Google is eager to invest in other insurance technology companies well beyond its newly announced minority stake in Applied Systems, a principal investor with the global search engine giant said on Oct. 17. "We really like the market," said Jesse Wedler, a principal with CapitalG, the growth equity investment fund of Google's parent Alphabet. "We will definitely be looking for additional investments in the insurance technology space." Wedler, speaking during a second conference call held to discuss CapitalG's new investment in Applied, said he didn't want to define the scope of CapitalG's insurance technology investment search "too narrowly." However, he said the search would be for other businesses like Applied, ones "that add insurance technology to the market."

Eos Venture Partners' strategic insurtech fund has made its first two investments. The UK-based specialist venture capital fund, working through its debut EVP 1 fund, committed early financing to Concirrus, a marine insurance analytics platform and Digital Fineprint (DFP) which makes an SME-focused lead generation and underwriting product. Concirrus uses software with artificial intelligence tech to help marine insurers move to behavioral based underwriting. The software provides behavioral analysis that considers hundreds of factors including a ship's location and speed to offer more accurate underwriting models. It accesses and interprets vast datasets, such as vessel statistics, movements, cargo and machinery information, and combines this with historical claims information to reveal the behaviors that correlate with underwriting and claims.

The $711m in value accounted for 44% of the global total, a quadruple increase on the previous year (10%). AI, IoT and analytics and big data propositions collectively accounted for 56% of the total number of deals – around 70% of total value last year. UK market doubles The value of insurtech investments in the UK more than doubled year on year to almost $19m, although the total number of deals remained flat. Accenture said that Brexit had not had a material impact on the investment climate in 2016. After the UK, Germany and France are the next largest markets in Europe.

The $711m in value accounted for 44% of the global total, a quadruple increase on the previous year (10%). AI, IoT and analytics and big data propositions collectively accounted for 56% of the total number of deals – around 70% of total value last year. UK market doubles The value of insurtech investments in the UK more than doubled year on year to almost $19m, although the total number of deals remained flat. Accenture said that Brexit had not had a material impact on the investment climate in 2016. After the UK, Germany and France are the next largest markets in Europe.

The $711m in value accounted for 44% of the global total, a quadruple increase on the previous year (10%). AI, IoT and analytics and big data propositions collectively accounted for 56% of the total number of deals – around 70% of total value last year. UK market doubles The value of insurtech investments in the UK more than doubled year on year to almost $19m, although the total number of deals remained flat. Accenture said that Brexit had not had a material impact on the investment climate in 2016. After the UK, Germany and France are the next largest markets in Europe.

Investing in technology-oriented insurance ventures (insurtech) is clearly a global trend and almost half of all the money being poured into them globally is going into artificial intelligence and internet of things startups, new research finds. The research from Accenture, which includes an analysis of CB Insights data on 450 insurtech deals over the last three years, appears in a new Accenture report titled The Rise of InsurTech. The CB Insights data reveals that global insurtech investment totaled $1.7 billion in 2016 and both the volume and value of deals have almost doubled since 2014. While more than half of all deals still take place in the U.S., insurtech has gone global with the United Kingdom, Germany, China and India now being significant markets and other countries coming on. Only about 14 percent of the insurtech deals in 2016 had an insurance industry investor or partner, although the industry's participation has been rising every year.

The research, which includes new analysis of CB Insights data on 450 insurtech deals over the last three years, appears in a new Accenture report titled "The Rise of InsurTech." The report was released today in conjunction with Accenture's Fintech Innovation Lab in London, which for the first time includes a dedicated insurtech stream comprising leading industry startups. According to the report, the combined number of deals across AI (including automation) and the IoT (including connected insurance) increased 79 percent in 2016. Even though the two technologies represented only one-quarter (24 percent) of the 216 insurtech deals globally last year, they accounted for 44 percent or US$711 million of total insurtech investment -- compared with just 10 percent of global insurtech investment in 2015. "We've seen a rapid acceleration of investment into and deal activity around intelligent automation and IoT start-ups over the last 12 months," said Roy Jubraj, a co-author of the report and Accenture's Digital & Innovation lead in the company's Financial Services practice in the U.K. and Ireland.

Accenture found that the combined number of deals across artificial intelligence and Internet of Things technology, increased by 79% and in 2016 accounted for 44% of global insurtech deals compared with just 10% in 2015. "We've seen a rapid acceleration of investment into and deal activity around intelligent automation and IoT start-ups over the last 12 months," said Roy Jubraj, digital and innovation lead in Accenture's UK financial services practice. "These technologies are primed to disr

The research, which includes new analysis of CB Insights data on 450 insurtech deals over the last three years, appears in a new Accenture report titled "The Rise of InsurTech." The report was released today in conjunction with Accenture's Fintech Innovation Lab in London, which for the first time includes a dedicated insurtech stream comprising leading industry startups. According to the report, the combined number of deals across AI (including automation) and the IoT (including connected insurance) increased 79 percent in 2016. Even though the two technologies represented only one-quarter (24 percent) of the 216 insurtech deals globally last year, they accounted for 44 percent or US$711 million of total insurtech investment – compared with just 10 percent of global insurtech investment in 2015. "We've seen a rapid acceleration of investment into and deal activity around intelligent automation and IoT start-ups over the last 12 months," said Roy Jubraj, a co-author of the report and Accenture's Digital & Innovation lead in the company's Financial Services practice in the U.K. and Ireland.