5. Leveraging data and analytics to generate risk insights This theme represented 15% of applications to Startupbootcamp, world events such as floods, fires or political unrest, either in real the third largest category. Some 65% of corporates considered this time for risk prevention or historically to provide enhanced under- theme impactful, ranking it as the second most impactful of our six writing and assessment. themes. Established insurers should have a natural competitive advan- i. The Internet of Things tage over new entrants to the sector: their ability to leverage many Gartner predicts there will be 20.8 billion connected devices in use years of detailed risk data. The fact that two-thirds of insurers see worldwide by 2020. Large companies, both from within insurance the potential impact of new entrants’ data and analytics tools re- and beyond, are already investing in Internet of Things technologies flects recognition of this advantage. Insurers know they need ca- – they include Generali, Aviva and Allianz, as well as Google. pabilities that will enable them to extract more meaningful insights “We’ve seen applications of the Internet of Things that may sig- from their existing data or new data - for more accurate underwrit- nificantly improve underwriting, and others that provide a robust, ing, say, to underpin the launch of more personalised products, or scalable method to better understand customer behaviours and for a whole range of other applications. needs,” says Ben Britt of Route 66. “Start-ups leveraging the Inter- Technologies such as the Internet of Things, sensors and wear- net of Things have the powerful potential to provide improved, tai- ables will substantially increase the data insurers have at their dis- lored, and more transparent insurance products for the individual posal, helping them to move from relatively reactive protection customer.” models to a more sophisticated approach based on prediction and The earliest applications in this area focused on vehicle telemat- prevention. A good example is Cytora, an InsurTech firm that uses ics, but use cases are becoming increasingly broad and span both machine learning and analysis to collate information from news the connected home and connected health. feeds, social media and other sources. It is able to identify real 21