Tractable reveals its plans for Japanese motor insurance market

Tractable has revealed its latest plans following property and casualty (P&C) insurer MS&AD Insurance Group Holdings deploying the insurtech’s artificial intelligence (AI) solution across Japan.

President and co-founder of Tractable Adrien Cohen told Insurance Times that the move will see the insurtech’s solution being used by two major insurers in Japan – MS&AD and Tokio Marine.

He said: “We are one of the few UK tech companies to have a presence at all in Japan – we now have an office of over 15 there to meet demand.”

Between the two Japanese insurers, they own 60% of the auto insurance market in the country.

And the insurtech’s solution could save adjusters 360,000 hours per year.

Unique market

But, the Japanese motor insurance market is very different to the UK’s.

Cohen continued: “Japan is a unique market that is very hard to crack for software companies. Customers are very demanding, the culture is unique and finding the right talent and building teams can be challenging.

“However, it is also one of the largest auto insurance markets in the world, with some of the largest P&C insurers, who have a strong appetite for innovation and deep tech adoption. It is now one of our largest market.”

Comparing the Japanese motor market to the UK’s, Cohen said that they have a unique way of doing things called “shokunin”.

“[Shokunin] literally translates to [the UK] word [for] ‘artisan’, but really it’s about absolute devotion to achieve mastery and perfection in any profession. When it comes to insurance, that means Japanese insurers are way more demanding. The detail with the service-level agreements (SLAs) and the quality expectations are unparalleled,” he explained.

Speaking about the differences between the two markets, Cohen said that in Japan the P&C market is dominated by four insurers that account for 90% of the market. For Tractable, working with as many of these insurers as it can creates “a huge opportunity to embed AI into how the sector as a whole processes claims”.

He added that “there’s a surprising reliance on the fax machine - a mainstay of the Japanese economy - as a means of transmitting information, such as pictures”.

Cohen believes Tractable’s solution will help everyone across the ecosystem.

“For the insurers - our customers - we help them augment productivity and accelerate their decision making. This benefits the whole ecosystem, getting drivers back more quickly to where they want to be – in their cars,” Cohen said,