Introduction
The Insurtech market has matured significantly in recent years, evolving from its early disruptive aspirations into a collaborative force reshaping the insurance value chain. With a focus on harnessing advanced technologies—AI, IoT, blockchain, and big data—insurtech is no longer confined to peripheral innovations but is deeply integrated into core insurance operations.
As technologies improve and the value add increases, we see more and more competition entering into the InsurTech field. This means although insurance is more forthcoming with change and innovation, growth isn’t always guaranteed.
Named Contributors
Walter wong - Igloo
Pierre-André Meunier - Prevtech
Lucas Lezcano Velez - Comparaencasa
Elena Maksimovich - Weathertrade
Sohrab Mehrat - Owl
Emmanuel de Resseguier - Fennech Finacial
Suguna Srini - MIC global
Clara Zucchino - Betterfly
Jim Noble - Greaterthan
Simen Ormberg - Kvikk Forsikring
Keren Golan - Idan Health
Grégoire de Montaigu - MeetLesCousins
Sanjeev Bhandari - Ensuredit
Stephan Ruby - Wrisk
Maariyaah Afzhal - Silasinsurtech
Alfredo Bini - aawater
Bobbie Shrivastav - Solvrays
Harry Croydon - MIC global
Stacey Brown - Insurtech Hartford
Problems
Long Sales Cycles
According to HubSpot, the average length of a B2B sales cycle is 83 days, and it takes 75% of B2B companies at least four months to win a new customer.
In Insurtech we have found the averages of; SMEs 3–6 months, Large Enterprises (Insurers, Reinsurers, Brokers) 6–18 months, Highly Regulated or Mission-Critical Products up to 36 months.
Integration Issues
Integration challenges are one of the biggest bottlenecks in insurtech, and the issue goes way beyond legacy systems or siloed data. What most people don’t realize is how customized insurers’ workflows are—no two are the same, even in the same market.
This means vendors regularly underestimate the real cost of integrations, especially when they’re blindsided by regulatory updates or insurers deprioritising projects to focus on core systems. These roadblocks often lead to delays that no one plans for, but everyone ends up paying for.
Market Saturation
Following the success of Startups such as Lemonade, Zego, and AKUR8 the Insurtech Market has never been busier.
Many businesses enter for very different reasons. Some have been in the insurance space for centuries and fixing problems that would have never been possible without tech. Some see the
valuations of other startups and their eyes turn green.
You have a few challenges that arise linked to market saturation. Businesses going too broad with their messaging and offering, wanting to capture the whole market without having a clear value proposition. Other businesses are going to completely new areas of solutions, when their customers haven’t faced the problems they are fixing, causing difficulty in the sales process. Opting for the blue ocean strategy for no competition sounds great but be prepared to educate the market on your own.
Funding?
We could talk about the balance between bootstrapping and funding, however we believe this is unequivocally a personal preference. If you fix the three challenges above, either route to market and growth works. You have to look 5 years ahead and decide what you want to be doing.
Solutions
Now it would be wrong of us to talk about the challenges without sharing our thoughts and our contributors' insights into how to overcome these hurdles.
Quickly before we dive in, we are a sales consultancy. So if you sense the feeling that we solve a lot of problems through sales improvements, you are correct. That is our experience from working with our clients, however, from speaking to the 122 different c-suite executives we found the same stories in their businesses.
Sales cycles
Sales cycles are part of the game, no matter what you sell, they always take longer than you would like.
So how can sales cycles be optimised in Insurtech?
We have found two solutions:
Stronger Pipeline
Now although this isn’t a true optimisation of the sales cycle, it does fix the problem. In sales the main thing you can control is input. So input more to make sure the pipeline is full. You can’t force people to buy sooner, or clear the rest of their priority list.
The only thing you can do is have more people interested so you don’t feel the pain from ‘slow’ sales cycles.
Content
The only strategy we have found to objectively decrease the sales cycle time is by creating content. 28% decrease in sales cycle time on average. A 12 month sales cycle can become 8 months. All through creating educational content and incorporating that into a formal sales funnel.
Integration
Integration is very case by case, with so many variations of how businesses are integration with others. Seems like a large mountain to climb, and it is.
The good news is, some smart solutions are starting to change the game. Modular APIs and machine learning tools for data mapping are cutting through the complexity of legacy systems, while insurers are beginning to team up in innovation consortia to test integrations together and share learnings. On top of that, cloud-native architectures are letting insurers roll out solutions in phases, reducing risk and speeding things up.
These shifts might not get a lot of airtime, but they’re making a big difference for vendors and insurers who are tired of waiting years to see results. We are seeing less resistance from traditional insurance in the sales process now, because of this.
Market saturation
We usually find market saturation challenges tend to be lead by product based founders.
Incredible solutions however the GTM strategy is holding them back.
A lot of businesses prefer a saturated market, just need to find your fit. Your USPs and ICPs are key.
Best quick tips from the interviews:
‘Don’t try to service everyone’
‘When you have a winning chanel double and triple down on it’
‘Exhaust your current market before looking at new ones’
‘Look at what your competition is doing, do it better’
‘Customer experience is paramount in an industry where everyone knows everyone’
‘You need to know the market better than your customers’
The Winning Formula: Ingredients for a High Growth Insurtech Business
Having the right people around you will mean you can experience high growth without having to learn everything yourself.
There are people that have been in the insurance space for longer than you might have been alive, lean on them.
Experts in regulation, operations, sales and strategy. With these ingredients you will be able to fix any of the problems InsurTech businesses face when it comes to growth.
To achieve High Growth you need to take the expertise and understanding to the next level. Thinking outside the box and being fluid with who you help and who you don’t.
Be prepared for long sales cycles because as an InsurTech, you are bringing tech and innovation to a traditional industry.
Expect to have a higher Customer Acquisition Cost and look to reduce this through content and hyper targeting.
Most problems in the Insurtech business have been caused and fixed by sales.
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