Insurers must reduce risks to customers’ data, claims start-up founder

Matt Hodges-Long, founder of insurtech start-up TrackMyRisks, has warned insurers to stop sending email attachments and start sharing information with their customers instead.

TrackMyRisks teamed up with the British Insurance Brokers' Association in June to publish the report, “ Stop sending - Start sharing”.

“In fact, the insurance industry is culturally dependent on email attachments – while at the same time the frequency of email-borne cyber attacks are increasing,” said a blog by the start-up.

Hodges-Long is one of more than 20 start-up founders attending the annual Intelligent InsurTECH conference on October 3 in London. Click here to find out more.

And with the General Data Protection Regulation on the horizon, the industry needs to take “urgent steps to reduce its own cyber risks in relation to customer data”.

But insurers also need to look outside of their own businesses and help their customers with risk management, and not just for those risks that the insurance company currently insurers.

“A customer that engages in risk management will typically lower their risk appetite as a result, leading to increased mitigation activity and an increase in the categories and value of risk transfer. So it’s a win-win for our insurer partners,” said Hodges-Long.

For the majority of businesses, risk is managed as part of everyday management decisions, as opposed to being a specific discipline, he explained.

This makes most risk decisions “unconscious” and unsupported by data and expert insight, so on many occasions keys risks can be overlooked.

TrackMyRisks was founded exactly for this reason—“to bring the benefits of risk management to the ‘masses’”.

Hodges-Long wanted to make risk management “affordable and available” for all businesses, not just the big ones.

The platform moves the insurer and client relationship away from infrequent communication (through post/email) to an embedded digital risk management relationship online.

This transition “drives customer engagement, decreases risk and reduces claims”, added the start-up founder.

Consumers of TrackMyRisks are given the online tools to manage risk as a business process in the same way as they might use Salesforce.com to manage sales.

The platform reminds consumers of activities or upcoming expiries, and access to these documents can be shared with colleagues, clients, insurers and regulators.

“TrackMyRisks gives insurers and brokers the opportunity to add huge value to their customers businesses at the same time as reducing claims, increasing compliance, improving cross selling opportunities,” added Hodges-Long.

Two years from now, Hodges-Long wants the company to be working closely with at least 30 insurers and brokers, giving the platform over 100,000 end user companies. He also wants to replicate the UK success in other key markets globally.

“The opportunity to achieve positive change is enormous and the time to act is now.”

TrackMyRisks is one of more than 20 insurtech startups attending Intelligent Insurer’s Intelligent InsurTECH conference on October 3 in London. Click  here to find out more.

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