$13 million backing for insurance startup
Startup firm Next Insurance says it plans to launch its insurance sales platform for small businesses in the near future. The firm announced Tuesday that it has secured $13 million in funds, largely from Zeev Ventures. Venturebeat.com reports that Next recognizes that “99 per cent of small commercial insurance” is sold through agents and brokers but investor Oren Zeev commented that despite potential profits the small business insurance space has been “hardly touched” by disruptive technology.
Operating profits down in 2015 for US P&C insurers
Property and casualty insurers in the US saw lower operating profits in 2015 as low investment yields combined with the increasingly competitive environment. A new report from ratings agency Fitch shows that, among 45 (re) insurance companies it monitored, there was an aggregate 7.2 per cent decline in operating earnings to $47.3 billion in 2015. Each of the 45 companies reported a net profit in the year.
Despite the decline in operating profits, Fitch expects the personal, commercial and reinsurance lines ratings outlook to remain stable in the US through this year. Sector ratings are stable for personal and commercial lines but increased competition and low investment yields means a negative sector outlook for reinsurance.
Will employees wear telematics to lower health insurance premiums?
The use of ‘black box’ technology in vehicles is set to increase, especially for commercial fleets but could the use of telematics have another use in the workplace? ComputerWorld.com reveals that Apple has filed a patent for an updated version of its Apple Watch which would provide constant monitoring of the wearer’s heart activity and other body metrics which would act as an early warning system for an impending heart attack.
The article suggests that we are heading to a place where employees will be required to wear devices that can track their health in order to be accepted into workplace health insurance plans. Worse, it considers a world where wearing one will be a condition of the job. The author notes that regulatory and privacy concerns would have to be overcome in the meantime.
77 per cent of Google search traffic is encrypted
Google has revealed data on how much of its search traffic is protected against hackers using encryption. Seventy-seven percent of all search requests that end up at Google’s data centers are encrypted, making it unintelligible to third-parties. The level is up from 52 per cent in 2013. Although the figures will concern government intelligence services, especially the FBI which has been trying to force Apple to give it a ‘back door’ to encrypted iPhone data; for businesses and consumers encryption offers stronger protection against increasing cyber threats.
