Covering Innovation in Insurance
Dubai-founded high-tech insurance digital network firm Elesco is disrupting the insurance game with the launch of a platform that will allow for more efficient underwriting, real-time data analytics and lower costs.
Enter Elseco
From his office in Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), Laurent Lemaire, CEO and founder of Elesco says the new ATOM platform, the result of a partnership between Elesco and tech giant SAP, says the digital network is “the most advanced underwriting insurance platform in the world”. Created and developed in Dubai, the system is a first for the Insurtech sector, the insurance arm of fintech (financial technology).
Elseco, which was launched in Dubai 12 years ago by French national Lemaire, is now the largest insurance underwriting company in the world in space and among the top 10 for aviation. The technology-driven firm also has its hand in energy, but with the new, fully scalable ATOM system, which will make communication between customers, agents and insurers seamless. Elseco has opened a door to insurance for many other sectors.
“We started from scratch as a private venture in Dubai and Elseco is now the largest satellite insurance provider in the world,” says Lemaire. “High-technology insurance is a difficult market to crack and cracking it from Dubai was unique,” he says. “Insurance is a US$4.5 trillion dollar market, but from a technical standpoint, we haven’t embraced new technology as much as some other industries. It’s fairly complex and it’s not the easiest market to disrupt,” he adds. “That’s what we’ve been doing at Elseco the last few years.”
According to an Accenture analysis of CB Insights, a global venture-finance data and analytics firm, global investment in fintech ventures in 2017 totalled US$27.4 billion, up 18 per cent from 2016, predominantly due to a surge in funding startups in the US, UK and India. While investments in startups developing payments and lending solutions each accounted for about 30 per cent of the total, those offering insurance-related services (insurtech) accounted for 12 per cent of the funds.
A first for the fintech industry, the new ATOM platform will redefine insurance underwriting and streamline the experience for customers and insurers. “By using technology, you can give clients a better product at the same price or the same product at a cheaper price. It’s so integrated, which means that things go can from one end to the other without human intervention. That keeps the costs very low,” he explains. “Suddenly you’ve got a platform that people are going to use for their own business and they can grow their business more efficiently. This should allow for a better product and more margins. We expect that in the coming months, many more companies will join the ATOM network,” he says.
City Credited for Entrepreneurial Value
Lemaire’s vision of Elseco is for the ATOM digital network to be embraced as “the Amazon of insurance” and he credits Dubai’s entrepreneurial mindset and forward-thinking for the firm’s innovative growth. “In Dubai, there’s a can-do attitude,” he says. “Dubai has been very good in helping to translate a vision, constantly improving things and aiming for what it sees as the best. When I came to Dubai for the first time, I knew it was the kind of environment I wanted to be in,” says Lemaire.
“Being based in Dubai allows me to keep working with the US and Europe but to also work with Asia. It was very easy for the family to settle in and the small time difference with Europe is easy to manage,” he says. “DIFC itself is a nice and convenient environment to work in and they’ve created an ambience that’s very different from what you can find not only in the GCC, but also elsewhere.”