The InsurTech Corridor announces recruitment for 2023
The InsurTech Corridor, an accelerator program that supports U.K. insurtechs’ entry into the U.S. insurance market, recently announced its second phase of applications and is encouraging companies to apply for a collaborative experience between the two markets. The initiative was launched in March 2022 as a partnership with the U.K.’s Department of International Trade (DIT), the Connecticut Insurance and Financial Services trade association, Connecticut’s Department of Insurance, the MetroHartford Alliance, InsurTech UK and Connecticut’s Department of Economic and Community Development.
Susan Winkler, the executive director of Connecticut Insurance and Financial Services and one of the original co-founders of the InsurTech Corridor, says that the international agreement was signed “with London, specifically, and Hartford because they’re centers of insurance excellence. Both were generating lots of insurtech and lots of innovation, and we decided to allow for the two economies to benefit from that by creating what is a corridor, like a bridge, to make that business flow back and forth more seamlessly.”
The InsurTech Corridor enables startups coming from these major insurtech hubs to overcome traditional barriers of entry by providing support in navigating regulatory systems, offering educational resources and information and introducing market connections that may aid with funding opportunities.
An InsurTech Corridor event in Las Vegas.
The InsurTech Corridor
“It’s an opportunity to allow for increased knowledge back and forth between the two countries, [offering] the resources and meeting the insurance companies and those regulatory bodies that we have here in Connecticut. It just streamlines the U.S. and the U.K. entry for going both ways,” says Winkler. “We’re the stop to find out what the U.S. market is like, where the opportunities are within the insurance industry and how we can make that happen.”
Rytas Stankunas, trade and investment officer of financial and professional services for the U.K.’s DIT, says, “We’re really proud of the track record we have already. … Once a company joins the Corridor, it’s part of a community that we’re building.”
After partners of the U.K. DIT introduce firms interested in the program, the department screens the insurtechs through an application and interview process that ensures the companies are a right fit for the Corridor – typically, insurtechs that have previously found some success in the U.K. and are ready to move into the U.S. market. Companies suited for the Corridor are assessed so that programming may be tailored to their specific needs and introduced to carriers; they also receive programming opportunities and can utilize mentors and other available connections through the DIT.
Stankunas states, “All the companies in the Corridor have been U.K. companies coming to the U.S. and taking advantage of what Connecticut has to offer. We’re hoping in the near term to start tapping into U.S. companies that are looking at the U.K. … It’s just a little bit of a different approach that we have to take, but hopefully, in 2023, we’ll start seeing some of those companies entering the Corridor.”
