With the ever-changing landscape of today, traditional insurance has somewhat fallen short in addressing the uncertainties of our time, leaving several vulnerable groups and events exposed to the risks of the future.
As a result, new solutions are needed to provide coverage and protection for all individuals, organisations, and events. Climate change acceleration and digital calamities such as cloud outages and internet disruptions have further exacerbated the gaps in the industry.
In such scenarios, a company that’s revolutionizing the insurance industry and intending to build and operate parametric insurance at scale is Riskwolf. Co-founded by Thomas Krapf and René Papesch, Riskwolf is a full-stack parametric insurance platform that provides end-to-end solutions for clients to create new coverage schemes quickly and productise them in the market.
Identifying market gaps and needs
The traditional insurance industry is plagued by gaps in technology, lengthy claims processes, and inaccessibility for certain income groups, such as farmers and gig workers. Additionally, there is a lack of coverage for digital calamities such as cloud services downtime.
“The overall process of insurance from need generation to coverage and pricing is disjointed in the ecosystem. Our goal is to simplify the process of creating new and innovative products. We believe insurance should be simple, reliable, and fast,” says Thomas, Co-founder and CEO, Riskwolf.
To accomplish this, Riskwolf uses an iterative process to develop new products that provide optimal coverage at the best possible technical price. Their platform integrates a variety of data sources for transparent pricing and monitoring. It allows insurers and distribution partners to onboard, use the data to define their perils and triggers, and create parametric products.
Most importantly, it provides a fast payout or relief with no additional and lengthy claim process. The coverage is based on a predefined event with a trigger and the pay-out is done as soon as that trigger is met.
“The ability to create quick policies that are focused for specific problems and then allowing for triggered-based parametric payouts without claims is why we believe our platform facilitates – painless policies, claimless pay-outs,” says Thomas.
Product offerings at Riskwolf
There are three stages the platform works in:
Build: This is the stage where insurers can onboard and create various coverages with specific triggers and product details.
Quote: Once the coverages are built and agreed to, the platform allows insurers to quote the risk and turn it into policies that can be distributed to clients.
Operate: Once the policies are active, the platform monitors the data, for example, the rainfall in the specific area, to notify the client and carriers of any trigger that’s been hit. This would then lead to a payout.
“We continuously monitor measurable technology and weather events in real-time and compare them against pre-agreed conditions of our insurance coverages. The cloud platform is fully elastic in terms of sizing and allows multi-tenancy operations for our insurance clients,” says Thomas. The partners are provided API integration covering the key processes, pricing, quoting, and claims, he adds.
This way Riskwolf is revolutionizing the way insurers and distribution partners create parametric products for specific risks with unprecedented precision. Currently, the company is focusing on two significant perils – weather and cloud downtime.
All risks associated with weather disruptions can be priced on the platform. The company works with various data sources worldwide and can also integrate with local microclimate data. This enables any insurer to create policies around coverage for weather disruptions within minutes instead of weeks.
“An insurer/carrier can log in, choose policy details, select events/triggers, and can then generate reports to study the pricing and loss ratios, etc. The ability to create multiple coverages within minutes allows insurers to create custom protection that keeps the business objectives in mind. These coverages can then be quoted into policies and integrated through APIs with the distribution partners for an end-to-end solution,” Thomas explains.
With businesses increasingly migrating to the cloud, any cloud downtime or disruption will lead to heavy business losses. Keeping this in mind, Riskwolf has coverage for protection against cloud downtime as well. It allows insurers to assess this risk, price it and then monitor it for pay-outs through the platform.
As a B2B SaaS platform, Riskwolf charges its clients based on the consumption of their services in pricing, quoting, and monitoring with a mixture of fixed and variable components.
Penetrating the Indian market
Riskwolf is currently expanding into the Indian market, which has high potential due to its low insurance penetration and untapped perils. They are focused on bringing parametric coverage to agri-businesses and SMEs, the backbone of the Indian economy, that require quick recovery payouts from unseen weather and digital disruptions.
“We plan on working with local insurers on the supply side and various verticals in the digital ecosystem on the demand side. For example, we look at working with NBFI or credit companies and banks to help with loan protection, or work with ecommerce companies to help SMEs with their supply chain disruptions,” says Ashish Trivedi, Asia Market Lead, Riskwolf.
The company anticipates that parametric coverage will become increasingly important in the coming years in India. With parametric coverage, customers have access to a wider variety of coverage options with low premiums, a shorter shelf life, and a pay-out structure that is easy to understand. “Moreover, agribusinesses and SMEs, which are the backbone of the Indian economy, require parametric coverages that allow for quick recovery pay-outs from unseen weather and digital disruption,” adds Ashish.
Guiding Riskwolf in their India journey is Swissnex, a launchpad for Swiss startups to expand into the Indian market. As a direct representation of the Swiss government in India, Swissnex assists startups validate and gain momentum in the Indian market. To date, they have helped over 60 startups with their entry into the Indian market.
“The Swissnex program is absolutely instrumental in guiding us in the Indian market. They support us in networking with potentially interested parties and also help us understand the local Indian nuances on how to interact with stakeholders and pursue business opportunities in the local context,” says Ashish.
Charting the path forward
The goal at Riskwolf is to be the platform of choice for carriers, MGA, brokers, and distributors who opt for parametric coverage. The idea is to create a connected ecosystem of parametric coverage and to close the protection gap.
By doing so, they position themselves as the platform of choice for millions of gross written premiums across various segments, leading the way in revolutionizing the insurance industry. This will enable Riskwolf to become a trailblazer in the industry, offering unparalleled services that will benefit insurers and consumers alike with its innovative Build, Quote, and Operate model.
