Next Wave of Insurtech Startups Prepare to Descend on Hartford

Will insurance be as much the story of Hartford’s future as it was in the Insurance City’s past?  It is a distinct possibility if the combination of a strong insurance pedigree and receptivity to technological innovation come together as the organizers of the Hartford InsurTech Hub hope. Early next year, the city will witness the arrival of the next wave, as 10 startups arrive to participate in three months of activity, powered by Startupbootcamp, as part of the 2019 cohort for its acceleration program, hosted at Upward Hartford downtown.

Hartford InsurTech Hub is an initiative established in 2017 by Hartford insurance companies, the City of Hartford, and CTNext. The initiative is focused on addressing the need to attract new technologies and talent in insurance and technology into Hartford and the local ecosystem. Selected from more than 230 applications, each startup will relocate to Hartford for the start of the program in February and will remain for its three-month duration.

The chosen startups cover a wide range of abilities, from property insurance claims to peer-to-peer (P2P) insurance, and exhibit a variety of technologies and insurance types. Participating startup companies will receive support, resources, and industry and investor connections to help grow their businesses. With support from Startupbootcamp, the teams will be provided with access to an extensive range of partners, mentors, and investors from across the accelerator’s global network.

The 10 startups that will join the second year of the Hartford InsurTech Hub acceleration program will work closely with Hartford InsurTech Hub’s insurance corporate partners: Aetna, Capgemini, Cigna, Clyde & Co., Deloitte, The Hartford, Travelers, USAA, White Mountains and CTNext.

Sabine VanderLinden, CEO at Startupbootcamp InsurTech, explained that “The insurance industry is continuously evolving and technology is having a huge impact. InsurTech of the past has been about enhancing retail-based offerings with improved customer engagement. InsurTech of today is focused on business model innovation and reconfiguring value chains—something we are committed to developing in Hartford.”

The startups include:

• Pineapple: Pineapple offers a fair, transparent, and affinity based P2P insurance and they’re coming to Hartford from South Africa.
• handdii: Coming from Australia, handdii is a digital platform that automates the property insurance claim process from FNOL through to claim finalization.
• Dream Payments: Dream Payments is a Fintech startup from Canada that powers digital and mobile payment services for business customers.
• Pitch Gauge: Pitch Gauge, from Georgia, is a roofing estimating application using mobile devices to do property inspections.
• Medyear: From New York, Medyear is a social network for healthcare collaboration. They connect consumers to over 190 health systems and 700k doctors for real-time chat, secure email, microblogging, and personal health records.
• SkyWatch: SkyWatch is a licensed insurance broker in all 50 US states offering a holistic software solution for on-demand risk-aware solutions for connected, moving platforms. They’re originally from California.
• Talem Health Analytics: Coming from Canada, Talem Health Analytics provides data driven insights on bodily injury claims cost.
• See Your Box: See Your Box provides Industrial IoT tools to digitize supply chains. SYB is a tech-service platform that collects, analyses and extracts information related to goods across all steps of the supply chain and is coming to Hartford from Switzerland.
• ClaimSpace: Coming from Australia, ClaimSpace is a platform that bridges the communication gap between customers, insurers and stakeholders during the claims process.
• CareValidate: Powered by a life-saving light bulb called SafeLight, CareValidate provides health, safety, and quality of care telematics to transform workers’ compensation, senior living, long-term care, life, and health insurance products with plug-and-play insurtech solutions. They’re originally from Georgia.

VanderLinden added: “We have built strong foundations over the last 18 months and we’re on the way to transforming the city of Hartford into the InsurTech capital of the United States. There’s still much to do and I am therefore delighted to be welcoming some truly inspiring teams into the next program in Hartford to continue this transformation.”

The insurance industry employs just over  60,000 people in Connecticut, up 2.6 percent from last year, according to PwC’s 2018 Connecticut insurance market brief, released earlier this month.  The second Insurtech class of startups hopes to grow that number.  Some of the participants in the inaugural class a year ago are still in town, planting roots and Hartford and growing rapidly.

Hartford InsurTech Hub is part of Startupbootcamp, the award-winning global network of industry-focused accelerator programs that help startups gain access to relevant mentors, partners, and investors in their industries.