Scouting for Growth Kobi Bendelak: From retiring twice to building InsurTech Israel
In this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine VdL interviews Kobi Bendelak, a 22 year veteran in insurance. Kobi is the CEO of InsurTech Israel which he established to promote and lead innovation within the Israeli Insurtech ecosystem.
Sabine has known Kobi for over 6 years. He mentored the startups in her European Accelerator and has always been the kindest individual for the startups and her team members to talk to for advice and mentorship.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- InsurTech Israel has four baseline activities: Investment – We’ve already invested in 10 startups, all of them are Israeli InsurTechs, Consulting – we assist the startups to grow, Media and Events – we hold events and bring big delegation of startups to engage with corporations – Tel Aviv is one of the key capitals for InsurTech startups in the world. Still, there was no accelerator programme in Israel so we started one with great mentors from all over the world helping startups to learn, grow and scale.
- To build an ecosystem is very hard, but if you have a success story it makes it easier. We have four unicorns which assist us to build and grow the ecosystem and a base to grow the InsurTech industry here in Israel. For a good ecosystem though you have to have a lot of early stage startups, not unicorns! It’s hard to build that because you have to find the entrepreneurs and they need to find you. Israel is very good with engagement and connections, We have a culture of entrepreneurship here.
- The insurance world is very orthodox, it’s a long journey for startups to form partnerships with incumbent players. Both B2B startups and investors need to be patient because there is no great success in the beginning, unlike B2C where you can succeed faster. Soon, it will be easier though because the entire industry will be digitised.
- The insurance industry is a very logical industry: yes/no, cover/no cover, something happened/nothing happened which means that it is a great playground for AI. The Israeli army has seen many successes using AI so the entrepreneurs that are coming up arrive young and with a lot of experience. They start looking for ‘ideas’ and they look for how to use these ideas to solve real market problems. Israelis are the best at solving problems because we live in a very tough neighbourhood. InsurTech is not just technology. Indeed, it is first about solving problems, evaluating options and then implementing technology to make it happen. Entrepreneurs with great skills in AI bring that knowledge to the InsurTech industry via better underwriting for planes, for fraud or in healthcare to share but a few areas.
BEST MOMENTS
‘I retired at 45 years old and after a few months it started to get boring, so I looked around for opportunities and the InsurTech space became very interesting to me.’
‘Coming into work every day with passion is key.’
‘You need to have mileage and a little money to succeed.’
‘Every InsurTech startup must have insurance domain expertise in the team if they want to get into insurance because it’s a very complex industry that requires subject matter expertise.’
ABOUT THE GUEST
Kobi Bendelak is the CEO of InsurTech Israel that he established to promote and lead the Israeli Insurtech ecosystem. The company has four areas of activity: investments, consulting, media and acceleration programmes. All those activities make InsurTech Israel the leading and most active accelerator program in the Israeli InsurTech sector.
Previously, Kobi was the founder and CEO of Reshef Insurance Brokers, part of Migdal/ Generali Insurance Group. He has 22 years of experience in the insurance industry and holds a BA in Management and an MA in Law from Bar Ilan University. He also was a Colonel (Reserve) in the IDF.
Website: https://insurtechil.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kobi-bendelak-a7011230/?originalSubdomain=il
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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