News
Vehicle Thefts Nationwide Surpass One Million For the First Time Since 2008
Law enforcement agencies and communities across the United States continue to be plagued by record and near-record levels of vehicular crime as monthly theft totals nationwide consistently exceeded 75,000 in 2022.
According to new analysis conducted by the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB), the insurance industry’s association dedicated to predicting, preventing, and prosecuting insurance crime, more than 1 million vehicles were stolen last year, marking a 7% increase over 2021.
Vehicle theft data, provided by the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) and analyzed by NICB, indicates over 250,000 thefts were reported in the fourth quarter of 2022 alone.
California and Texas led the nation with the most reported stolen vehicles in 2022, and Illinois had the largest increase of any top 10 state with thefts increasing by an estimated 35% between 2021 and 2022. Similarly, vehicle thefts increased by 31% in Washington state over the same period.
Aviva announces full-year financial results
“We are making excellent progress.” Amanda Blanc, CEO, Aviva
That is how group chief executive officer Amanda Blanc summed up Aviva’s newly announced full-year financial results for the year 2022 – a statement that indicated strong trading momentum in spite of market volatility.
Among the key figures released by the group – general insurance gross written premiums were up 8% to sit at £9,749 million compared to the prior year’s £8,807 million. However, its COR did slide to 94.6% - compared to 92.9% in 2021.
In Canada, GWP shot up by 16% (or 9% in constant currency) to stand at £4,009 million compared to last year’s £3,445 million. Its COR reached 92.5% compared to 90.7% a year earlier. It was noted that there was growth across both commercial lines and personal lines, which were up by 14% and 6% respectively.
The metaverse presents opportunities for insurers: PwC
The metaverse presents new opportunities for insurers to engage with customers, develop new business and risk strategies, and offer innovative coverages and products. As the line between the physical and digital worlds continues to blur, insurers must be prepared to do business in this "phygital" environment and take advantage of its potential.
By investing in the metaverse and utilizing its unique capabilities, insurers can enhance their operations, improve customer experience, and address emerging risks in this rapidly growing space. Whether via using avatars for training and customer support, creating digital twins for property underwriting, or offering coverage for digital assets, the metaverse is a new frontier in user experience and risk coverage.
An increasing number of carriers have reached out to us to determine how they can most effectively invest in and use the metaverse. Looking across the insurance value chain, we see the metaverse providing two broad opportunities for insurers.
Tokio Marine & Nichido to sell policies in the metaverse
Channel combines advantages of online and face-to-face distribution
Japanese insurer Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance will start selling insurance to its customers through the metaverse. Beginning this month, the insurer’s sales staff and customers can communicate via their virtual avatars on the Virtual Akiba World platform, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported.
What the insurance industry needs in 2023 - Part 3
The pandemic introduced worries, momentum and challenges that were bigger than companies had dealt with before. The ability to recognize where we stand can no longer take months.
McKinsey reports that insurers who employ advanced data analytics can see their loss ratios improve from 3% to 5%, their business premiums increase 10% to 15% and customer retention in profitable segments jump from 5% to 10%.
Editor’s note: In part 2, the importance of taking a broader view of the industry through the use of data analytics was emphasized and the key to pivoting in today’s rapidly evolving post-pandemic insurance market. In part 3, the final installment in our series, we will connect the dots and lay out the best action plan for future success and profitability in 2023 and beyond. The initial installment of this series can be read here.
Data for good Educating the industry has always been important and never more so than in today’s environment. The goal is to help insurers with the knowledge of the consumer benefits of data from the point of marketing to the point of claim — what data is used and what data is not used in determining how much each of us pays.
More than 85% of U.S. consumers get more competitive pricing thanks to the use of contributory data. This is seen through prior claims and policy data, credit attributes, vehicle, driving behavior and public records data that is infused into insurer workflows — across auto, home, commercial and life insurance.
Why is more data important? We need to be messaging to consumers that in pricing, the more variables used in a consumer’s premium calculation, the less likely one single variable is to impact the insurance premium. For instance, they need to know that an unfortunate speeding ticket could increase an individual’s premium dramatically if this were the only variable used in pricing.
Bill Madison, CEO, Insurance, LexisNexis Risk Solutions
VIU BY HUB TO OFFER PERSONAL LINES DIGITAL BROKERAGE SOLUTION TO ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY ALUMNI
VIU by HUB (VIU), a digital insurance brokerage platform, today announced a partnership to make personal insurance effortless for Arizona State University's (ASU) more than 500,000 alumni.
Powered by Hub International Limited (HUB), a leading global insurance brokerage and financial services firm, VIU leverages technology and years of insurance expertise to offer choice, convenience, neutrality and credibility when shopping for home and auto insurance.
"VIU by HUB improves the insurance buying process by providing a customized experience that evolves with an insurance buyer's needs," said Bryan Davis, EVP and Head of VIU. "As ASU alums go on to make a difference in their communities and begin their careers, VIU by HUB enables them to worry less about personal insurance and spend more time pursuing their dreams."
LexisNexis Risk Solutions Enhances Game-Changing Home Insurance AI Solution Flyreel to Expedite and Improve the Home Underwriting Process
U.S. property insurers can now more easily capture, prioritize and act on relevant property risks to help significantly improve underwriting efficiency
To address rising loss ratios and workforce challenges, LexisNexis® Risk Solutions has announced enhancements to LexisNexis® Flyreel®, the insurance data and analytics leader’s recent acquisition that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning to enable self-service property inspections. With these enhancements, U.S. insurers can now configure the Flyreel AI solution with their own underwriting preferences. The AI solution is then able to help expedite the underwriting process by capturing and evaluating completed property surveys and inspections, using proprietary computer vision technology to highlight key risks in alignment with each carrier's unique risk appetite.
InsurTech/M&A/Finance💰/Collaboration
Silicon Valley Bank's liquidity crisis rocks the tech world
Silicon Valley Bank, a financial pillar of the innovation economy, is in a liquidity crisis that has sent shock waves through the startup ecosystem and prompted countless depositors to pull their funds from SVB accounts.
In a sign of the widespread financial stress that has weighed on startups recently, SVB said Wednesday that its clients' cash burn rates, coupled with declining VC investment, have resulted in shrinking deposits.
The bank's crisis underscores the extent of the turmoil spreading throughout the venture ecosystem, and raises questions about the ability of many startups to ride out the current economic downturn if they're unable to get their money back from SVB.
To manage the cash crunch, the bank's publicly traded parent, SVB Financial, has sold fixed-income investments worth $21 billion at a roughly $1.8 billion after-tax loss and is now seeking to raise new capital through a share sale.
20 private insurtechs with the highest cumulative financing | Digital Insurance
The top five private insurtech companies have combined cumulative financing of more than $5 billion as of December 31, 2022. The average cumulative financing of the top 20 was more than $600 million.
Scroll through to see which insurtechs made the top 20 and how they fared at the end of December 2022.
Source: FT Partners' Transaction Database
Betterview and Carpe Data Partner to Provide Business Occupancy Data to P&C Insurers
Betterview, the insurtech company P&C insurers rely on to identify and manage real property risk, today announced a new partnership with Carpe Data, the next-generation online data provider for insurers. Carpe Data will enhance the Betterview platform with accurate location-based occupancy data about businesses across the country, empowering insurers to make faster, smarter policy decisions.
Powerfleet to Acquire Leading Insurance Telematics and Sustainable Mobility Solutions Provider Movingdots from Swiss Re
Powerfleet, Inc. (Nasdaq: PWFL), a global leader of Internet of Things (IoT) software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions that optimize the performance of mobile assets and resources to unify business operations, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Movingdots, a leading provider of insurance telematics and sustainable mobility solutions based in Bremen, Germany, and a subsidiary of one of the world’s leading re-insurers, Swiss Re.
Movingdots, in partnership with Swiss Re’s Automotive and Mobility unit, has spent nearly a decade designing and perfecting data science algorithms with primary insurers to provide risk-based drive style analytics for fleets and personal auto risk. Backed with actuarial insights, Movingdots enables data-driven insurance propositions for insurers, car manufacturers, and mobility platform players worldwide. By focusing on customers’ safety and security needs, and by providing transparent and comprehensive monitoring, Movingdots combines insurance analytics with artificial intelligence (AI) technology to derive an individual risk assessment. Movingdots has been looking for the right strategic growth partner to deliver these precisely architected insurance solutions to the global market in a sustainable, profitable, and scalable way.
Events
Insurance AI and Innovative Tech USA 2023 - 12–13 April, 2023 - Marriott Marquis, Chicago, USA
Fuse the Power of Data and Tech to Reinvent Insurance. Agile Technology. Advanced AI. Actionable Insights
An unmatched opportunity for carriers is within reach. Yet the question remains - with each pillar posing its own challenges, can you achieve all three: tech enabled, AI fueled, and data driven insurance?
Keeping up isn’t enough. Lead with innovation to guarantee retention and growth. Unlock your teams’ capabilities or risk your customers moving to competitors.