Auto insurance customers shopped around more than ever amid the pandemic, causing a 3% increase in their migration to the five biggest US insurers—here are two ways insurtechs can fight back.

The Chinese insurance marketplace uses AI to match consumers with suitable coverage options—and its digital-first solution can help bridge China’s insurance gap, especially since the life and health insurance market is set to grow.

Incumbent insurers have accelerated their use of mature AI deployments in the past year to meet changing customer expectations and better compete with insurtechs. They’ll now need to infuse the tech across their business segments to unlock the full potential—including enhanced personalization, cost cutting, and stronger risk management—of AI-driven digital transformation.

Neobank N26 is rolling out phone insurance to its German customers through its partnership with local insurtech simplesurance. The neobank should next roll out comprehensive insurance coverage to power its path to profitability.

But Lemonade can leverage its vast customer base to secure sales: The insurtech finished 2020 with more than 1 million customers, per its financial results, and many of them will likely be enticed by the convenience of bundling their car coverage with their other Lemonade policies.

These tech-focused car firms already offer data-driven and tailored coverage similar to the likes of usage-based auto insurtechs Metromile and Root. This means these car firms no longer need insurtechs' solutions, as they only require a carrier license, which they can get from an incumbent insurer, to underwrite the policies.

This is the latest example of insurers teaming up with insurtechs to boost their services—which is increasingly important as competition stiffens. Working with insurtechs can boost incumbents’ operational efficiency—cited as a key driver for insurtech investments—with emerging technologies like AI, which is already being used by 87% of insurers to increase efficiencies and worker productivity.

Bright Health has been climbing the insurtech ranks—scooping up a booming telehealth platform will only accelerate its growth. Bright Health scored the largest insurtech funding haul ($500 million) of 2020, and also reported record membership growth as it now covers over 500,000 consumers.

The insurtech allows users to get free insurance advice from agents on demand.

Providers aren’t the only ones worried about insurance incumbents growing too quickly—some smaller insurtechs are fending off threats of top dogs by joining forces with them. For example, this week, Oscar Health made its tech infrastructure available to third-party payers and providers.

The US-based small business insurtech is easing Amazon Business Prime members’ access to a wide range of policies, including general liability and workers’ compensation, per PR Newswire. Founded in 2016, Next Insurance uses AI to tailor coverage to small businesses.

As a result, the insurtech had a record year in 2020, growing its gross written premium 250% year over year to write 10,000 policies and reaching $120 million in annual premium run rate. Corvus’ mega-round further underscores cyber risk as a key growth area within insurtech going forward.

Harnessing insurtech partnerships for speed to market: P&C insurers will increase investment in their insurtech partnership strategies as a way to leverage white-label solutions.

Although the benefits of 5G for financial services firms are less flashy than in other industries, lower latency, faster speed, and improved reliability will play a big role in the financial services sector.

Employers are drowning in healthcare costs—digitized benefits packages can help

What are key incumbent and insurtech players doing so in the industry? WHAT'S IN THIS REPORT? In this report, Insider Intelligence will evaluate the growth opportunities within UBI, outline the model's benefits, and highlight key players in the space.

One example in this category is US-based insurtech Salty, which partners with car dealerships to bake its insurance product into car sales transactions.