The company is building tech-enabled commercial insurance products with novel data sources and its digital platform for commercial insurance brokers and their clients.
Corvus Founder & CEO Phil Edmundson did not expect to be starting another insurance business. After successfully launching and exiting several insurance businesses focused on technology companies, Edmundson thought he would become an angel investor in what is now called InsurTech.
Instead, after a year reviewing 100+ InsurTech startups and investing in a half-dozen of them, Edmundson came to the conclusion that the opportunities for digital tools and data platforms were not reaching medium to large-sized commercial insurance brokers and customers. “My former colleagues and clients weren’t seeing the benefits that had started to reach personal and small commercial lines insurance markets”, he noted. “After many conversations with brokers and venture investors, I became convinced that there was a huge opportunity to help the brokers and buyers of commercial insurance”.
The barriers to commercial InsurTech innovation are significant. First, the underlying insurance products are more complicated than many tech entrepreneurs had the time or inclination to analyze. Easier missions are available for insurance products that tech entrepreneurs recognized from their own buying experience. Second, distribution was a barrier. Commercial insurance buyers of any but the smallest size want the help of their insurance broker. Yet most InsurTech entrepreneurs dislike brokers. Early efforts such as those of Zenefits were seen as a threat to brokers and the initial success of Zenefits kept the focus away from possible partnerships with brokers. (Zenefits has smartly changed its tune on its go-to-market strategy and now works with brokers). Edmundson saw the opportunity to leverage his experience working for start-up and global commercial insurance brokers focused on the tech sectors as an opportunity to provide broker partners with the confidence that Corvus would be their partner rather than a threat.
Next came the identification of novel sorts of data that could predict and prevent insurance claims. “Connecting to predictive data is just like having a safety inspector inside every shipment, auto trip, or online activity,” he noted in regard to the Corvus strategy to empower brokers and policyholders with risk scores that inform and direct risk management in order to lower the overall cost of risk.
Finally, brokers and their clients deserve an effective and helpful online experience. So, Corvus built a great one. It allows brokers and policyholders on-demand access to policy information, claims reporting, loss prevention recommendations, and business intelligence.
Together with a team of top-flight tech leaders in Mike Lloyd and James McElhiney, the company is building tech-enabled commercial insurance products with novel data sources and its digital platform for commercial insurance brokers and their clients. That is why Corvus is InsurTech. For You.