Scouting for Growth Pablo Duarte & Hilario Itriago: InsurTech LATAM
On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Pablo Duarte and Hilario Itriago, founders of The LATAM InsurTech, a fast-growing insurance technology accelerator for startups wanting to enter the Latam market via Miami.
Both Pablo and Hilario have been leading insurance innovation in LATAM for years. They both come from industry, and you will discover during our discussion that we are all in the fractional world of tech, where we split our time across those projects that matter most to us. For instance, alongside supporting The LATAM InsurTech, Pablo is also director, client engagement at Bain and Company, and Hilario is also the president at BOXX Insurance, a leading cybersecurity provider.
During the podcast, they discuss the InsurTech ecosystem in LATAM, how they support the incumbent, broker, and startup worlds, InsurTech LATAM in numbers, and their InsurTech portfolio and opportunities across the LATAM market.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- The insurance space as we know it has a phenomenal opportunity with the transformation that technology brings to it. There's clearly a before and after technology that came into our world. That technology is now in the hands of consumers, and we believe that is a massive change. One of the critical things that we want to make sure happens in our markets is that more people get insurance. We're convinced that the more people get insurance coverage, the better their social and economic development will be.
- InsurTech can bring products closer to the everyday individual who can benefit from insurance coverage and do it straightforwardly and efficiently. This opportunity must be leveraged by both incumbents and InsurTechs alike – and they both can do so. As collaborative as insurance has been over the centuries, the opportunities of InsurTech are no different. We believe that incumbents and InsurTechs can collaborate across the entire value chain and that we can promote and try to influence that happening more and more, the better everybody's going to be, from the industry insiders to the consumers.
- The InsurTech sector in Latin America continues to be very active. Unlike what we’ve seen in other markets where valuations plummeted, we haven't seen an effect in the LATAM market. There are over 400 InsurTechs in LATAM. The growth rate is about 20% year-on-year, and about 6% of the companies die yearly (just like any venture ecosystem). Some of the fastest-growing markets are in Columbia and Brazil, with one-third of the market in Brazil.
- We saw the early days of InsurTechs focussing on personal distribution, that type of disruption which typically is the sexy aspect of where people want to go. But over the years, we’ve seen that more and more companies are tackling the commercial space – whether it's small commercial or more traditional, larger-scale commercial business. There's a great deal of opportunity in the sustainability aspect of the commercial insurance space. We're starting to see more and more opportunities there and, therefore, more and more InsurTechs. That's one of the angles that will make many of the economies in the region see more solutions and innovations in that space that could also be taken to other markets.
BEST MOMENTS
‘I've been on this InsurTech journey since 2016. Back then InsurTech was just starting in Latin America, so there wasn’t much activity going on, and sometimes we even wondered if we made the right choice to get into InsurTech then!’
‘Through InsurTech, we see greater customization and personalization of value propositions. That is key because traditionally, insurance has been very structured and hard to feed into customers' specific needs.’
‘Argentina is a country that has been known for innovation way before FinTech and InsurTech, it's a very entrepreneurial country, and precisely because of the economic circumstances, they have a robust pipeline of solutions created and grown in Argentina but want to go elsewhere for growth.’
‘In terms of smaller markets that punch above their weight, our first InsurTech unicorn comes from Chile. It's a great balance between large pipelines of InsurTechs coming from big markets and smaller quantities but tremendous quality coming from smaller markets.'
ABOUT THE GUESTS
Find out about our guest using those links.
Pablo Duarte: https://www.linkedin.com/in/duartepablo/
Hilario Itriago: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hitriago/
InsurLab LATAM: https://www.latam-insurtech.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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