When embedded insurance technology provider Salty Dot acquired CoNarrative in June 2021, the company gained a way to help expedite its data enrichment strategy, create new sources of value at distribution partners, and drive new insights on behalf of consumers to complement its unique underwriting advantage.
Salty Dot’s business originated from research work into insurance markets conducted at the University of Oxford, according to founder and CEO James Hall. “The company was founded to transform the industry and focus on the customer through a simple, transparent, self-service technology,” Hall says.
The company’s embedded insurance technology is designed to make insurance more affordable and more available to consumers, bringing back a sense of insurance as a community good, Hall says.
The embedded insurance platform is a proprietary software-as-service (SaaS) offering that enables carriers and distribution partners to offer a personalized policy to insure a product or service in real-time during the purchase process. The platform saves customers time and money and protects their investment at the point of purchase, Hall says.
Salty uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to analyze unique data sources about the buyer and the purchase. It then sorts through multiple carriers to offer the most suitable insurance plan. The company is licensed to operate in all 50 states through Salty Dot Insurance Agency, LLC and its affiliates.
The platform is currently deployed in automotive dealerships nationwide, and deployments to motorsports dealers started recently, Hall says.
The recent transaction with CoNarrative includes hiring staff to expand Salty’s engineering and product teams and the purchase of key intellectual property. As a result of the deal, four employees will be joining the company from CoNarrative, with backgrounds in user experience, real-time platform analytics, and data architecture.
With their expertise, Salty will further enhance its consumer experience and data platform to serve customers, distributors, and partners by decreasing the friction of the insurance buying experience. As a result, the company says it will be more adaptable to address changing consumer needs as the insurance sector digitizes.
The CoNarrative team initially will focus on building new experiences for consumers as part of Salty’s insurance platform, “creating memorable and scalable user experiences,” according to Salty.
“The acquisition of CoNarrative will further differentiate Salty’s customer journey,” said Toby Coleridge, chief product officer. “It will also expedite our data enrichment strategy and drive new insights on behalf of consumers,” complementing the company’s unique underwriting advantage.
Salty in December 2020 announced $16 million in total funding, from backers including Elefund, Fremont Group, Human Capital, and other investors. “This presents an opportunity to fundamentally change insurance underwriting and distribution, to the benefit of consumers and insurers alike,” Serik Kaldykulov, managing partner at Elefund, said at the time.
Salty said it will expand into more products and markets in 2021, and plans to extend its platform. It’s also applying funds to fuel recruitment of its distribution network.
“We believe the future of insurance is embedded insurance,” Hall says. “We're innovators and nerds and geeks about insurance and technology. It's fun trying to figure out how to drive a better user experience for something everybody in the world needs. The world is better when there's a more efficient insurance market, so we just keep trying to solve for that.”
