Welcome to the ABI InsurTech Spotlight, Week 4. Each week I’ll be putting questions to one of the movers and shakers of the UK InsurTech arena – the leaders of exciting InsurTech businesses, InsurTech and innovation leaders within ABI members companies, InsurTech experts, commentators and investors. This week we speak to Erik Abrahamsson, the Founder and CEO of Digital Fineprint.
Hi Erik, could you tell us in one sentence what Digital Fineprint is all about?
In a nutshell, we help insurers use data from social media! By using our analytics tools and marketing platforms, we help insurers connect to the right audience online, learn more about their customers, and make life easier for them.
And what about you – could you tell our audience something surprising about you?
I’m a farmer boy from Sweden who got tired of the cold weather and moved to London searching for sunshine and great entrepreneurial opportunities. At least I got one of the two, which is good enough for me!
So why should insurers, and their customers, care about Digital Fineprint?
We’re deliberately focusing on a very small niche, and are building world-leading expertise in the field of using social media data in insurance. This means that we can help insurers do their important job much better, in both personal lines and commercial insurance – and actually it’s probably in commercial lines where we’re seeing more opportunities. Social media data can completely transform the way an insurer looks at marketing, distribution – for example by making log-in or form-completion much simpler, and underwriting – for example by analysing large aggregates of social media data to understand customer behaviours or help them manage their risks better. Presently social media data isn’t being used to set individual prices. There are so many opportunities and we’re only just beginning to scratch the surface.
Talk to us about the influences that led to your decision to build a business in the insurance sector.
I had previously worked in Twitter’s strategy team based in Singapore, and saw first-hand how social media data was being used in other industries. But the more I learned about insurance, I realized that the same techniques and analytics tools could be used here as well. So after talking to industry participants and partnering with our amazing investors at Eos Venture Partners, we found a way of launching our product proposition in the insurance industry.
What are the main pitfalls to avoid for insurers looking to utilise social data?
There are certainly significant pitfalls to avoid, and I think these are the three main ones: users need to be 100% bought in and have an option to opt-in to share their data, the social media platforms need to be kept in the loop and the technical challenges of analysing large amounts of data need to be solved before launching. We are helping insurers overcome all three pitfalls, which is why companies such as Allianz, Hiscox, MetLife and others have chosen to work with us.
Finally, what would you expect to have achieved with Digital Fineprint in a year’s time?
Our company is less than a year old, but we’ve already worked with some of the world’s leading insurers, grown the team to 8 people, raised investment and most importantly sold and licensed our technology to a growing number of customers. In the next year, we’re going to more than double the team, help our insurance partners reach even wider customer groups, launch new analytics products and expand internationally, following our work with MetLife in Singapore. Perhaps most importantly, the team keeps reminding me to find a bigger office as soon as possible, as we’ve grown too fast to keep up!