Scouting for Growth Sam Evans: InsurTech, Sustainability and ESG
On this episode, Sabine VdL interviews Sam Evans, Partner at EOS Venture Partners, a Strategic Venture Capital fund and an InsurTech investment specialist with offices in London and Philadelphia. This is their 2nd interview as Sam appeared in episode 6 of Scouting for Growth. Here the pair discusses the topics of sustainability and ESG, the impact of urbanization, climate risk, and supply chain risk. Topics that have become increasingly important for many sectors of the economy with over 2.2 trillion searches on Google's search engine for the term ESG (as of May 2022.)
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- As a global economy, we’re facing a number of pivotal challenges. These include major weather-related events linked to climate change and other natural catastrophes, significant changes in terms of population dynamics in many parts of the world with aging populations, as well as the development of the right urban infrastructure to support people. With current urbanization trends, a significant proportion of the population is moving into cities, resulting in living and logistic issues. Insurance and InsurTech have a key role to play in supporting these major, macro shifts and changes.
- Equality, the access to healthcare, is going to be critical as we face growing populations. Here we’re looking at the ability to leverage different ways of thinking about insurance and making it less about a pure protection-driven product and more a protection-type focus to help them live healthier and longer lives.
- We’re going to see a lot more gig economy workers and we’re already seeing that traditional insurance solutions aren’t fit for purpose because they’re generic, they’re not usage-based, and they don’t align with the underlying behaviors of policyholders.
- Responding to natural catastrophes is an area where the insurance industry as a whole is already doing a huge amount of work and there are a lot of initiatives to try and reduce the protection gap, but clearly there’s still a huge proportion of vulnerable economies and populations that are lacking insurance. So, closing that protection gap is going to be important.
BEST MOMENTS
‘Clearly there’s a lot that can be done to make healthcare more affordable, easier to access, but also a lot more efficient.’
‘Close to 50% of the US population score badly from a credit risk perspective and are therefore penalised through the cost of their insurance. The ability to tailor usage-based coverage that switches seamlessly between personal and commercial usage – for example, if you’re using your vehicle for a ride-share scheme, this becomes very relevant for individuals.’
‘Energy usage and efficiency gains are going to become a lot more important. We have to be much more focused and smart around how we use resources. Technology can play a key role even from a home perspective on energy usage by using IoT, sensors and smart AI to improve behaviours, enhance efficiency and lower energy usage.’
‘Insurance touches every single part of the economy, so it’s a natural enabler for driving these initiatives.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Sam is a partner at EOS Venture Partners, a Strategic Venture Capital fund and an InsurTech investment specialist with offices in London and Philadelphia. EOS invests in Series A and Series B growth ventures with emerging business models and new technologies that will impact and transform the insurance industry.
Today EOS provides financing and advisory services to leading entrepreneurs building innovative businesses in the insurance sector. In partnership with RAW Capital Partners EOS offers a unique solution for growth stage InsurTech companies.
Website: https://www.eosventurepartners.com/
ABOUT THE HOST
Sabine is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur. She is the CEO and Managing Partner of Alchemy Crew, a venture lab that accelerates the curation, validation, & commercialization of new tech business models. Sabine is renowned within the insurance sector for building some of the most renowned tech startup accelerators around the world working with over 30 corporate insurers & accelerating over 100 startup ventures. Sabine is the co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, a top 50 Women in Tech, a FinTech and InsurTech Influencer, an investor & multi-award winner.
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