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October 07, 2020 at 02:41 PM
Unqork overcame investment market brain fog this week and closed on efforts to secure $207 million in financing.
The New York-based company sells a system that helps life insurers and other companies put together straightforward software systems using drag-and-drop menus, without knowing how to code.
(Related: Organize the Data: Idea File)
The company’s client list includes Pacific Life, Nippon Life and Aon, and KPMG has been helping some of its own accounting and consulting clients start using the Unqork system.
Three earlier rounds of founding raised about $106 million.
Unqork says the new round of funding means the company’s stock has a total value of about $2 billion.
A group of funds and accounts managed by BlackRock was the biggest investor in the new funding round, Unqork says.
A fund controlled by a Google sister company was the biggest investor in the previous round of funding, which was disclosed in October 2019.
Unqork says it will use some of the cash from the new funding round to expand its sales team.
Here’s a look at some other recent life insurance insurtech news.
Underwriting
MIB Group, Braintree, Massachusetts, has persuaded more than 50 U.S. life insurers to use its electronic health reform (EHR) system.
MIB is a nonprofit insurer consortium that helps insurers share some of the information used in the life insurance underwriting process.
The MIB EHR system helps life insurers tap life insurance applicants’ electronic health records quickly, without calling up providers, listening to phone music, and re-learning how to use fax machines.
The system can also reduce the need for life insurers to require that applicants go through physical exams.
LexisNexis Risk Solutions, Atlanta, and ExamOne, Lenexa, Kansas, are teaming up to offer life insurers a mortality prediction data service.
The companies are using public records data, credit history data, driving record data, and other data from LexisNexis, along with medical lab test data and prescription use data from ExamOne, to calculate a death risk score for life insurance applicants.
Debra Gangelhoff, general manager for life insurance at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, said the service can reduce the need for traditional exams and lab tests.
LexisNexis Risk Solutions and ExamOne note that consumers will have to give life insurers permission to see the mortality risk scores before life insurers can see the risk scores.
John Hancock, Boston, and Amazon, Seattle, are joining to make the exchange of data between consumers and life insurers more fun.
John Hancock has agreed to add Amazon’s new Amazon Halo Band fitness tracker to its Vitality wellness rewards program.
John Hancock — an arm of Manulife Financial Corp. — offers the Vitality program in conjunction with Discovery Ltd., Sandton, South Africa.
The program provides personalized wellness and condition management advice and activities for participants, tracks the participants’ exercise level and vital signs, and provides rewards, including discounts on insurance and, in some cases, discounts on other goods and services.
