Insights from Paragon's Cyber and M&A Insurance 2019 event

NextGen Communications was honoured to be the official media partner for InsurTech Insights 2024, Europe’s biggest InsurTech event where innovators meet the movers and shakers of the insurance industry.

NextGen Communications was out in force at DIA/ITC Europe in Barcelona this week, alongside 2,000 insurance and InsurTech folk, who met to network, learn and do business with clients and partners from around the world. For once embedded insurance, cyber and ecosystems took a back seat, with everyone wanting to talk about the latest developments in AI, especially ChatGPT! I, for one, learned a lot about what’s already happening with AI, with many use-cases already live. Our client MAPFRE alone has 70 projects on the go, from claims, underwriting, to customer service. I also learned about many exciting developments in the pipeline with Generative AI, where MAPFRE already has an impressive 20 protects at testing stage. Watch this space! Busy, brilliant and engaging Over the three fun, hectic, adrenaline-fueled days with our clients and partners, we set up, managed or promoted: - Twenty client press interviews with InsurTech Insights, Post, and Insurance Innovation Reporter from the US - Three TV interviews with clients - Novidea, Socotra and Intelligent AI - with FF News | Fintech Finance - Sabine VanderLinden, The Queen of InsurTech, TV interview for MAPFRE by yours truly. What an insightful honour! - Plug and Play Europe's InsurTech event, led by Jessica Cheng, where fifteen innovative InsurTechs presented at the stunning La Pedrera-Casa Mila venue - An expert panel about Commercial Sustainability 2.0 by Sabine Vanderlinden, with our clients Previsico and Intelligent AI speaking, alongside WTW and Artificial Labs - Launched two industry reports from MAPFRE Open Innovation and partners, about Responsible AI and The State of Global InsurTech 2023 , with Mundi Ventures, NN Bank, Generali, by Dealroom A big thanks and shout out Huge thanks and kudos to MAPFRE for organising such an amazing schedule of events, from keynote addresses, to report launches, press and TV interviews, and hosting from their stand-out stand on the floor. Our clients Novidea, Socotra, Previsico and Intelligent AI for sharing their unique insights, from the power of platforms, to flood mitigation, to Digital Twins of risk in the commercial lines space. Intelligent AI also presented about their recently launched their Intelligent Rebuild Cost Validation Platform , which is solving a £340bil problem in the commercial lines property space. Mundi Ventures for hosting their super glam cocktail party in the heart of Barcelona, where some of the top names in the industry attended, including legendary Bolttech Group CEO Rob Schimek. A fellow Ironman no less! Nicole Efthymiou Douglas Mackenzie and team at FF News | Fintech Finance for their amazing TV work with our clients and our very own Roma Braithwaite for helping to make it all run so smoothly. Joanna England, Editor, InsurTech Insights, Emma Hughes, editor, Post, and Anthony O’Donnell, Editor, Insurance Innovation Reporter for insightful interviews with our clients. Looking forward to seeing all of the coverage :-) And last, but by no means least the DIA/ITC team, including Phill Hirons for putting on such a great event. Next stop Vegas!

InsurTech Insights London 2023, in case you missed it, was a high energy, legend of an event. For once, I was front of camera and on stage, not just behind! It was inspirational, as 5,000 insurance and InsurTech folk from all around the world, mixing, mingling, and doing business. Over two fun, busy days with our clients, we set up and managed: - Five press interviews with Insurance Insider and Insurance Times - Nine TV interviews with FF News | Fintech Finance - One Carpool Karaoke with FF News | Fintech Finance - Four expert panels, including my own about SME opportunities A huge thanks to Sabine VanderLinden David Clamp Khayala Eylazova for the top tips for moderating my panel, and the panelists Devin Chawda Joanne Safo Jana Kejvalova and Paul Williams for making it such a success. Nicole Efthymiou Douglas Mackenzie and team at FF News | Fintech Finance for their amazing TV work with our clients and Roma Braithwaite for helping to make it all run so smoothly. Our TV star clients and partners, Kobi Bendelak Jessica Cheng Tom McFarland Devin Chawda Ben Rose Dan Woods Dr Avi Baruch Paul Richmond for staying cool under pressure. Marcel Le Gouais Insurance Insider and Clare Ruel Insurance Times for insightful interviews with our clients, including Jonathan Jackson CEO Previsico And last, but by no means least, Emil Hannesbo , Jesper Palmborg and Bradley Collins for putting on such an awesome event and giving our clients so many opportunities to share their views.

Business, indeed life, has always been Darwinian, and InsurTech is no different. Up until recently, InsurTech was on a roll, but failed floats by big fish InsurTechs like Lemonade have put pay to that. Today, the focus and fear of ‘full stack’ disruption from InsurTechs seems to be largely over, for now at least. The barriers to entry, such as capital requirements, regulation, and the cost of building a brand and presence in competitive markets, are just too high. The shift now is towards the long overdue digital transformation of our industry and making use of its most precious resource: data. If we look back, 2016 to 2019 was filled with ‘big fish’ – well-funded InsurTechs telling our sector to brace itself for major disruption. Moving on, 2020 and 2021 seemed to focus on spectacular fundraises, IPOs, and the birth of herds of unicorns, worldwide. Heady times. In 2022, despite the headlines about plummeting post-IPO share prices and major tech layoffs, some smart InsurTechs succeeded. These firms had one thing in common: they were generally enablers, not disruptors, who utilised their technology as a force for good with incumbent market players increasingly open to new technology and fresh ideas. Last year’s reality check gave InsurTech the chance to focus on the real gems that people in our industry have been seeking – wider adoption of great technology to make the entire end-to-end process more efficient, more cost effective, and ultimately better for all stakeholders. New technology in our industry is much needed, and it is now being adopted at an unprecedented rate. Just look at the traction firms like Novidea are getting with their born-in-the-cloud insurance platform, especially following major wins with the likes of Gallagher and Hiscox. Time will tell how Silicon Valley Bank's collapse will affect the market, but hopefully the swift action by the UK Government, Bank of England, and HSBC has averted a major crisis, in the UK at least. Funding review If we look at the numbers, concerns over InsurTech funding and its future are understandable. Annual investment into InsurTech halved between 2021 and 2022, decreasing 49.5% year on year from $15.80 billion in 2021 to $7.98 billion in 2022. A huge, ‘headlining grabbing’ fall. Yet, the drop was mostly attributable to a 66.7% fall in mega-round ($100mil+) funding, from $9.76 billion in 2021 to $3.25 billion in 2021, down $6.51 billion. There was an even bigger 89.7% fall in mega-round funding from $1.48 billion in Q3 to $153 million in Q4. This is perhaps not surprising when you look at how mega-deals, like Lemonade’s, have performed when they went from major funding to the next stage with their IPOs. Not all bad news Despite the headlines, it is not all doom and gloom. If we strip out these mega-rounds, InsurTech funding in fact only dropped from $6.04 billion to $4.73 billion or 21.6%. Further, early-stage InsurTech funding only fell 7.9% year on year, from $2.15 billion in 2022 to $1.98 billion in 2021; much less dramatic than the headlines suggest. At the same time, global InsurTech deals moved from 564 in 2021 to 521 in 2022. Despite this modest fall, last year was a truly global and active year for InsurTech investing with 1,528 international investors participating in these deals, from over 60 countries. The enablers are set to win The difference now is that there is much more emphasis being placed on early-stage InsurTechs. These smaller-fish firms, with smart, agile tech and people, are adding value to our industry, not disrupting it. Firms like Supercede, Previsico, MIS, and Reask, as well as more established players like Novidea and Socotra, are great examples of this. Industry insiders clearly know their stuff, and testament to the above is the fact that 70% of corporate InsurTech investments from (re)insurers in Q4 were early stage. This shift to earlier-stage funding does not mean it’s going to be plain sailing for these InsurTechs. Valuations will be down, on those of the heady days of 2021, and i nvestors will probe harder as they look for quality, delving deeper into firms’ business models and teams, seeking not just traction, but a clear vision for profitable growth. Despite this, what’s clear is that the InsurTech space remains remarkably robust overall. My view is that it will not be the biggest, strongest or fastest InsurTechs that win, but those most adaptive to change, and those that deliver what the really market wants and needs. The best InsurTechs who are transforming our industry will gain the funding they need, along with revenue, to not only survive but thrive and swim against the tide to create true change. Darwin would be proud. Note: Funding figures source: Gallagher Re

They say that ‘what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas’. Not with NextGen Communications. Here we dish the delights of three spectacular days at ITC Vegas. It was my first time in Las Vegas, otherwise known as Lost Wages, Sin City or Disneyland for adults. Whichever name you prefer, the common thread is scale, everything that happens in Vegas is BIG! To be honest, I am more of a nature guy and initially the thought of going to Las Vegas with loud, burly people, noisy slots machines and flashing neon filled me with dread. But then I arrived, and I was blown away. To start, the airport was surprisingly civilised, certainly compared with Chicago, or Schiphol, where I recently travelled though for DIA Amsterdam, and which was a nightmare of long queues and hassle. Then the assault on the senses began. For me Disneyland for adults works best! Despite arriving at my hotel at 4am UK time, I was buzzing. After checking-in, a wander and my first beer in Vegas I went to bed at 11pm (7am UK time), feeling rather smug to have stayed awake so long, as an early bird. Then at 2.30am, there I am, wide awake, after a solid 3.5-hours sleep! Fortuitously, I woke up just in time to watch the Queen’s funeral, which I had been sad to miss, just with a US twist on CNN not the BBC. Why ITC Vegas? ITC Vegas is the world’s largest InsurTech event, this year with 9,000 attendees – offering unrivalled access to a global gathering of tech entrepreneurs, investors, and insurance industry incumbents. It’s a place to see and be seen. Most importantly, for our clients attending the event, Novidea, Previsico, McKenzie Intelligence Services (MIS) and Reask, ITC Vegas offered access and the opportunity to make a mark in the huge US market. Advanced planning pays off To support our clients’ success, we had worked hard in advance to make sure the right things happened at the right time. Our clients Rosina Smith, CPO at MIS and Jonathan Jackson, CEO at Previsico presented on stage at a VIP, invite only, ESG event run by the Queen of InsurTech Sabine VanderLinden, and supported by Lisa Wardlaw and SONR’s Matt Ferguson. MIS featured in a meritorious article, ‘ At the eye of the storm,’ in FF News (pages 36-37) where Previsico and Reask had high profile advertising. On top of this all of our clients, plus Novidea’s client Peter Vitale from Encore Insurance and Sabine, were interviewed on video by the debonair Doug Mackenzie, Chief Content Officer at FF News. These interviews will be ready to view soon. Watch this space. Lastly, and this one was spontaneous, we supported Manjit Rana with the launch of his initiative InsurTech Scout, which went down well on the demo stage, with an audience of two hundred. Final thoughts… It’s not easy winning in Vegas, but you have to be in it to win it. During the event, we introduced our clients, at last all in one place, to each other and Sabine, with some interesting developments to follow. I also met some fantastic new people, innovators from Turkey and Yen Chin, from Haven Technologies, Singapore, as well as Emil Hannesbo, Head of Content, US from InsurTech Insights. We are now planning to support him and his team at his event in New York 7-8 June 2023 . My first event in the diary for 2023! Being there, networking, learning and partying with UB40 and the crème de la crème of the InsurTech scene is hard to beat. Despite my initial reservations, ITC Vegas was a triumph. Go next year, you will not regret it.

Turns out, the rumours of Monte Carlo Rendezvous' death were greatly exaggerated, as nearly 3,000 reinsurance professionals returned, after a three-year Covid-induced break. I first went to the Monte Carlo RVS in 2014, at the time the business was new and I was keen to network and find new clients. How times have changed, for the better. This year, NextGen Communications was representing global reinsurer MAPFRE RE, independent law firm Devonshires , and smart reinsurance platform provider Supercede . Over the course of three days, we organised a dozen press meetings, with leading publications such as the Insurance Insider, Intelligent Insurer, The Insurer, and Insurance Day, which resulted in some great press coverage, which we then promoted on social media. Our clients also met with (re)insurance media legend Mark Geoghegan, the Voice of Insurance. His post-RVS podcast will be out soon. Hard work pays off Nothing makes me happier, than planning and brainstorming with a client ahead of a major event like this, and coming up with a new creative angle to promote their business. At this event, we worked with Supercede to reveal the results of their recent work with leading insurers. Here is the headline from ReinsuranceNews, worth a read: Supercede highlights possible $300m per annum re/insurance industry savings . It's not all about the press, as today, many reinsurance professionals engage with social media. So, we ran a successful social media campaign, LinkedIn and Twitter, for Stephen Netherway, partner at Devonshires. This attracted almost 4,000 views, and led to some great new connections. Check out Stephen's insightful articles here, covering some of the hot topics of the reinsurance sector, from AI to complex Covid claims, to climate risk and Ukraine, all with an independent view from a top legal expert. MAPFRE RE makes its mark At RVS2022, MAPFRE RE CEO Eduardo Perez de Lema, and Deputy General Manager and CUO Javier San Basilio sang off the same hymn sheet, as they communicated their view of the market, ahead of what will be a challenging renewal season for many cedents. Eduardo will feature in the Voice of Insurance Mark Geoghegan's post-RVS2022 Podcast, and here is an article from Javier: Hard market creates opportunity to rebalance portfolio , in Intelligent Insurer. Sadly, it sits behind a paywall. What else? Monte Carlo is a place like no other. From a pint in the Fairmont Hotel for Euro25, ouch, to wonderful lunches at the Hotel de Paris overlooking the Med, to dinner at the Buddha Bar and one of my fav restaurants in the world, Coya, with its majestic position overlooking the sea. It sits next door to Jimmy'z, which I managed to avoid, phew! Once again, it was hot (30c), with sunshine and blue skies on two days, and the heavens opening on the third, like last time, when I got soaked. This time I took a brolly. A tip for newbies, if you are tempted to go next year. Book early, flights, accommodation and meetings. Especially, meetings, as most of them are booked in advance, so if you just turn up expecting to meet lots of new people, you will be disappointed! Will I be back, you bet I will, as will 3,000 other RVS veterans. It's a place to be seen, a place to do business, and more than anything else a place to get a small taste of what it's like to join the super rich and famous. Hope to see you at RVS2023. Next stop ITC Vegas next week. Who said insurance is boring!?

Standing at the centre of European InsurTech innovation

Meet Roma Braithwaite, NextGen Communications' very own media specialist and all round superstar on International Women's Day. Roma joined us 18-months ago, and she has not stopped since, constantly seeking out opportunities for our growing band of clients, in the press, at events or industry awards. She is our secret weapon, until now, in gaining more good quality press coverage for our clients than any other PR agency. I would tell you how, but she'd probably have to kill me. She is also a top wife to Tom and miracle mother of twins Malika and Kailen. How does she do it all? Well with a MEGA PLAN of course. I have not actually seen it, but it definitely works!! Roma, keep up the good work, you are the best.

Photograph ©Wayne Alphonso Welsh For me, the festive season and break over Christmas and the New Year is not only a time to celebrate with friends and family, it is also time for reflection. Here are my thoughts. 2021 was a challenging year for many, but one thing is for sure: it is during these periods of adversity that the insurance sector has the opportunity to shine and thrive. For instance, while the rest of the world is worrying about climate change and cyber risks, smart re-insurers and InsurTechs are developing new solutions to mitigate, manage or model these risks. What happened at NextGen Communications At NextGen Communications, we operate at the heart of the thriving global insurance and InsurTech ecosystem, with our clients addressing the issues above and so much more. Our role is to promote all of the great work our clients are doing, as we help to build their brands and tell their stories, worldwide. For instance, our client MAPFR E is leading the way amongst global insurers, with their Open Innovation team initiating successful partnerships with InsurTechs such as Kovrr, Shift Technology, and Koa Health. These developments were extensively covered during 2021, with more to come. For our other clients, 2021 was a year filled with triumphs too, from one of our longest standing clients Trace, who partnered with Supercede as part of their global reinsurance ecosystem, to successful fundraising and industry awards, to major client wins such as Zurich and Admiral. 2021 highlights Client wins: during 2021, we also won some fantastic new clients, including InsurTechs Supercede , Intelligent AI , Nuvalaw and Reask . Fundraising: between them, our clients* raised almost $150 million during the year to facilitate global growth and scale to meet increasing demand for their market-leading tech. Award-winners: InsurTech Nuvalaw won the Insurance Times Claims award , Intelligent AI won the ACORD Innovation award , Previsico won the British Data award , WhenFresh won the Data IA award . Events: clients presented at top events, webinars, and podcasts, with Intelligent Insurer, Insurance Insider, and the Voice of Insurance. A particularly proud moment was a live InsTech London event, where Intelligent AI, Previsico, and WhenFresh all appeared together on stage. Market-leading: Novidea, WhenFresh, and Supercede appeared in the FinTech Global InsurTech 100 and WhenFresh and Supercede were in SONR’s Future 50 Europe . Coverage: our clients featured in over 30 insurance, tech, and national publications, including the BBC and The Times, with a readership of over 250k insurance professionals, world-wide. Global : in 2021, we increased our global reach and we now have clients operating in the US, Spain, Israel, Australia, South Africa, Jordan, as well as the UK of course. Hopefully, we can travel soon! Looking ahead… We are excited to see what 2022 brings. During 2021, there was record InsurTech funding, and we do not see any sign of this momentum fading as we enter the new year. This will bring great opportunities for our clients, and others, as they continue to develop new solutions and scale globally. As our clients and partners (like InsTech London and InsurTech Israel ) grow, we will continue to grow too to support them, worldwide. We aim to build our team, with a new top journo to join in Q1 and a senior content marketeer in the pipeline to boost our digital offering. We already have some exciting developments in the pipeline, amongst our clients, so watch this space! At NextGen Communications, we also aim to go greener and become net zero during 2022. We are currently exploring options to create our own eco-forest, to offset our low carbon emissions. Drop me a line, if you’d like to know more about any of these developments or to discover what we can do for you, to make your business a bigger success in 2022 and beyond… * Clients included former clients Marshmallow and VIPR.