Insurtech weekly news roundup: Sept. 30

The 10-week program brings together insurtechs, insurers and brokers to test out new insurance products that address issues and challenges facing the Lloyd’s market. It began on Sept. 26.

The new crop of insurtechs include Altelium, an MGA focused on specialty battery insurance. There is also nPlan, a risk transfer product for construction delays, and Anansi, which offers embedded goods in-transit insurance for e-commerce businesses.

More than 120 insurtechs applied for this year’s Lloyd’s Lab cohort. They presented innovative ideas for insurance products and services in areas including natural catastrophe, energy and construction in a competitive pitch process.

Products are intended to help the Lloyd’s market understand its customers’ risks better, respond faster to accidents and provide an enhanced service.

COVU

COVU, maker of an AI-enabled digital platform for insurance agencies, has hired a number of new executives with experience at companies including AIG, wefox, John Hancock and more.

Charles Valinotti is the company’s new chief operating officer. He’s a 30-year insurance industry veteran with previous stints at AIG, GEICO and the insurtech Huckleberry.

Guillermo Plasencia joins as COVU’s new chief marketing officer. Previously, he helped scale startups including the global insurtech wefox. He has marketing experience working with companies including Coca-Cola, Universal Pictures and Pfizer Pharmaceuticals.

Koray Dogan signed on as chief compliance officer. He was previously at the fintech Revolut and wefox. He will help navigate issues such as insurance regulations, data privacy and compliance.

Chaitanya Baddam joins as chief data officer, with more than 20 years of experience in software development and technology leadership. Previously, she was at John Hancock, where she served as director of technology, leading digital modernization efforts for life insurance platforms.

The company also hired Fil Firmani, a veteran of IBM and Duck Creek Technologies, as senior vice president of product management and strategy. John Warren, a 30-year sales and marketing veteran, signed on as chief of staff.

Cover Whale

Cover Whale, a commercial trucking insurance MGA and insurtech, unveiled two new technology platforms.

One is an application programming interface (API) for agents, and the other is an interactive mobile app for its insured truck drivers.

The API is designed to help agents integrate their systems with Cover Whale’s commercial trucking insurance platform, streamlining policy quoting and the binding process even further for their independent owner-operator and small truck fleet clients. It is also designed to deliver bindable quotes or indications with minimal information required.

Cover Whale’s mobile app informs commercial truck driver policyholders about their policies in a way that is both effective and convenient, the company claims. They can access instant, free unlimited certificates of insurance, handle claims filing or troubleshoot their dashboard camera.

Stere

Stere, a two-sided digital marketplace, raised $5 million in seed funding that will help expand its platform.

The capacity trading platform is designed to help businesses build and launch insurance programs with capacity partners.

Vida Capital is the seed investor.

“Vida Capital brings a tremendous amount of expertise in reinsurance, ILS and structured solutions, which supports Stere’s vision of building a trading forum of all kinds of capacity in a one-stop shop,” Stere CEO and founder Dogan Kaleli said in prepared remarks. “Vida’s funding will fuel further expansion of our trading platform, allowing us to continue creating the smart tech-driven [products and services] that our stakeholders have come to rely on to help support and grow their businesses.”

Guy Carpenter

Marsh McLennan’s Guy Carpenter arm will work with TNEDICCA to beef up its US auto risks analysis capacity.

Guy Carpenter, is a global risk and reinsurance specialist. TNEDICCA, launched in 2015, focuses on analytics that leverage country-wide geocoded policy crash report data to generate risk scores. The goal of this approach is to develop a credible and robust data resource for assessing US-based auto risks.

“Through the agreement with TNEDICCA, Guy Carpenter will be able to further provide clients with leading-edge data assets,” Thomas Ettininger, Guy Carpenter’s managing director and North America leader for the Global Strategic Advisory team, said in prepared remarks. “This, in turn, will empower carriers to develop innovative products that address new and emerging risks.”