Setoo, providers of a platform for embedded travel and leisure insurance; and Pattern, which designs parametric insurance programs, have merged. Pattern will be the name of the joint company.
Setoo was a United Kingdom-based managing general agent looking to expand to the United States, when a shared investor introduced them to Pattern. The merger allows Setoo to avoid the time it would take to meet the regulatory requirements required to begin selling insurance in the United States. The joint company will be able to marry the borderless online world with the localized insurance world, according to Meitav Harpaz, CEO and Founder of Pattern Insurance Services.
“The global economy: you buy something, it's good,” said Harpaz. “You can buy it from everywhere, and it gets to you, no matter where you are in the world. So, you have that experience in the online world without borders, but insurance is very much localized and very much confined by borders. The regulation in Ohio is different from the one in New York, different from the one in the UK, and in France, and so on.”
Setoo’s platform allowed for insurance products to onboard quickly leading to ease of digital integration, according to Harpaz. The platform’s technology took Pattern’s assets, actuarial model, automated processes and underwriting.
Ease of use being extended to the consumer was a priority for the merger. Using API, businesses will be live and fully compliant within hours. Consumers will receive real time risk analysis and pricing, according to Harpaz.
“In online transactions consumers are used to some form of an experience,” said Harpaz. “And the experience is typically very simple and, in a lot of the cases, it's automated. This is where we've put a lot of effort, both in terms of the integration with our platform that businesses integrate with us. Or integration is super easy, super fast.”
The pandemic also led consumers to expect more flexibility from their insurance platforms, according to Harpaz. He used the example of a traveler during the pandemic who would need to prioritize the flexibility to cancel or change plans before any other concern.
“Following the COVID pandemic, global markets were severely altered, and consumer concerns of unprotected risks grew even bigger,” Noam Shapira, co-founder and Co-CEO of Setoo said in a statement. “Our customers who use the platform to offer our innovative protections are already seeing accelerated recovery ahead of the rest of the market. We are aligning efforts with Pattern to bring back consumer confidence when making online purchases and we are excited to accelerate our vertical and geographical expansion.”
