Insurtech patent filings soar as investment stepped up: RPC
The number of insurance-related patents filed worldwide jumped 40% last year, as investment in insurtech is being stepped up, according to London-headquartered professional services firm RPC.
In 2017, 917 insurance-related patents were filed, with telematics, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, and peer-to-peer (P2P) insurance among the top patent trends. The previous year, 657 patents were filed.
Around 22% (199) of insurance patents filed in 2017 related to pricing, “as businesses looked for new ways to make pricing premiums and determining risk more accurately and efficiently”, said RPC.
Telematics, where technology monitors vehicle driver behaviour and the data from this is used to create risk-based products in the motor insurance sector, also saw an increase with 78 patents filed in 2017, up from 56 the previous year.
AI is also being embraced by the insurance industry, with patents related to machine learning increasing to 100 in 2017, up from 73 in 2016.
P2P insurance, where a group of individual policyholders can pool their premiums together to insure against risk, also saw an increase in patents from 52 in 2016 to 62 in 2017.
US insurers Allstate Insurance and State Farm led the way in 2017, filing 35 and 34 insurance patents respectively. They were followed by another US firm, Hartford Fire Insurance Company, with 26 patents, and China-based Ping An, which filed 23 patents.
Other active filers of insurtech patents outside of traditional insurers include China e-commerce company Alibaba, which filed eight patents last year.
RPC added that insurance patent filings per annum have jumped by 116% over five years from just 435 in 2013.
Now, technology is providing significant opportunities for insurers and brokers to carve out a competitive advantage, according to RPC, which added that the shift to automated processing has been slower in some parts of the insurance industry than in many other areas of financial services.
Paul Joseph, partner at RPC, said: “The rising number of insurtech patents shows just how important technology now is to insurers in increasing efficiency, delivering a better user experience and developing brand new products.”
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