Class-specific vertical solutions in insurance

🚀 #MarketMapMondays – INSURANCE VERTICAL AI OPPORTUNITY 🚀 Insurance isn't just massive (a whopping $9 trillion globally!), it's also among the most structurally inefficient and least digitized sectors—surprising, given its incredible wealth of data (2.5 billion gigabytes generated every year!). Yet, it remains a chronic under-investor in innovation: only 9 insurers rank among the world’s top 2500 R&D spenders, and P&C/life insurers reinvest merely 5% of written premiums into IT, compared to banking’s benchmark of 8%. Check out this insightful thesis and market map by Teddy Himler and Jean-Paul Guité from Optimist Ventures on the huge AI opportunities within insurance (link in comments). Interestingly, previous tech waves (cloud, mobile, SaaS) left insurance largely untouched, creating minimal enterprise value. But now, strong macro factors—like unprecedented catastrophic events, mass retirements, and outdated legislation—are making AI adoption essential. Here are 4 key opportunity areas for startups in insurance: 1️⃣ Automation of high-cost, repetitive tasks untouched by traditional software (e.g., customer service, policy comparisons, applications, claims). 2️⃣ Breaking data silos with system interoperability. 3️⃣ Building vertical-specific, fine-tuned AI models. 4️⃣ Capturing value through proprietary data access and workflow ownership. Optimist Ventures also identifies 4 exciting startup archetypes driving Insurtech 2.0: 🔹 Emerging Risk Specialists: AI-native startups modeling, pricing, and underwriting underserved risks (e.g., Koop for Frontier Tech, Charter for Space, Shepherd for Construction, Kettle for Climate). 🔹 Insurance Ontologies: Platforms akin to "Palantir for insurance" (e.g., 9Root, Outmarket AI). 🔹 AI Co-pilots & Automation Layers: Ready-to-deploy AI agents for underwriting, claims handling, customer communication, and fraud detection. 🔹 AI-native Distribution Infrastructure: API-first solutions simplifying quoting, binding, and policy administration (e.g., Herald, Curacel, Covie). At Antler India, we’re particularly bullish on Insurtech, backing multiple startups already—including Covrzy (Ankit Kamra), Inka Insurance (Vaibhav Kathju), Infer (YC S21) (Vaibhav Saxena, Urvin Soneta), and another in stealth. If you're building something exciting in this space, let’s chat! Drop a comment or DM. With Rajiv Srivatsa Nitin Sharma Jasnoor Gill Karan Prasad Sankalp Sharma #Insurtech #AI #Startups #InsuranceInnovation #VentureCapital #AntlerIndia #TechTrends #InsuranceTech

Being a generalist commercial insurance agency can actually limit you more than a vertical-specific agency. WTF. That math… ain’t mathing. But hear me out. On paper, generalists look bigger. “Hey, we can insure 100+ different industries!” But in practice, most generalists get pigeon-holed by geography. Their positioning almost always comes down to location: “Best Commercial Insurance Agency in Arkansas” “Top Risk Management Specialist in Indiana” And that’s fine if your goal is purely local dominance. But here’s the problem → outside of your state, your brand doesn’t translate. No restaurant owner in Florida cares that you’re the “Best Agency in Arkansas.” That means your TAM isn’t 34.8M small businesses nationwide. It’s maybe 300,000–400,000 inside your state lines. Which is still solid, but capped. Now compare that to a vertical agency. Let’s say you pick restaurants. You’re no longer tied to one state, you’re tied to a type of business. And restaurants exist in every city, every state, every zip code. Do the math: “Utah Commercial Insurance Agency” = ~350,000 prospects. “Restaurant Insurance Agency” = ~749,000 prospects across all 50 states. And restaurants are just one example. Think about contractors. Trucking. Real estate investors. Cannabis. Each of these verticals has millions of businesses spread coast to coast. So instead of being seen as the “best in Arkansas,” you’re positioned as the go-to everywhere for one type of business. THIS is how you scale. Not by stretching your geography wider, but by going deeper into one industry and owning it. Generalist positioning = capped by location. Vertical positioning = scale without borders. So no, vertical isn’t limiting. It’s the opposite. It’s the unlock.

Going all-in has transformed Indico from generic IDP vendor in a sea of me-too products to a fast-growing, laser-focused solutions provider. Last week I caught up with Indico's Tom Wilde (CEO) and Jeremy Stinson (SVP Marketing) and they shared some fascinating insights into how placing all their chips on the insurance industry has also transformed the product into an agentic insurance decisioning platform. The team walked me through the new Agent Studio using insurance claim submission examples. IDP is still an important piece but not the main thing anymore. Indico also added new workspace functionality for underwriters and other insurance knowledge workers after the IDP workflow ends. Doubling down on the insurance industry has paid off in spades, with higher growth, better margins, and a clear product direction for the team. * ~70% of annual recurring revenue (ARR) now comes from insurance customers. * Insurance represents ~95% of the sales pipeline. * Average contract value (ACV) has doubled. * On track to grow ARR by 50% this year. Indico’s transformation from a generalized IDP platform to a focused insurance decisioning solution is a stellar example of the strategic clarity and discipline we champion. By going all-in on the insurance vertical, the company didn’t just refine its product. It redefined its identity, aligned its technology, and changed the user experience to deliver data-driven decisioning. Read more and get the Deep Analysis in my new blog "Going All In at Indico". https://lnkd.in/eiRCddBG Indico Data