Insurtech Concirrus and EY announced a new agreement to accelerate the adoption of behavioral-based underwriting and risk management in marine insurance.
Concirrus has created market leading artificial intelligence (AI) powered marine insurance software, and is collaborating with EY, a global leader in specialty insurance consulting, to support the evolution of one of the oldest and most traditional insurance industries. Working together will help marine insurers move from older demographic based underwriting models, to a new world of more accurate, live behavioral based underwriting.
Behavior, a better indicator of risk than demographics
For hundreds of years marine insurers have managed their risk portfolio in the same way, by measuring demographic data such as the age, size and flag of a vessel. This model is now under significant pressure to modernize as regulatory and commercial changes drive the need to better understand risk, faster. New sensor, machine learning and analytical capabilities have created new ways for insurers to understand their exposures and control claims.
Working together, EY and Concirrus are able to harness these technologies at scale to drive behavioral analysis that considers ship’s location, speed, and others to offer more accurate underwriting models.
Andy Yeoman, CEO of Concirrus, explains how behaviour rather than demographic data is a much better way to understand risk.
“With recent advances in technology and the masses of data available from insurers and the shipping industry, we have found a way to understand the behavior of the assets insured.
“Concirrus’ software, Quest, accesses and interprets large sets of data, such as vessel statistics, movements, cargo and machinery information and combines this with historical claims information to reveal the behaviors that correlate to claims. Through our analytics work with leading London and Global insurers, we have proven that behavioral data is a better indicator of risk than traditional demographics. With every customer, we’ve delivered insights and new rating factors that simply did not exist before,” Andy explains.
“This new way of working presents exciting opportunities for marine insurance underwriters to manage the loss ratios of their risk pools, and accurately price new business without claims history.”
Andy, who co-founded Concirrus in 2012, says the agreement with EY is an exciting step.
“EY is a leader in marine insurance consulting with excellent domain knowledge across analytics, actuarial services and underwriting operating models. EY’s domain knowledge and expertise at scaling technology will be a great addition to our software. We can’t wait to collaborate with EY to help accelerate our work with some of the biggest global insurers in the market.”
Chris Payne, EY EMEIA Head of Insurance Technology Go To Market and Alliances, also comments: “Driving innovation within the specialty insurance market is something we are very focused on. The unique toolsets and data that Concirrus has access to will drive new insights in the marine insurance industry, and we are thrilled to be working together. Leveraging EY’s insurance knowledge and longstanding relationships in the industry, and Concirrus’ unique combination of data and proprietary technology, we can help insurers, brokers and Protection and indemnity insurance clubs enter a new world of marine insurance.”
