InsurTech | DEMO DAY | MICROSITE

Beth Daniel

junior reporter, Tech City News

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PropTech platform Buzzmove has secured £6m in a seed funding round led by White Mountains Insurance Group.

The London-based firm said it will use the funds to continue developing its platform, which enables consumers to create a digital inventory of their belongings via a mobile app, and to purchase home and household contents insurance. The company also provides professional surveying software to companies that are moving.

This investment follows the startup's recent participation in Startupbootcamp InsurTech, the InsurTech-focused accelerator.

Sabine VanderLinden, managing director of Startupbootcamp InsurTech said: "Insurance customers want more personalised and transparent products and services that they trust, and Buzzmove aims to do just that; straddling the e-commerce, home and insurance environments. We foresee huge potential for Buzzmove's solution within an insurance sector that is seeking improved customer engagement via digitization."

This is the latest in a series of PropTech investments that the space has seen in recent months, following alternative tenancy deposit platform Reposit's closure of a £400,000 seed funding round.

Last month homeowner-led house sales platform Settled also received £1m in seed funding, and Plentific raised £2m in a round backed by Property Innovation Labs.

Tracking risk with more accuracy, selling products in more innovative and cheaper ways, and cutting administration costs. These are three key areas in which large insurers are hoping for fintech help. Here's how four young companies - all featured in Startupbootcamp's first insurance accelerator that ended in April - are trying to deliver on that promise.

Fitsense
Founded in Singapore in 2015, Fitsense has developed a platform to help health and life insurance providers personalise their pricing and improve risk ratings. The company's data analytics platform collects data from a user's smartphone or wearable device, such as fitness bracelet Fitbit, and standardises it so it can be used by insurance to better calculate risk. This enables the insurance company to collect information on a user's behaviour and make risk calculations that are based on current data, rather than answers to a standardised questionnaire. This means, for example, that a client who rides a bike to work every day could obtain cheaper health insurance than if they sat on their couch all day. Fitsense technology could also be used by insurers to influence clients towards more healthy choices, by helping them track their behaviour and offering them rewards when they have achieved certain goals.

Spixii
UK-based Spixii has created an "automated insurance agent" - or a chatbot - that enables insurers to sell policies via mobile chat applications. Similarly to chatting on Whatsapp, the user is asked questions about their needs and is then offered an appropriate product without having to fill in long forms or switch to another device. The product can then be purchased through the chatbot. Spixii's chatbot speaks simple jargon-free language, so questions related to travel insurance would include things such as "When are you leaving?" and "Will you be away for more than three months?". Spixii says its tool would enable insurers to improve their distribution by increasing their interaction with customers. On the other hand, users would benefit from receiving more contextual information on products and services, which makes it easier to choose which insurance policy to buy. For example, the chatbot could tell a user what proportion of people travelling to a certain destination have acquired a certain policy.

Massup
Massup is a German startup that has developed technology that enables ecommerce businesses to offer one-click insurance for the products they sell on their website. Massup has aggregated 150 niche insurance products from various carriers, ranging from coverage for electric bikes to policies for expensive sunglasses. Its technology can then be plugged into an online retailer's platform, so that its customers can purchase insurance at the same time as they are purchasing the product, without having to hunt down who provides that specific type of insurance after the purchase. MassUp believes that by enabling cross-selling opportunities, its technology can help both ecommerce companies and insurance providers increase their sales volumes.

RightIndem
UK-based RightIndem has developed software that is aimed at making claims processing easier and more efficient for both insurers and their clients. The startup, founded in 2015, is currently focused on the auto insurance market. By deploying RightIndem's platform, auto insurers can allow their customers to submit and manage their claims online. This means users can provide all the relevant information for a claim - including pictures of their damaged cars - online, instead of having to fill in paper forms and spend lots of time on the phone. While the claim is being processed, clients can track its progress online and are provided with explanations by the insurer on the decisions that are being made. Clients can also decide how they want to be paid after a claim through the platform.

Startupbootcamp InsurTech the leading accelerator focused on insurance, held its first Demo Day for the 10 selected Insurtech startups on 14th April. The first of its kind in London, the Demo Day themed ''Eruption'' was held at Spitalfields venue in Shoreditch provided the startups the opportunity to pitch their ideas to over 400 angel investors, venture capitalists, industry specialists and corporates looking for investment options and partnerships.

The 10 startups were selected from over 250+ applicants across 15 countries, to be part of the three month programme. Throughout the programme the startups collaborated with partners, mentors, business experts and investors, to help build world class InsurTech products to transform the insurance industry. All of the startups' pitch decks along with the companies' contact details can be found in the Demo Day's microsite: http://rla.to/0xm1a .

The 10 startups that pitched were:

• BimaAfya, is a mobile micro health insurance product for the low income and underserved African population
• Buzzmove, a data company, an online price comparison and booking platform for the removals industry and to personalise home insurance
• Covi Analytics, allows insurers to simplify the management of their entire regulatory compliance process on a single platform
• Domotz InsurTech, is a provider of innovative Telematics solutions for the connected home and small business P&C insurance market
• FitSense, helps health and life insurance companies provide better insurance by using data from wearable devices
• massUp, offers an insurance API and transaction shop for small protection insurance to B2B partners.
• Myfuturenow, combines old pension plans into one low cost online account helping people to take control of the planning of their future
• Quantifyle, enables you to use your wellbeing data from wearables and private records to earn tailored and better priced insurance.
• Rightindem, is a self-service total loss claims platform that reduces insurers' workload & leakage and improves customer service.
• Spixii formerly known as Safer, helps people to know their risks and choose adequate insurance cover.

Sabine VanderLinden states "We were so happy to host the first ever London Demo Day for Insurtech and were hugely impressed that we had an audience of over 400 people in attendance, which further highlighted how important innovation is needed within the insurance sector. It was great to see all the hard work over the past three months had paid off for all startups as their pitches were excellent and hopefully this is the start of an incredible journey for them all. I'm also very proud to have worked with all the people involved and I want to thank all the startups, partners, mentors and teams in creating such a memorable event and one we hope to replicate next year"