12/11 Three Things We Learned

Startups

This week in insurance there was continued M&A activity for traditional insurers and insurtechs, the largest life provider with new venture arm, and geographic expansion Here are the three things we learned this week:

  1. In M&A news Farmers has agreed to acquire the P&C business of MetLife.  This looks like a good acquisition for the Zurich subsidiary to quickly scale their personal lines P&C business and the kicker will be to distribute these products through Metlife’s group benefits platform a completely new and interesting channel for P&C products.  An insurtech Next Insurance also announcing a deal to purchase Juniper Labs, the combination expected to enhance small commercial underwriting capabilities with data science.
  2. Prudential launches PruVen Capital, a venture arm with $300 million to invest in startups.  Good move for them to be jumping into the venture pool with a sizeable amount of money to spread around for innovation that will help their core business.
  3. Lemonade enters France, a new jurisdiction that was expected based on guidance and necessary to continue their international expansion.  The stock has ben on an upward trend for the last month and most of the investor coverage has ben favorable.  Looking ahead to earnings in early 2021 to see how they are doing at keeping the loss ratio in check.

Thank you for following and stay tuned for our last updates of 2020 next week.