Insurtech innovation is transforming the insurance industry by increasing profits, efficiency, and competitive advantage.
Insurance agents are the biggest revenue generators for underwriting companies. Their role in the industry is to assist customers in finding the security that best suits their needs. It might seem counterintuitive that this segment of facilitating the agent-customer relationship has been relatively under-served by insurance technology. The practical and technical reasons for lack of comprehensive digital solutions within the industry include IT strategic challenges, compliance oversight, and the high costs of development.
Solutions for insurers are typically simple modules that piggyback on proprietary platforms. Until recently, products for agents arrived in the form of front-end and digital marketing, yet there were few available resources available for bridging the digital divide between insurer and agent networks.
One Israeli based company is making its mark on this landscape with a disruptive SAAS solution for insurance agent networks. Gefen International (ASX:GFN) raised $25m in its 2021 IPO by introducing a technological solution that bridges the gap.
Due to institutional adoption of Gefen International technologies and subsequent investor confidence, the company market capitalization has since grown parabolically to nearly $70m.
Gefen’s MomentsTM platform
Gefen launched its B2B insurance platform called “Moments,” that unifies business processes and online marketing services across internal and remote networks. The company’s platform targets a $400b market in fees for global insurance agents and financial advisories across multiple sectors.
The Moment SAAS platform delivers distributed backend and frontend services for agents, connecting them with the insurance company’s internal IT and marketing systems. The platform administration is operated under the auspices of the insurance company, with granular controls over agent distribution, compliance standards and permissions. Agents can be delegated unfettered access to the insurer’s network and resources, including personalized web branding services designed specifically by the agent.
Artificial Intelligence GQL Technology
At the heart of the Moment’s Platform is an artificial intelligence (AI) component called GQL, an abbreviation for “Genetically Qualitative Learner.” GQL optimizes experience and efficiency for every node in the business cycle. Each interaction with the system is looped back into the machine learning engine to continuously optimize performance. As a result, Gefen’s ‘Moments’ platform dynamically grows in intelligence from the user and agent’s interaction and behavior, preferences. Ultimately, GQL enhances personalization, user experience, engagement, and business efficiency for the purpose of increasing the bottom-line profit margin.
The usage of Gefen’s GQL solution, embedded within the ‘Moments’ platform, ultimately results in a reduction of manpower and operational costs. These savings increase insurance and financial advisor sector revenue while also allowing agents to provide products and services at a highly competitive price.
Insurtech Competitors
There are a number of insurtech companies offering Insurance Agency Management Systems (IAMS).
Brightfire is a front-end website builder for insurance agents that offers made-to-order websites. The system’s strong point is its elective third-party integration for on-demand, real-time quotes.
Withlayr uses AI-driven SAP Application Management Services (AMS) on an SAP backbone. The system is a module that is dependent on expensive SAP builds.
Guidewire’s insurance platform processes applications and rapidly generates quotes.
Insurify is a B2C AI service offering a virtual agent, real-time quotes across a range of carriers, and customized user profiles.
Most of the competitors focus on system modules or front-end services. Gefen’s disruptive technology leads the way in distributed turnkey solutions. Front-end and back-end services offer seamless connectivity among insurer, agent and third parties, all driven by intelligent automation. No less intriguing is Gefen’s unique transactional revenue model that offers customers a zero cost of ownership, with no ongoing licensing fees or in-house maintenance.
Gefen International Growth
Companies like Gefen have achieved rapid growth because they fulfill an important market need. Insurance technology can be obscure subject for private investors, and this presents an ample investment opportunity.
Despite remarkable revenue gains and high rate of customer acquisition, Gefen’s stock price is currently undervalued. Moment’s end users, upon which the company’s transactional revenue is based, increased from 65,000 to 296,000 in 2021 alone. Insurance agents onboarded grew from 1,332 to 2,210 within that same period. According to industry insiders, Gefen is an exciting company to watch in the highly profitable insurance space.
Alton Clarke was born and raised in Syracuse. He has written for MSNBC, The Business Insider and Passport Magazine. In regards to academics, Alton earned a degree from St. John’s University. Alton covers entertainment and culture stories here at Diving daily.