Vindati Platform Looks to ‘Delight’ Brokers Seeking Specialty Markets for Small-Medium Businesses
There will soon be a new specialty insurance site that promises to quicken and simplify transactions for U.S. insurance brokers who are serving small and medium sized businesses.
Vindati, a New York-based managing general agency (MGA), will be offering brokers across the country a way to access specialty products and market analytics through either traditional or digital channels.
“Vindati is focused on delighting the broker as the customer like never before,” said Hugh Burgess, CEO of Vindati, and a former executive with Allianz.
The platform is backed by Innovisk Capital Partners in which Willis Towers Watson is a majority investor.
The vindati.com website is not yet running but is expected to be soon.
Vindati’s first products will be contractors equipment, builder’s risk and farm/ranchowners packages. It is planning to later add commercial auto, motor truck cargo and warehouse legal.
The founders say the platform will be “open to any broker in the U.S. – traditional or digital – that is looking for a better way to transact business.” Brokers can bypass old technology and data to quote an entire portfolio of insurance clients instantaneously.
“This is a really important shift,” Burgess told Insurance Journal. “Servicing large businesses is increasingly complex, which requires a personal touch, but for small business, the trend is simple, tech-driven automation – which is exactly what we set out to create.”
Brokers may choose how to connect and place business with Vindati — either through emailed ACORD forms, digital broker channels such as Ask Kodiak, or directly on the Vindati shopping platform.
Whichever way a broker connects, Vindati promises instant customizable and bindable quotes as well as proposals and policies on demand.
Burgess says that Vindati is bringing together the “best combination of insurance and technology expertise,” along with distribution channel and data and analytical experts, to “uncomplicate processes and deliver outstanding user experiences.”
The backer, London-based Innovisk, was launched in June as a limited liability partnership with a plan to seed a number of start-up underwriters in personal and specialty commercial lines business. David Thomas is CEO of Innovisk. He is a former executive with Willis and was CEO of London-based Acapalla, a venture with Pembroke.
Innovisk already has several underwriting partners including New York-based program manager Freberg Environmental and Florida-based Vertus in the U.S. and PFLA and Aqueous in the UK.
“Technology and data are fundamentally reshaping the value chain in insurance and bringing risk closer to capital,” said Thomas. “Historically the industry has often been costly, and inflexible data flows tend to be poor. New solutions and new thinking are required.”
Willis Towers Watson is a majority investor in Innovisk. Carl Hess, head of Investment, Risk and Reinsurance, Willis Towers Watson, said his firm sees “tremendous change in the industry value chain driven by technology and data” and views Innovisk as an opportunity to take on a role in that shift as an “arms-length investor.”
The Vindati company name is derived from the Italian words Vincente (winning) and Dati (data). As defined in Hindi, Vindati also means “to find.” Finding winning data: that’s what Vindati says it does for its broker customers.
‘Technology and data are fundamentally reshaping the value chain in insurance and bringing risk closer to capital.’