Is It Time to Redefine What is Insurtech in 2025?
Is It Time to Redefine What is Insurtech in 2025?
By Michael Schwabrow
This year, Cloverleaf will celebrate 10 years since our founding as one of the pioneers of insurance analytics. As the insurance industry is halfway through a decade with perhaps the most transformation we have since in such a short period of time, Cloverleaf believes it is a good time to freshen up some definitions of what makes up our industry. This new series – What is Insurtech will delve into all the core and tangential technologies that make up this category with the anchor of serving the insured. This first article will provide our definition of what is insurtech.
How Insurtech Used to Be Defined
The term was first coined roughly 15 years ago insurtech focused on digital transformation – bringing insurers from a paper-based operating model with digitized solutions. This played out for the insured with new online purchasing and self-service options.
The move from offline to online customer relationship management also created a new stream of insurance data points that many insurers and technology leaders at the time did not know what to do with. This uncertainty about data build many digital data elephants in the room that insurers have been forced to now address to remain competitive and profitable.
What types of solutions categories made up the insurtech of the early 2010s?
The early 2010s marked the first wave of true digital transformation in insurance. While these solutions may seem basic by today’s standards, they laid the essential foundation for the sophisticated technologies we see today. The early wave of insurtech innovation primarily centered around basic digitization efforts that laid the groundwork for future advancement:
Traditional Policy Management Systems: Early providers like Guidewire and Duck Creek Technologies dominated this space, offering systems that digitized policy documentation and basic customer information management. EIS Group and Majesco also emerged as significant players in modernizing core insurance systems.
First-Generation Mobile Apps: Companies like Esurance (now part of Allstate) and Progressive led the way with basic mobile apps, while traditional insurers partnered with vendors like Insurance Technologies Corporation (ITC) to develop their digital presence.
Digital Document Management: Solutions from vendors like Hyland (OnBase) and OpenText transformed paper-based processes into digital workflows, while FileNet (acquired by IBM) provided enterprise content management systems specifically tailored for insurers.
Basic Online Quoting Tools: Early pioneers included CoverHound and Compare.com, while established players like Applied Systems developed basic digital quoting capabilities for independent agents.
Simple Claims Processing Systems: Vendors like Snapsheet and Mitchell International introduced the first wave of digital claims solutions, while traditional players like CSC (now DXC Technology) adapted their offerings for the digital age.
How Cloverleaf Defines Insurance Technology (Insurtech/Insuretech) Today
As we transition from the foundational era to today’s innovative landscape, insurance technology has evolved dramatically. With this backdrop and the anomaly of Cloverleaf’s founding in 2015, we present our definition of “What is Insurtech”. Today’s Insurtech is the lifeforce of the 21st century business of insurance.
Insurtech means intelligent and intuitive solutions leveraging the foundation of last decade’s digital transformation to offer the insured a more intimate, flexible, and real-time product that protects their most valuable assets. Insurtech makes insurance invaluable for consumers and businesses in a world requiring greater flexibility and higher quality service due to several factors including socioeconomics, weather, and healthcare considerations.
What types of solutions categories make up today’s insurtech?
Modern insurtech has evolved into a sophisticated ecosystem of interconnected technologies and solutions that fundamentally reshape how insurance products are designed, delivered, and managed:
Advanced Analytics and AI Platforms: Leading providers include Cloverleaf Analytics for insurance intelligence, Shift Technology for fraud detection, Cape Analytics for property intelligence, and DataRobot for automated machine learning applications in insurance. Established players like SAS and IBM Watson have also developed insurance-specific AI solutions.
IoT Integration Systems: Vendors like Cambridge Mobile Telematics and Octo Telematics lead in connected car solutions, while SmartWater Risk Management and Roost specialize in smart home insurance technology. Carpe Data provides next-generation data products for emerging risks.
Automated Underwriting Platforms: Companies like Cytora and Planck have revolutionized commercial insurance underwriting, while Tractable and Zesty.ai focus on property assessment using AI. Root Insurance pioneered fully automated personal auto underwriting.
Blockchain-Based Solutions: B3i Services (industry consortium), ChainThat, and InsurWave have developed blockchain platforms for insurance transactions, while R3 Corda has become a popular choice for insurance smart contracts.
API-First Infrastructure: Players like WeFox and Boost Insurance provide full-stack insurance platforms, while Pie Insurance and Next Insurance demonstrate the power of API-driven specialty insurance platforms. Socotra offers a cloud-native core platform designed for API integration.
Predictive Analytics Tools: Verisk Analytics continues to lead in insurance data analytics, while newer entrants like Premonition Analytics and RiskGenius focus on specific niches like legal analytics and policy analysis. Quantemplate specializes in insurance data integration and analytics.
Customer Experience Platforms: Companies like Lemonade and Oscar Health have set new standards for digital-first insurance experiences, while platforms like SimpleSurance and WeSure focus on embedded insurance solutions. Bold Penguin has revolutionized commercial insurance distribution.
The evolution of insurtech reflects the industry’s broader transformation from a reactive, transaction-based model to a proactive, relationship-driven approach. Modern insurtech solutions don’t just digitize existing processes – they fundamentally reimagine how insurance products and services can better serve and protect customers in an increasingly complex world.
What Can you Expect From the “What is Insurtech” Series?
Cloverleaf is embarking on this several part bi-weekly blog series to help define new terms and redefine old terms that require fresh definitions. By authoring these articles, I’m looking to educate and spark discussion in the industry as we are now solidly in a new era for the industry.
We are excited about the bright future of the insurance industry, and the innovations that are coming from start-ups to large technology companies alike.
What is important for our current and future customers to know is that just as Cloverleaf was a pioneer and anomaly in 2015, our mission is to continue to be ahead of the curve serving today’s needs of insurers and the insured while building the foundations of what they will need beyond the next few years.