Excited to be back from Insuretech Connect in Las Vegas! This is Boost’s 3rd ITC, but our first as the sponsor of the Demo Stage, and our first with a large booth presence. It was great seeing old friends and meeting new ones, and it seemed as if everyone was just as excited as the Boost team to be back talking in-person about innovation in our space. Now that we are home and the dust has settled, here’s our top 3 takeaways from the show:
Insurance uptake has increased with COVID.
Covergenius gave an excellent keynote on this, highlighting how the pandemic has accelerated adoption of insurance products in the US as well as globally. This is most apparent in travel insurance, where their data shows that as the pandemic picked up speed people became more inclined to protect their trips. This lines up with our own experience - Boost is seeing the same acceleration across our suite of products.
This has positive implications for the industry beyond just travel. As consumers utilize insurance more regularly, they will likely gravitate towards adopting it more broadly throughout their lives. Since travel is often sold as an embedded product, that purchase also makes the consumer more comfortable around the concept of buying insurance within an existing purchase flow. As a leader in the embedded space, we are pumped to see our thesis around the future of embedded insurance playing out rapidly in the market.
The data-provider space is expanding rapidly.
It felt like half of the exhibiting companies at ITC were data providers, prepared to help MGAs and carriers with everything from prefilling cyber insurance applications to underwriting homeowners flood risk. The amount of data available to help the industry make relevant decisions is enormous and growing.
Boost takes advantage of data from several providers to make intelligent decisions, but it does feel as if the data space is becoming a bit saturated - there were at least five satellite imagery companies exhibiting this year! This trend may spell trouble for all but the best providers, but in the end both insureds and insurers will win. As data continues to become more available, consumers will benefit from intelligent recommendations and simplified flows, while carriers should be able to reduce losses by more efficiently pricing risk.
Sensor tech is driving more real-time data.
Sensor technology continued to show up throughout ITC. Whether measuring leaking faucets, your daily activity, or how you drive, realtime data has a big impact on premiums. Ten years ago, letting a company collect data on your daily activities for discounted insurance pricing might have seemed foreign. As people become more comfortable with Apple, Whoop, or Amazon tracking things like fitness, however, the concept of getting cheaper rates in return should naturally follow. As a wearable user myself, I am particularly excited to watch how the companies collecting these troves of data are able to partner with our industry to deliver consumer benefit in the long term.
These are just a few of the awesome things that we saw during our visit to ITC. It’s definitely an exciting time for insurance, and for Boost in particular as we help more companies than ever before reap the benefits of embedded insurance products. And the season’s just getting started - we will see you all at InsuretechNY and Money20/20 later this month!
Heading back to Vegas for Money 20/20 too? We’d love to see you! Schedule time here to meet up in person, and talk about how we can help you get started selling your own white label insurance products.
