The Insurtech 100 list has compiled the best and most dynamic names in the insurtech space – and 14 of the 17 countries that made it are from Asia.
Sonr, a market intelligence platform dedicated to the insurance industry, has released its annual ranking of the world’s leading industry disruptors. Insurtech startups and innovators who get into Sonr’s top 100 are chosen using the Sonr index, a proprietary scoring technology that collates data across key criteria such as leadership and product performance. The resulting shortlist is then studied and scored by experts from industry leaders such as EY and Generali.
This year, Sonr noted “immense change” from the record levels of insurtech investment seen in 2021 to the cooling investment and switch in focus from just growth to growth and profitability in 2022, driven by economic uncertainty, conflict, and a changing climate.
“In the past few months the market has reached an inflection point – funding is down (halved from its Q2 2021 peak), valuations are close to all-time lows, and many insurtechs are having to course-correct overnight to demonstrate and deliver short-term viability,” said Sonr founder and CEO Matt Connolly. “But it’s far from doom and gloom. In fact, I see this change as a huge positive for the industry. There is consensus across insurance leaders, globally, for the need to [accelerate] digitisation … But there is also a growing recognition that this is best achieved by working with or acquiring wholesales and insurtechs.”
ESGs stepped up, with “purpose-driven companies” taking a larger slice of the Insurtech 100 this year. Sonr said this reflected the industry’s commitment to driving positive change globally as well as in the way customers interacted with insurance.
The list is in its fourth edition this year, featuring a selection of the top 100 from 17 different countries. Fourteen of them are from Asia, including the youngest to make the list – Bolttech of Singapore with US$247 million in disclosed funding. Winning insurtech from Asia also included familiar names such as Ping An Good Doctor from China, with over 440 million registered users on its platform and 1.3 billion consultations conducted, Digit Insurance from India valued at US$4 billion according to CB Insights, Turtlemint of India with US$197 million in disclosed funding, and Singlife with Aviva from Singapore valued at SGD3.2 billion.
Others in the top 100 were India’s Policybazaar, which sold over 19 million policies since its inception in 2008; Thailand’s AI-powered insurtech Sunday, which raised US$75 million in disclosed funding; Hong Kong’s Bowtie; and Hong Kong’s OneDegree – the first digital insurer candidate in Hong Kong with a fully digitised process end-to-end, operating across pet, home, health, and business products according to Sonr’s report.
Topping the Insurtech 100 was USA’s Coalition, which provides comprehensive insurance and proactive cybersecurity tools, followed by UK-based Tractable and German insurtech wefox.
“Over the coming months we’ll continue to see a steady rise in collaboration between incumbents and insurtechs, and perhaps most interestingly, a spree of acquisitions at heavily discounted prices,” Connolly said. “The majority will be established players buying capability, but certainly not all. There will be plenty of heavily capitalised insurtechs entering new markets and broadening their offerings through acquisition. And if any will be leading the charge, it’ll be those appearing in this Insurtech 100.”
