Zurich announces winners of global startup program | Insurance business America
The winners will work on solutions for different domains
Insurance News
By Kenneth Araullo
Zurich Insurance Group has announced the nine winners of its global startup initiative, the Zurich Innovation Championship, which aims to transform the customer experience through the use of technology.
The selected initiatives focus on simplifying and accelerating underwriting and claims processes, improving customer engagement and support through healthcare solutions, and promoting climate resilience. These initiatives address local challenges with potential global impact for the company.
The Zurich Innovation Championship, an open innovation competition for startups in the financial services industry, received over 3,300 applications in just four weeks. The program currently includes around 40 ongoing collaborations with previous participants.
“Technology continues to advance rapidly and we must keep pace with innovation. All of this year’s winners are using AI to redefine risk assessment, underwriting, claims management and customer interactions. By working with these startups, we can quickly leverage these new ideas and technologies to deliver an outstanding customer experience,” said Ericson Chan, Group Chief Innovation and Digital Officer.
Winner of the Zurich Innovation Championship 2024
This year’s winners in four challenge categories and two additional wildcard selections are as follows:
Commercial insurance: CLIMADA Technologies, Sixfold
CLIMADA will work with Zurich Resilience Solutions to launch a tool to quantify property damage and business interruptions due to climate risks. The aim of this tool is to provide global customers with financial benefits from climate adaptation measures.
Sixfold, on the other hand, will work with Zurich North America to improve underwriting efficiency using its AI platform. The platform is designed to improve underwriter capacity and accuracy while saving time for brokers and clients.
Digital simplification: Parloa GmbH, Merlynn
Parloa will work with Zurich Germany to improve customer service through AI automation. This initiative aims to manage recurring requests, enabling more complex customer requests to be addressed using more resources.
Merlynn and Zurich North America will develop digital twins of insurance knowledge workers that automate decisions based on human expert input to improve claims outcomes, reduce training times and improve claims process consistency.
Life & Health: NalaGenetics, AccuHealth
NalaGenetics will work with Zurich Malaysia to develop a personalized care program using genetic testing to treat chronic diseases. This program aims to provide early risk identification and personalized care plans for chronic conditions.
AccuHealth and Zurich Chile will explore how to mitigate the impact of chronic disease on insurance claims through a data-driven digital service for B2B2E customers. The service will collect biomarker data to deliver personalized health programs aimed at controlling chronic diseases and reducing absenteeism from employers, potentially leading to a reduction in premiums in the long term.
LoyJoy, a conversational AI platform, will work with Zurich Germany to improve customer service, sales and marketing across chat and social media. The platform’s personalized communication and gamification features are aimed at targeting younger customers and making it easier to book consultation appointments.
Wildcard winner: AlphaGeo, MentionMe
AlphaGeo, a geospatial science company, will work with Zurich Group Investment Management to optimize its global real estate portfolio. Using AlphaGeo’s AI-powered analytics, the collaboration aims to identify regions with higher growth prospects, thereby improving investment performance and asset valuations.
MentionMe, a customer advocacy intelligence platform, will work with Zurich UK to convert Net Promoter Score promoters into active customer recommendations, with the aim of increasing customer loyalty in line with Zurich’s loyalty strategy.
“Solutions tailored to customers and their changing needs are the future of insurance.” Whether it’s making the financial impact of climate risks more tangible, improving underwriting efficiency or creating personalized healthcare programs, these innovative initiatives can truly transform the industry,” said Paolo Mantero, the group’s chief strategy officer.
The Zurich Innovation Championship uses a venture client approach to working with startups. The winners will participate in a four-month accelerator program to test the practical feasibility of their initiatives and develop business plans together with Zurich’s business units.
The nine startups will receive both financial and non-financial support, including coaching from Zurich executives and subject matter experts. Successful initiatives will be announced in September 2024.
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2024-05-30 09:46:39
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