Highlights:
- According to the company based in Mountain View, California, Capitola’s platform increases the productivity of brokerage firm employees by eliminating repetitive manual tasks.
- The platform employs AI to monitor the insurance-related risks in terms of the company’s assets.
Capitola Insurance Services LLC, a startup that uses artificial intelligence to simplify commercial insurance transactions, has raised USD 15.6 million in funding.
Munich Re Ventures led the Series A round, which was announced recently. Lightspeed Venture Partners, a previous Capitola investor, also took part. In 2021, the year it was founded, the startup raised a five-million-dollar seed round.
Businesses do not purchase insurance directly from insurers but rather through a broker, an intermediary. The broker assists in identifying a policy that will meet the company’s needs. It then locates an insurer willing to take on that policy.
According to the company based in Mountain View, California, Capitola’s platform provides a software platform that helps simplify commercial insurance brokers’ lives. According to the company, its platform increases the productivity of brokerage firm employees by eliminating repetitive manual tasks.
Businesses frequently purchase insurance for multiple assets, such as servers and manufacturing equipment. Each of these items poses a different level of danger. A commercial insurance provider will only cover an asset if the risk level of that asset is aligning with its internal policies.
One of the most difficult aspects of insurance brokers’ work is finding an insurer willing to cover a company’s assets. Capitola claims that its platform can make the job easier. The platform employs AI to monitor the insurance-related risks in terms of the company’s assets. Then it matches those risks with insurers willing to underwrite policies at that risk level.
When deciding on an insurer, a broker considers several factors. Capitola claims that its platform provides data that enables brokers to perform such evaluations more quickly.
A commercial insurance policy has an attachment point specifying the maximum loss the insurance company will cover. This metric influences the monthly fee that a business must pay for its insurance policy. Capitola’s platform includes an analytics tool that enables users to compare between different attachment points and their associated monthly payments to find the best combination.
It also offers access to other data, such as how much a broker can make from selling a particular insurance policy. The data is visualized in charts by the company to facilitate user analysis.
Capitola claims that its platform can assist brokers in selling new policies and renewing existing ones. When a policy is about to expire, it alerts brokers and allows them to request a renewal from the insurer underwriting that policy. It also includes features that allow you to switch to a new insurance provider if necessary.
Capitola’s platform also includes additional productivity features. It includes a task assignment tool that allows managers to coordinate who oversees which aspects of a commercial insurance transaction. The employees of the broker’s office can generate a proposal automatically, when a business plans to buy a fresh policy or renew an existing one.
Co-founder and CEO Sivan Iram said, “The insurance industry has seen many technological advancements over the years, but very little attention has been given to the insurance professionals and the tools they use. Our platform brings together brokers and underwriters, removing many of the operational inefficiencies around manual processes and repetitive tasks to allow them to focus on what they do best.”
Capitola plans to use a part of the recent USD 15.6 million round to expand its presence in the United States. It also intends to add new features, such as market intelligence tools for brokers.