A recent study examines the booming insurtech scene and warns of an impending financing shortage.
While the “InsurTech Radar Germany” of the management consultancy Oliver Wyman and Policen Direkt counted a good 50 active InsurTech startups in Germany in 2016, this number had already risen to 110 in 2017. Dietmar Kottmann by Oliver Wyman summarizes the further results:
"While the insurtech scene was still heavily sales-oriented in 2016, a shift in thinking began in 2017. Exciting new insurtechs with new insurance offerings or innovations in insurance operations emerged, and the mix became more balanced."
While sales models still lead the ranking of insurtech startups with 40% (2016: 63%), technology expertise is becoming more important for young companies that focus on operating (38%, 2016: 21%) and offering (22%, 2016: 16%) insurance. The importance of insurance expertise has also increased, says Nikolai Dördrechter, Managing Director of the Policen Direkt Group:
"However, this requires founding teams that bring two things to the table: deep insurance knowledge and technology know-how. A single person will rarely be able to combine both skills."
Insurtech startups lack growth capital
In a further survey of 36 German insurtechs, the study authors identified problems facing insurance startups:
“There is a lack of capital, especially in the area of high follow-up financing,”
says Dördrechter.
"The potential of the current investor landscape is insufficient. There is also currently too little government support compared to other countries."
Around 70 percent of founders consider government support in Germany to be insufficient, and 94 percent do not expect any improvement. The situation is better with seed financing, however: Only one in four respondents sees problems with capital requirements of less than €250,000. In contrast, two-thirds view financing rounds involving €2 million or more as difficult or very difficult.
"This means there is no money for the growth phase. Market penetration or international expansion is made more difficult,"
says Dördrechter. Only a third of founders expect the financing issue to ease in the next 12 months.
Reinsurers are in demand as investors
Respondents place their greatest hopes in venture capital programs offered by traditional insurers, both domestically (71%) and internationally (82%). Another interesting finding is that three-quarters of respondents are skeptical about primary insurers investing in their own insurtech companies. Kottmann says:
"Among the skeptics, 28 percent even categorically reject such participation. They fear for customer relationships, a loss of freedom and agility, and also assume a negative impact on follow-on financing."
The attitude of the founders surveyed toward reinsurers is different: 44 percent rate a reinsurer's financial commitment as positive, and another 22 percent even consider it optimal. Oliver Wyman partner Kottmann says:
"A gap is widening in terms of equity investments: On the one hand, more and more financing vehicles are available from primary insurers. On the other hand, insurtechs are becoming increasingly uneasy about utilizing this capital. This discrepancy between willingness and rejection will lead to disappointment in the long run."
