Ladder, Haven Life and Atidot are among the life insurance companies planning to announce their latest innovations during the third annual InsureTech Connect (ITC) conference in Las Vegas on Oct. 2-3.
The event, which will be held at the MGM Grand Las Vegas Hotel and Casino, will bring together more than 6,000 attendees and 250 speakers, representing top insurers, reinsurers, regulators, entrepreneurs and investors. It is the world’s largest insurtech event, offering access to the most comprehensive gathering of tech entrepreneurs, investors and insurance industry incumbents from across the globe.
Founded by Jay Weintraub and Caribou Honig in 2016, ITC has grown into an event that will feature representatives from more than 50 countries worldwide.
Among this year’s featured speakers are Lloyd’s of London CEO Inga Beale, Lemonade Co-Founder and CEO Daniel Schreiber, Uber Global Head of Insurance Curtis Scott, AIG Global Head of Cyber Tracie Grella, and MetLife Chief Digital Officer Greg Baxter.
Here’s a closer look at what some of the life insurance-focused insurtech companies will be up to at the event.
Ladder to unveil latest innovations
Ladder CEO and Co-Founder Jamie Hale will be unveiling some of the company’s upcoming initiatives at InsureTech Connect, the company announced recently.
Since its launch in 2017, Ladder, the company that says it is “reinventing life insurance to be instant, simple and smart for today’s consumers,” has demonstrated accelerated growth, introducing groundbreaking, “first of their kind” innovations.
The initiatives Hale will reveal, the company says, will further demonstrate the power of the company’s technology-first, consumer-centric approach to life insurance, and build upon the industry-wide innovations that Ladder has introduced to-date.
“In order to evolve life insurance for modern consumers we’ve built proprietary technology from the ground up and have redesigned every part of the value chain,” Hale said. “Introducing impactful change required us to rethink everything from the product design and pricing to marketing, risk assessment and everything in between.”
Ladder claims to be the first company to move beyond manual and accelerated underwriting to offer truly instant, fully underwritten life insurance policies. Because Ladder utilizes algorithmic underwriting that incorporates hundreds of data points to fully assess the risk, the company is able to provide most of its customers an offer in less than 15 seconds. In fact, the company is often able to deliver decisions as little as “429 milliseconds” after a customer submits an application.
Ladder teamed up with its insurance company partners to create and design a unique LadderLife product specifically for its customers (currently in 49 states and D.C.). Creating this streamlined product, the company says, “has enabled Ladder to lead the way in customer experience, with NPS routinely well over double the industry average.”
In April 2017, Ladder introduced “dynamic life insurance,” which the company says is a first-of-its-kind functionality that allows consumers to adjust their life insurance policies at any time, based on the changing needs of their lives. To make this possible, Ladder created a proprietary policy management system that enables customers to “ladder” their policies (apply to increase or instantly decrease their coverage) at the touch of a button, all online, 24-7, which was another first in the industry.
Another milestone was the company’s launch of the Ladder API in January 2018, a seamless integration that enables companies to offer Ladder’s capabilities to their customers.
The launch of the Ladder API, the company says, demonstrated a compelling example of a paradigm shift in the fundamental way consumers access, gain information on and engage with life insurance.
Ladder deploys code on average of 13 times a day – with more than 10,650 enhancements to the codebase already in production – using its technology and data to continuously improve the process and accelerate the speed of obtaining life insurance. This revolutionary data-centric approach has gained the company industry recognition, including: Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies in Finance, Best InsurTech Company by the FinTech Breakthrough Awards, a Celent Model Insurer Award in the Innovation and Emerging Technologies category and inclusion in the Forrester Life Insurance Wave: Q2 2018 report.
Haven Life announcement scheduled
Haven Life, an insurtech startup wholly owned by MassMutual, is also scheduled to make a new announcement at InsureTech Connect.
2018 marks the third anniversary of Haven Life. Recent news from the company includes:
- Launching Haven Life Plus, a suite of services including a will service, an online safe deposit box and at-home DNA testing
- The August 2018 acquisition of online insurance broker Quilt
- Increasing its customers by 250% between April 2017 and April 2018
Haven Life Plus is a rider to the Haven Term life insurance policy that “helps policyholders live healthier, fuller and more protected lives,” according to an Aug. 15 press release from Haven Life.
In February 2018, Haven Life surveyed policyholders to find out what benefits would appeal most to them. Eighty-three percent said they would use a free online will service if it were made available to them, 66% are interested in a digital vault for storing important documents, and 75% said they would be open to innovative wellness services like an at-home DNA test.
“We are a mission-driven business that aims to redefine the life insurance buying process and the relationship we have with customers,” said Haven Life CEO and Co-founder Yaron Ben-Zvi. “To date, we’ve been able to deliver on an innovative way to protect your loved ones when you’re gone. Now, we’re turning our focus to how we can also enhance the lives of customers while they’re living.”
In eligible states, a Haven Term policyholder can take advantage of the following services, which are included in the cost of the policy:
- A digital solution for creating legal wills for you and your partner at no charge through Trust & Will (a $129 value.) The service also includes a healthcare power of attorney and directives.
- A secure online safe deposit box for storing, managing and sharing your family’s important documents at no cost through LifeSite (normally $80 per year).
- A discount for an innovative and actionable at-home health test that determines how well you are aging (or not) based on the length of the protective caps on your DNA strands through TeloYears ($30 for policyholders; normally $99).
- A 15% discount voucher for family health services at MinuteClinic, inside CVS Pharmacy and Target stores.
“The relationship that most people have with their life insurance company is a monthly bill. They have coverage in place, make their premium payments, and hope their loved ones will never have to use it,” said Ben-Zvi. “We’ve always felt there was more we could do for people after they buy a policy. With Haven Life Plus, we’re now able to not only offer easier life insurance but also an easier life.”
Atidot speaking at event
The team at Atidot has been busy preparing for InsureTech Connect, which will be marked by various speaking slots including a joint workshop with Microsoft entitled “How to successfully integrate with a Start-Up,” scheduled for 3 p.m. on Oct. 2.
For the first time ever, Atidot will be taking its product on the road and is inviting ITC attendees to demo the system and see how Atidot can maximize the profit on in-force life insurance business.
Atidot’s goal is to discover underlying customer behaviors and connect the dots so that insurers and agencies using analytics can see more than just the number of life insurance policies under management, or who has them.
“The object is to use your data to its fullest,” Katsav said in a recent TechRepublic article. “The greatest advantage is when you use that information to arrive at new insights that can drive your business.”
Going beyond strictly transactional data will tell you how many policies and policy holders you have—and by aggregating this data with unstructured, big data such as the geographical locations of clients, what they do, their interests, recent life-changing events (such as a marriage or a child), etc. In this way you begin to understand more about the clients you sell to — or try to retain.
And with digital transformation happening so rapidly today, Katsav said insurers and agencies can have a hard time keeping up or can get overwhelmed. That’s where an outside company that specializes in a very specific area can step in and help.
For more information about InsureTech Connect, visit www.insuretechconnect.com.
