already adding some genuine value to our industry. We remain pragmatic about where in the value chain we believe this can be achieved.
“Our quarterly reports for 2019 will focus on the four major functional areas of insurance, exploring the activities required to make each work, and how technology could be applied to improve those processes. We continue to believe that success for any insurtech must follow that bottom-up approach, rather than targeting reinvention from the top down.”
You can view the full report here, and for a closer look at the flourishing insurtech sector and some of the exciting advancements taking place there, you can read the inaugural issue of ITIJ’s Insurtech Review here.