The Earnix Excelerate event has grown rapidly, with over 400 delegates attending the Sancroft Convene location in London on 25 and 26 September. The packed agenda saw presentations and interviews with one overarching theme; Innovation. The insurtech sector may have seen some consolidation in terms of M&A activity in the last few years, but innovation, new products and resilience – in the face of market challenge – underpin the sector worldwide.
That same growth and hunger for data-driven, innovative insurance solutions has powered Earnix too. As a company they’re committed to developing insurance products that can adapt and grow with their clients. Knowledge isn’t just power, it’s a two-way street between business partners as well. No data stack is an island. Insurance Edge chatted with CEO Robin Gilthorpe at the event to learn more.
IE: There are a couple of areas in insurance where AI and machine learning can make a big difference, at volume. Claims is a good example, where low value claims can be settled quickly via machine learning, offering big savings. But is there also an even bigger gain in grabbing the data from those low value claims and building into price data models too?
RG: Our users within the insurance span are generally working in a risk cycle, where there is valuation, selection, pricing rating etc. There is potentially significant incremental gain from using a single platform for all those functions and a lot to gain from the claims analytics element. Clearly there’s not just the texture of the claims, but the actual patterns and data that you can use to process the risk and pricing side of the equation.
We see our role at Earnix as different from a lot of the core, more purely process platforms, and view claims analytics as a very interesting area. It’s not just about fraud, there are trends you can clearly see, and the pandemic is a good example; people stopped driving, premiums went down, then people came back to driving, accidents happened and suddenly premiums had to go up.
Then to add more pain on top, those drivers who experienced more serious collisions used credit hire vehicles for longer than normal. So, if you had more real-time ability to see all those factors at work, all those claims analytics immediately after the pandemic, then you might have been able to minimise some of that Motor sector disruption and stem any losses sooner. Applying that data from claims into pricing, that bit sooner, could be where the big gains are.
IE: One thing we are seeing in platforms now is endless customisation, where you can fine tune an insurance dashboard like Ducati motorcycle riding modes. Do you think insurance brands are getting maximum value from their dashboards, or sticking with what they know?
RG: You’re opening up a range of conversations there. I like to differentiate between coding and configuration. One thing we know is that historically companies like something specific to their niche inside insurance. But with Earnix the same platform is in 35 different markets, but every one of them is configurable to the client’s needs. However, it’s easy for us all to get into a comfort zone and stick with what has worked in the past.
Earnix is providing a range of ancillary features now, which differ from the core AI, and this allows us to obtain partners and people to a higher rate of confidence, as well as exploiting the full range of capabilities of the platform. We have stuff that is relatively new in our platform, but we can help support people rapidly to a level where they can see new possibilities and new options. We’re keen to invest in that and see it develop because it puts more power into the client’s hands.
IE: You never just sell a software package and then forget it, do you? Clients have to be 100% involved with their platforms and use it to explore new ideas, offer feedback etc. So in that respect it’s always a true partnership between a software supplier and client isn’t it?
RG: We want to build something, that in theory, would mean the client would never need our help. In practice, we want a relationship where clients get the benefits from engagement with Earnix. Where we can both see trends within the platform and both partners can see challenges and think of solutions.
A good platform is the most scalable place to put knowledge, not in the heads of a few people within a company. When we do share knowledge we also notice that retention for our customers is very sticky. People tend to stick with us because we have a unique connection, based on experience in solving problems in partnership. Feedback is a gift as they say, good and bad but either way it is incredibly valuable.
IE: Do you see an opportunity, in the embedded sector, where clients can see a gap and ask Earnix to help build a secure, compliant solution – which might involve a partner who is selling the insurance product for them?
RG: Firstly I think that embedded is at an early stage. Banks and retailers, for example, used to have an e-commerce unit and then it became just commerce. Embedded insurance is probably at the same point of transition and it will be a real badge of success when embedded isn’t even a thing – it’s just how you do things online.
When it’s done right, embedded should offer a distribution and marketing advantage, but also a risk advantage. New sets of data from consumers can be analysed from those partnerships. It lets you analyse the risk selection in a more granular, detailed way and in some ways this is going to be the default way to reach customers in the future. So instead of trying to sell cover to someone who has suffered an adverse event recently and is searching for insurance, you reach almost everyone, on any digital channel. Plus you’ll probably see higher conversion rates from embedded too.
What was a new, add-on type of product distribution will definitely become the norm, the standard way of offering insurance in the future. To do that you need a platform that lets you see data and monitor patterns, in real time. That’s where Earnix can help insurance brands react to gaps, or demands in the market – or more importantly as I touched on the opening address at Excelerate – actually build new products for challenging areas of the market, rather than just withdrawing from a sector. If people can’t get house insurance in a particular country or region, then they can’t get a mortgage, can’t change jobs and move house. These are the things that make society work at a fundamental level.
So the biggest risk isn’t fire or flood, the biggest risk is that the industry does nothing. We can’t just walk away, we have to meet those tough challenges ahead.
IE: Very true, Robin thanks for your time.
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