Duck Creek Blog
Blog Post - EMEA

The Rise of the Platform Ecosystem in Insurance

May 13, 2021

Innovative insurtech start-ups and established businesses continue to grow, but an intermediary is required to scan the horizon and provide a platform for insurers to plug into the best and most relevant solutions for them, writes Scott Field, Head of International Product Strategy at Duck Creek Technologies.

From new applications for artificial intelligence to exciting use of the internet-of-things for truly enhanced data-driven underwriting, the insurance market abounds with startup insurtechs, AI innovators and evangelists for digital transformation. The exuberance and momentum for insurance technology is real, positive, and a joy to be part of.

Global investment in the insurtech sector reached a new quarterly high of $2.55bn during the first quarter of 2021, according to Willis Towers Watson data. The bump in the road of Covid-19 may even benefit the tech startups further, as the industry accelerates technology rollout for remote working and e-trading.

A few of these ventures will turn out to be unicorns, and their investors will have struck gold, whether that’s app-based Lemonade going public, or motor startup Zego, insuring the army of delivery guys needed to serve online consumers during the Covid era.

But only a fraction of the new crop of insurtechs will find their place in the sun. Many will be bought up by a traditional parent, while others simply fail for traditional reasons such as a crowded market, good-old-fashioned poor performance on the business side, or failure to scale up as they need to mature into bigger organisations.

Horizon scanning 101

At Duck Creek, we closely monitor the highs and lows of the insurtech market, from start-ups to more established players, to the mighty unicorns that emerge. We operate a platform ecosystem through which we scan the horizon for the best, most relevant insurtech partners for our insurance users to access.

The ecosystem partnerships we foster are designed to provide the benefits that plugging into a bigger ecosystem can bring for a startup, while providing the contacts and linkage to seize opportunities and benefit from economies of scale.

Underlying all of that, of course, is the cloud. And no, this is not just another buzzword in a sea of tech terminology – the cloud is bigger than insurance. It is becoming ubiquitous. The cloud carries the weight of data and technology to underpin how almost every sector around the world works in this century, including for private use and for companies, with no traditional server style alternative able to compete in data storage or computing power.

Enhancing value for insurers

An open and growing global ecosystem, our solution partners extend and enhance the value of our core system, enabling carriers to best execute their unique market strategies. Connected with Duck Creek through our Anywhere Integrations, solution partners offer timely and accurate information and insights to our joint carrier customers, as well as speed and convenience for their producers and policyholders.

Examples of whom we work with include:

  • Akur8: transforming insurance pricing with Transparent AI, by automating the rate-making process while retaining complete control of the process and the output.
  • CoreLogic: the leading provider of property insight and solutions, promotes a healthy housing market and thriving communities.
  • FRISS: Spot fraudulent claims immediately while paying legitimate ones with the speed your customers deserve. FRISS provides sophisticated, real-time fraud detection directly within Duck Creek Claims.

Check out our full and ever-growing list of Solutions Partners here.

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Scott Field
Scott Field heads up International Product Strategy as well as the EMEA and APAC insurance content teams, joining Duck Creek Technologies in 2018 as Director Solutions and Product Marketing. During his more than 15 years of extensive experience in the insurance industry, he has worked for insurers in finance, marketing and product design as well as for technology vendors in the machine learning, data services and core system spaces.