In January 2017, Agency Checklists published our thoughts on “Why Boston(and MA) Has Become A Hub For Insurance Innovation.” A little more than a year later, we are now ready to take our previous hypothesis and go one step further to say that Boston is officially one of the top insurtech capitals of the world.
Here is why:
Boston was named the most innovative city in America for a second year in a row
For the second year in a row, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has named Boston as the most innovative city in the country. The annual study, now in its third year, takes a look and ranks the top 25 U.S. urban centers based upon how these cities attract talent, increase investments, develop specializations, create density, connect with their community as well as build that all-important culture of innovation. In commenting on why Boston beat out San Francisco for the second year in a row, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce noted,
For the second year in a row, Boston stands atop the Innovation That Matters rankings, edging out the San Francisco Bay area. Boston has earned the top ranking in startup density and capital access and gets high marks for talent access and connectivity. The presence of top universities produces a steady stream of new tech talent, and the city government has offered strong levels of support.
In particular, the economic resources and human capital including abundant high-quality tech talent in Boston were what set it apart from the rest:
Here is the complete list of the top 25 innovative cities in America for in 2017 according to the report:
Boston also was named an insurtech capital of the world this year by Carrier Management
On March 2, 2018, the publication, Carrier Management, issued a list identifying the Top 20 Insurtech Carriers in the world. Using data from Venture Scanner, the publication ranked Boston as a top 10 insurtech capital of the world, coming in at number eight, with 16 insurtech startups based here.
Accordingly to our records, however, both Carrier Management and Venture Scanner got that number wrong. Agency Checklists notes that Boston has at least 20 different insurtech startups to its credit, which should move the city up to the fifth spot on the Carrier Management List, rather than the eighth. Semantics aside, the growing influence of the greater Boston area with regards to insurance innovation is not open to argument.
Agency Checklists defines an insurtech company or startup as any company that is attempting to solve a problem in the insurance ecosystem with innovation and technology. And while our list is by no means definitive, we thought it would be beneficial to showcase all of the insurtech startups doing business in the greater Boston area. If we missed one, please be sure to let us know.
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Two insurtech events are occurring here within a month of each other this spring
As many of our readers already know, the next Insurtech Boston installment, the “Spring Jam ’18” will be happening on June 7th. In addition to that, Insurtech Rising contacted Agency Checklists, to let us know that Europe’s largest insurtech conference has chosen Boston as the location for its first U.S. conference in May.
To learn more about both of these conferences or to register now, click on the links below:
Insurtech Boston’s Spring Jam ’18 on June 7th
Insurtech Rising’s U.S. Conference at the Marriott Long Wharf on May 9th & 10th
Agency Checklists profiles of insurance innovators with ties to Boston and Massachusetts since 2016
Since March 2016, when we first interviewed Cambridge-based Insurify, Agency Checklists has published over 19 different profiles on various insurtechs and innovators working in insurance both in the greater Boston Area and throughout Massachusetts. And this is not even counting those insurtech start-ups that are being run in other cities by founders who have studied here in the Commonwealth.
For those interested in learning more about insurtech innovation in the Greater Boston Area, the following are some of the profiles and articles Agency Checklists has written about:
- A Q&A With Cambridge Start-Up Insurify- The Site Aiming To Be The Virtual Insurance Agent of the Internet
- An InsurTech Start-Up For Agents And Carriers? Meet AskKodiak
- InsurTech 2017: Why Boston (And MA) Is Poised To Be A Hub Of Insurance Innovation
- “Openly” For Business: A Massachusetts Insurtech Betting On Independent Agents As The Future
- Will State Insurance Regulations Take The Punch Bowl Away From The Insurtech Party?
- 2017 World Insurance Report Explores Developing Insurtech Technologies
- A New Insurtech That Swyfft-ly Quotes Homeowners Insurance In Seconds For Independent Agents
- Where MatureTech and InsurTech Meet
- A Q&A With Boston-based Insurtech Quilt And Its Quest For Radical Simplicity In Insurance
- Liberty Mutual Goes Full Bore Into Insurtech Development
- Based Insurtech Startup Offers Web Portal For Small Business Cyber Coverage
- Broker Buddha: Enlightening Agents On Processing Commercial Insurance Applications
- A Clear-Eyed Look At The Insurance Industry, Courtesy of Mass.-Based Clearsurance
- Will State Farm ‘Be A Good Neighbor’ To Massachusetts Agents?
- The Insurance Innovators Unscripted Podcast: Abel Travis Is The Massachusetts Man Behind The Mike
- Veruna: A Mass.-based AMS That Challenges Agents To “Embrace Change. Move Forward”
- How Apliant Is Applying Technology To Empower Insurance Agents
- A Q&A With Bill Martin of Bunker Hill: Big Data And Quoting Convenience Are Key To Bunker Hill’s Massachusetts Plans
- MassDrive: A Traditional Agency Using Technology to Drive Its Success
Final thoughts…
Our look at the insurtech innovation in Boston, does not even begin to include those companies here in the Boston area that are working on Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence or IOT products like those being developed at Liberty Mutual’s Solaria Labs.
For this reason as well as the ones we have mentioned above, it is easy to see how Boston has become a hub for insurtech.
