Laura Drabik: Spotlighting the ‘hottest new insurtechs’

Insurtech Vanguards – an insurtech incubation programme run by insurance software firm Guidewire – has the lofty ambition of supporting insurers to find and collaborate with the ”hottest new insurtechs” coming to market.

The scheme, which operates on a two-year term basis, first started in October 2021 with a cohort of five insurtechs graduating to become part of Guidewire’s “partner marketplace programme”.

This marketplace functionality enables chosen insurtechs to integrate with the company’s cloud platform to deliver tailored propositions for insurers – as at October 2024, there were 250 of these integrations available.

For Laura Drabik, chief evangelist at Guidewire, the Insurtech Vanguards programme is an important ”investment vehicle” that provides ”mentorship” for burgeoning insurtechs, while also striving to fill ”innovation gaps or innovation capabilities” in Guidewire’s own offering.

For example, insurtechs that have been involved in the scheme include artificial intelligence (AI) climate risk prediction tool ZestyAI and decision automation platform Indico Data.

Insurtech Vanguards, as a model, has proved so popular that there is now a waiting list of potential participants, Drabik tells Insurance Times.

To be accepted onto the programme, which is open to global insurtechs, startups first submit a video that is reviewed by carriers, analysts and Guidewire staff.

The second stage of the process involves attending a pitch day – a few of these take place over the course of the year. This year’s pitch days were sponsored by professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), there are three a year in various locations. The 2024 cohort has 55 insurtechs. 

Drabik hopes that by showcasing the best of breed insurtechs via the Insurtech Vanguards incubator, investors and carriers can easily cherry pick which firms they want to invest in.

She explains: “These are the hottest new insurtechs [that] carriers don’t have time to investigate and they may not have the appropriate resources [to do this] – but we do.

“The smaller [insurtechs], the value propositions [might not be] cutting it. You are not going to invest in something [if it] doesn’t have legs yet [or] it’s not proven.”

’Paving a path’

Another goal of the Insurtech Vanguards scheme is to address the lack of female founders and chief executives in the insurtech and insurance market, adds Drabik – who was a board member of the now dissolved non-profit organisation Girls in Tech from June 2020.

According to data published by specialist employment law firm GQ Littler in December 2023, just 29 out of 431 top bosses across the insurance sector are women.

“We take a concerted effort, look for diversity [and] find those insurtechs to bring them into the programme,” she says. ”I’m very proud of what we have done.”

Speaking at Guidewire’s Connections 2024 conference in Nashville, US on 18 November 2024, Drabik told attendees: “What I’ve learned from working in insurance for about 25 years is that it is [about] providing career opportunities.

“I’m sure there [are] many male allies in this audience that would say the same thing.”

Supporting this ethos, Guidewire has an employee resource group for its female staff called Guidewire Recognition of Women, or Grow. The main principle underpinning this group is that diversity is a superpower, Drabik notes.

Grow aims to engage a larger community of women and girls that would like to forge a career in technology. It offers opportunities around networking and professional development.

“Less than 7% of chief executives are female,” Drabik says.

For her, raising awareness about the gender diversity gap is not just a personal goal, but an industry-wide must-have in order to facilitate “paving a path for women”.