Future Disruptors

From open data and open banking to ecosystems and platforms, everyone is trying to design the insurance proposition of the future - with giants like Zhong An and their tech enablement platform, or startups building slick, lean products on top of APIs.

Kasko was launched in 2015, and is now getting great traction with their 'Insurtech-as-a-Service' business, offering quick build solutions to slow-moving incumbents. Nik Sühr is Kasko's founder, and joins us on this episode of Future Disruptors to explain how they're helping big insurance players keep up with the startups.

So much of our life is conducted online these days, including our work, that the ability to prove you are who you say you are is becoming ever more critical. But how can you be sure that the person you hired on Upwork is legit? And what if your Airbnb guests are secretly planning a huge part at your house?

Peer reviews are everything to some platforms, but until now that essential feedback has been completely siloed.

This is where Deemly comes in. They have built a solution which enables an individual to leverage their existing accounts and reviews dfrom platforms like Airbnb and eBay. This, in turn, means a reliable 'Trust Profile' that businesses, customers and individuals can rely on. Sara from Deemly was kind enough to join Diccon in a very noisy Shoreditch office to lift the lid on her company and give us an idea of why trust is so important.

Faisal Galaria has left some deep impressions on the digital sector, having held key roles as companies such as Skype, Kayak and Spotify before they became household brands.

For the last two years, he has been the Chief Strategy & Investment Office at GoCompare, overseeing their demerger and IPO as well as considerable investment and acquisition activity.

Faisal kindly took time out of his busy schedule to talk about what he's been up to at GoCompare, some of the reasoning behind their strategic activities, and what role Price Comparison will play in our future lives.

If you have more than a passing interest in Insurtech and the startup world, Minh Tran probably needs no introduction, although we did ask for one just in case!

During our conversation, Minh broke down how his latest VC-as-a-Service platform works. We also covered why half of all insurers want to partner with an Insurtech, and how those relationships can work best, and discussed the growing interest in Proptech across the Insurance industry.

Insurance Post is one of the leading industry media outlets and their annual Insurance 100 list is one of their most popular pieces. To reflect the growing presence of Tech in the sector, the Post partnered with Tällt and Sønr to produce the first annual Insurtech 100 index.

To give the list a little more context, and dive deeper into some of the themes we see in Insurtech, we met with the Post's resident newshound Swifty, to chat about Insurtech, who leads the pack, and who was late to the party.

Thinker, speaker and now writer, Tom Goodwin is many things, and here takes time out of his busy schedule to join us on our podcast.

Following publication of his first book - Digital Darwinism - we talked about his background, why the book came out, and how damn hard it was to write! We also hear about what has changed for Tom in the last few years as his profile has grown, and how he balances all the elements of his busy working life.

The general consensus in Insurtech circles is that chatbots are here to stay, and even considering them as innovative is behind the times - in fact they're pretty much business as usual.

This episode of Future Disruptors features an interview with the CEO of Niki.ai - a leading Chatbot-as-a-Service startup based in India.

There are some particularly interesting insights around customer expectations and the acceptance of chatbots by users as they interact with their banks and online stores, plus some amazing stats around conversion rates.

We met with Farid and some of the AssetVault team at The House, the highly-regarded incubator run and hosted by London Business School.

The discussion centred first around future planning & wills, and how an LBS hackathon afforded them the opportunity to first test and validate their idea for a 21st Century solution.

Since DLT underlies both their tech, and some of the assets stored in their 'Vault', Farid explained the reasons behind their decision to use the blockchain, and what blockchain means for industry in Fintech and beyond. He also spoke with much enthusiasm about the accelerators, innovation labs and competitions they have participated in, and how AssetVault has benefitted as a business.

"P2P in an insurance context means a community, coming together with a common interest, and with that influencing behaviour."

So said Tobi Taupitz, the co-founder and CEO of Laka, when Diccon from Tällt went to meet with him at their offices in London.

With customers paying monthly in arrears for their insurance, and with the potential for a zero premium if their insurance pool makes no claim, Laka has a compelling model which puts the customer at the heart of the business. Tobi talks about why that's a good thing, and how they hope to disrupt the incumbent competition as they expand into new niches.

AI comes in many flavours, from the more simple plays like chatbots and robotic automation to the esoteric realm of structuring enormous data sets. More often than not, however, engineers are setting out to build a specific solution to a specific problem.

Zasti, an AI startup founded by a self-confessed bunch of "grey-haired youngsters", have gone about things a different way - aiming to build a solution that could solve any problem. And that is what they've done.Currently working across a number of different industries from healthcare to aerospace and insurance, their AI tech was built to be versatile, opening themselves up to many more business opportunities.