Total global funding commitments to insurtech companies have reached a historic amount of £4.87bn during 2019, with £1.52bn invested in 75 projects during Q4 2019 alone. This is according to the latest Quarterly InsurTech Briefing from Willis Towers Watson.

Eight unicorn making rounds of investment took place throughout the year, creating five new unicorns – privately held start-ups valued at over £760m. Ten insurtechs have reached this threshold globally.

The year 2019 also saw a 90% jump in investment rounds that exceeded £31m.

Also featured in the report, insurtechs raised some £186m in early stage funding in Q4 2019. P/C companies continued to take a greater share of total insurtech investment compared with life and health firms, following a trend seen since Q3 2016.

Early stage funding to P/C companies grew to 69%, up slightly compared with 2019 Q3. Distribution-focussed and MGA-focussed insurtechs accounted for 57% of all deals by number.

Global head of insurtech at Willis Re, Dr Andrew Johnston said: “2019 was the year when individual insurtechs began to come to the fore to lead in specific parts of the market, whether in certain lines of business or in the use of particular technologies. For example, UK-based Concirrus is now clearly the forerunner in behavioural-based analytics for the specialty markets.

“But while insurtech news is awash with the huge valuations and postulations of the art of the possible, there is also a very real story that is not so positive – individual insurtech cessations,” he added. “The number is very difficult to calculate, but our data indicates that during the past three years, approximately 184 funded insurtechs might have closed their doors.”

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