SPECIAL REPORT
2021
INSURANCE TECHNOLOGY PROVIDERS IBA celebrates 20 tech providers that are helping the insurance industry align with the demands of today’s consumers
CONTENTS
PAGE
Feature article ................................................................... 2 Methodology ..................................................................... 3 5-Star Award winners ..................................................... 5 Profiles .............................................................................. 6
SPECIAL REPORT
5-STAR AWARDS: INSURANCE TECHNOLOGY PROVIDERS
THE HIGH TECH ACHIEVERS GLOBAL FUNDING for insurance technology is surging – in the third quarter of 2021, insurtechs raised a total of $3.1 billion, according to Willis Towers Watson, making it the second largest funding quarter on record. That’s hardly surprising, considering that the world is still mired in a global pandemic that’s been highly reliant on advanced, innovative technologies to enable businesses to prosper throughout challenging times. “The insurance industry is undergoing a seismic digital transformation, both to better align with consumers’ heightening expectations and also to enable smarter, faster, and better processes for insurance professionals,” says Jason Liu, CEO of Zywave, one of IBA’s 5-Star Insurance Technology Providers. Greg Council, vice president of marketing and product management at 5-Star Insurance Technology Provider Parascript, agrees that
“The insurance industry is undergoing a seismic digital transformation, both to better align with consumers’ heightening expectations and also to enable smarter, faster, and better processes for insurance professionals” Jason Liu, Zywave insurtech is becoming increasingly dynamic and innovative, especially with applications based on artificial intelligence. Another area that’s hot, he says, is applying machine learning to unstructured data to speed underwriting and claims.
HOW LONG HAVE THE 5-STAR INSURANCE TECHNOLOGY PROVIDERS BEEN IN BUSINESS?
5 years or fewer 6 to 10 years
15% 35%
10%
11 to 20 years More than 20 years
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“The insurance technology provider segment is at a really interesting place,” says Ian Jeffrey, CEO of 5-Star Insurance Technology Provider Breathe Life. “While the beginning of the insurtech revolution saw distributors coming in and attempting to replace carriers and advisors, we’ve now moved into the next phase, which is all about enablement, and that’s where Breathe Life sits. Modern insurance technology providers are coming in and replacing the legacy technology that carriers implemented decades ago, and the changes are huge. It’s a really interesting time as carriers and advisors are moving towards the adoption of modern technologies, and I think we’re about to see a lot of companies emerging with the goal of enabling them.”
Winning innovations
40%
Against the backdrop of this evolving landscape, IBA surveyed brokers to find out which technology providers have been the most dogged trailblazers in the digital realm. Breathe Life won in several categories for
its Breathe Life Hybrid Distribution Platform. Jeffrey notes that according to the Life Insurance Marketing and Research Association, an estimated 60 million people in the US are either uninsured or underinsured. Breathe Life aims to target those and other potential customers by making it easier, faster and more cost-effective to buy life insurance. “While we are the first technology provider to provide this level of experience to carriers, advisors and consumers, what really makes us unique is our vision to become the operating system of modern life insurance distribution,” Jeffrey says. “This operating system, Breathe Life, will be the platform that connects all channels – existing and new – while putting the customer at the center of everything.” And the numbers look good. Carriers on the Breathe Life platform have seen a boost in sales of more than 23%, along with a 26%
Parascript won in two categories for its FormXtra.AI platform, which manages the intake and processing of documents for claims, prior authorization requests and medical case reviews. This documentation is often submitted as a monolithic PDF file that requires staff to review, separate and then locate key data to index; FormXtra.AI automates these timeconsuming tasks. “Our solutions can take a large data dump of medical records and automatically identify, separate and parse them at automation rates of close to 90%,” Council says. “This enables a wide range of applications, such as records data preparation needed for claim review or to support quality-of-care audits where it can be costly to assess medical conditions through manual review.” In addition, the platform features pretrained capabilities – knowledge of unstruc-
“Carriers and advisors are moving towards the adoption of modern technologies, and I think we’re about to see a lot of companies emerging with the goal of enabling them”
METHODOLOGY To select the best insurance technology providers for 2021, IBA enlisted some of the industry’s top experts. During a 15-week process, the IBA research team conducted one-on-one interviews with brokers and surveyed thousands more within IBA’s network to gain a keen understanding of what’s important to insurance professionals when selecting a technology provider to work with. Technology providers were asked to put forward a nomination, detailing how their solution stands out against those offered by competitors and what makes their technology the best in the market. IBA then reached out to brokers, asking them to rate their overall satisfaction with the insurance technology providers they dealt with. Companies that received a score of at least 80% were named 5-Star Award winners in recognition of their excellent service and performance. 5th
50% of the 5-Star Insurance Technology Providers offer claims processing and management
Ian Jeffrey, Breathe Life 45% increase in premiums and a 33% decrease in the cost of customer acquisition. Breathe Life has also recorded a 65% decrease in time to issue and 45% rise in its advisor adoption rate. And it’s taken the average error rate from 30% down to 0% while earning a 94% customer satisfaction score from carriers. “The technology we have built is several steps ahead of existing life insurance distribution technology,” Jeffrey says. “The way we approach the industry as a SaaS platform that is continuously improving means that our clients always have the most cutting-edge and user-optimized system in place.”
tured data built into machine learning models so clients can concentrate of more important requirements. A smart learning system underpins all of FormXtra.AI’s training and optimizing capabilities and reduces the need to find skilled staff to spend days (or weeks) on data analysis. Parascript software parses more than 5 billion pages of unstructured data each year. FormXtra.AI was able to help one client transition from a system with approximately 50% automation – where the company had to review every output – to a system with 75% automation and zero required validation. For another
offer document management or automation
40% provide client and policy management
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SPECIAL REPORT
5-STAR AWARDS: INSURANCE TECHNOLOGY PROVIDERS
WHERE THE 5-STAR INSURANCE TECHNOLOGY PROVIDERS’ PRODUCTS ARE AVAILABLE
US (20)
Canada (7)
UK (5)
Australia/New Zealand (4) Middle East (3)
Europe (5)
Asia (5)
Latin America (3) Africa (3)
“Often technology solutions come with a price: either they are simple at the cost of usefulness, or they are incredibly powerful but not easy to command” Greg Council, Parascript client, FormXtra.AI was able to reduce the medical records workload from 22 employees down to two. Council attributes Parascript’s selection as a 5-Star Insurance Technology Provider to “our approach on making complex parsing and analysis of unstructured information approachable as well as reliable. Often technology solutions come with a price: either they are simple at the cost of usefulness, or they are incredibly powerful but not easy to command. Our approach is basically the equivalent of a Mars shot: to make solutions that are highly reliable
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and useful for complex unstructured data needs without the need to bring data scientists and developers to the table.” Zywave won in seven categories for its Sales Cloud platform. For lead generation, Sales Cloud provides instant access to millions of commercial prospects with robust insurance insight such as current broker, carrier, OSHA violations and DOT citations, pulling data from more than 40 sources. Marketing automation empowers users to automate and streamline communications with simple communication and campaign functionality. And Sales Cloud’s
configuring, pricing and quoting (CPQ) functionality automates the mission-critical steps of each buyer’s journey. Zywave has had seven acquisitions in past two years – the most of any insurtech since 2019 – and counts all of the top 100 US insurance brokerages as customers. The company had 274 product releases in 2020 alone, maintains more than 800 employees across three continents, and processes over 30 million quotes a year. “Zywave is the fastest-growing major software platform provider and the only insurtech provider to offer front-office solutions for independent insurance agencies across all lines of business,” Liu says. “Zywave offers agents and brokers an all-in-one, cloud-based platform, providing sales, marketing and management solutions to power growth – their very own modern RevOps machine. The industry’s attention is shifting from back-office efficiency to focusing on how to attract new customers and grow existing customers. And that’s where Zywave is the clear leader.”
Advice for future contenders So what suggestions do Breathe Life, Parascript and Zywave have for other insurtechs? “Be customer-obsessed,” Jeffrey says. “Focus on the needs of not only your customers, but also – and almost more importantly – of your customers’ customers. It’s all about creating world-class user experiences and meeting customers where and how they want to be met. That should always be your number-one priority.” Council advises fellow insurtechs to “approach any prospective customers in the voice of applied technology in the form of their real business problems and processes and not some abstract, feature-laden presentation. Speak about outcomes or results, not about the technology itself.” Finally, Liu notes that Zywave “utilizes an open API structure because we believe collaboration is crucial in this space. We would encourage all software and technology vendors to embrace that view of open architecture, standards and integration. It’s the one of the best ways to ensure our customers enjoy a positive and productive user experience.”
INSURANCE TECHNOLOGY PROVIDERS Breathe Life Breathe Life Hybrid Distribution Platform
Patra Corporation Patra OnDemand, Patra Select, Patra Direct for P&C and EB
Email: hello@breathelife.com Website: breathelife.com
Phone: 415-483-0538 Email: info@patracorp.com Website: patracorp.com
Parascript FormXtra.AI Phone: 303-381-3100 Email: contact@parascript.com Website: parascript.com
Zywave Sales Cloud Phone: 855-454-6100 Email: marketing@zywave.com Website: zywave.com
QUOTE MANAGEMENT Agentero Appulate Breathe Life CogniCor Cover Genius Embroker Patra Corporation Talage Zywave
360Globalnet 360SiteView
Cover Genius XCover
ACCLAIM IQ Agent Licensing Compliance Management
Embroker
Agentero
GloveBox
Appian
Appian Appian Connected Claims
Groundspeed Rapid Fusion
Appulate
Appulate
Insureon Universal Application
Cover Genius
Certificial
One Inc. ClaimsPay
One Inc.
Talage Wheelhouse
Patra Corporation
CogniCor CIRA platform and AI-enabled digital assistants Convr d3 Underwriting
CLIENT AND POLICY MANAGEMENT Appulate Breathe Life Certificial CogniCor Cover Genius Embroker GloveBox Patra Corporation
SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGEMENT Zywave
COMMISSION MANAGEMENT Patra Corporation
CLAIMS PROCESSING AND MANAGEMENT 360Globalnet
Zesty.ai Z-FIRE
DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT/ AUTOMATION
CogniCor
Embroker
Parascript
Zywave
PROSPECT/SALES MANAGEMENT (NON-CRM) Agentero
Appulate
Breathe Life
Certificial
CogniCor
CogniCor
Zywave
Cover Genius Embroker
PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS
GloveBox
Agentero
Parascript
Groundspeed
Patra Corporation
Zesty.ai
Zywave
CRM
INSURANCE RATING Appulate
Agentero
Insureon
Zywave
Zywave
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SPECIAL REPORT
5-STAR AWARDS: INSURANCE TECHNOLOGY PROVIDERS
Ian Jeffrey, CEO
BREATHE LIFE Email: hello@breathelife.com Website: breathelife.com
B
usiness has been so good for Breathe Life recently that it’s presented the company with some interesting challenges. “We had to figure out how to double the size of our team in a remote-first environment in order to meet increased demand,” says CEO Ian Jeffrey. “To tackle this, we completely reinvented our recruiting process to accommodate for hiring remotely.” Founded in Montreal in 2017, Breathe Life is a hybrid distribution platform for life insurance carriers. The company’s goal is to increase the global adoption of life insurance, revolutionizing the life insurance distribution process by leveraging its strong industry and B2C expertise to deliver the best user experiences, whether they’re advisor-driven, self-serve or a hybrid of both. Breathe Life’s hybrid distribution model relies on advanced technology and data processing tools to provide a seamless, streamlined and enjoyable experience for consumers, advisors and carriers. A life
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insurance application can be started by an advisor or a consumer and then seamlessly managed on an omnichannel platform through to signature, payment and policy delivery. Breathe Life’s modern end-to-end platform integrates seamlessly with carriers’ existing systems and offers rich data analytics and customer insights through data dashboards to help carriers understand customer segmentation, conversion rates and funnel optimization, thereby elevating the carrier’s ability to conduct business and maximize its potential. Breathe Life’s quoter module generates product recommendations based on client needs, algorithmic results, business rules and objectives to improve conversion rates. Its e-app and advisor tools streamline the process and eliminate the pain of the application from end-to-end. By using the Breathe Life platform, insurers can stay ahead of the game, and families everywhere can get the financial protection they need. “Our hybrid distribution approach is really
unique and quite powerful, as it harnesses our clients’ strengths in our streamlined process and empowers both advisors and consumers in the buying process,” Jeffrey says. “The technology we use has seamless integration into our partners’ systems and also provides them with valuable tools that help them to maximize their efficiency and focus on their customers’ needs.”
BREATHE LIFE AT A GLANCE
2017 Year founded
1 Number of offices
47 Number of employees
Jason Liu, CEO
ZYWAVE Phone: 855-454-6100 Email: marketing@zywave.com Website: zywave.com
Z
ywave is currently undergoing a growth spurt. “One of the biggest challenges Zywave has faced recently is absolutely also one of our biggest opportunities,” says CEO Jason Liu. “Over the past year, we’ve doubled in size, acquired six companies and have significantly expanded our portfolio of solutions to serve insurance professionals in all lines of business. This massive, accelerated growth has put Zywave in hiring mode, and recruiting the next generation of great leaders is and will continue to be a significant focus.” Zywave is the only insurtech provider to offer a complete package of front-office solutions for independent agencies across all lines of business. It leads the insurtech industry, fueling business growth for its partners with
cloud-based sales management, client delivery, content and analytics solutions. Zywave’s all-in-one platform provides customizable, user-friendly options that enable insurance professionals to build a unique solution to fit their specific growth goals. “Historically, our competitors have been extremely focused on the back-office operations of insurance organizations – not as much on revenue-generating activities,” Liu says. “That’s where Zywave is different. Zywave offers userfriendly options to build unique end-to-end solutions for each of our customers. Think of it as an all-in-one platform offering sales, marketing and management solutions to power growth – a modern RevOps machine.” More than 15,000 carriers, agencies and brokerages worldwide – including all of the top
100 US insurance brokerages – use Zywave’s solutions to enhance client services; achieve business growth; and promote greater health, wellness, risk management and safety.
ZYWAVE AT A GLANCE
1995 Year founded
5 Number of offices
800+ Number of employees
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SPECIAL REPORT
5-STAR AWARDS: INSURANCE TECHNOLOGY PROVIDERS
2021
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