April 12, 2023

Pablo Duarte & Hilario Itriago: InsurTech LATAM

42 minutes

On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Pablo Duarte and Hilario Itriago, founders of The LATAM InsurTech, a fast-growing insurance technology accelerator for startups wanting to enter the Latam market via Miami.

Both Pablo and Hilario have been leading insurance innovation in LATAM for years. They both come from industry, and you will discover during our discussion that we are all in the fractional world of tech, where we split our time across those projects that matter most to us. For instance, alongside supporting The LATAM InsurTech, Pablo is also the director of client engagement at Bain and Company, and Hilario is also the president at BOXX Insurance, a leading cybersecurity provider.

During the podcast, they discuss the InsurTech ecosystem in LATAM, how they support the incumbent, broker, and startup worlds, InsurTech LATAM in numbers, and their InsurTech portfolio and opportunities across the LATAM market.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The insurance space, as we know it, has a phenomenal opportunity with the transformation technology brings. There's clearly a before-and-after technology that came into our world. That technology is now in consumers' hands, and we believe that is a massive change. One of the critical things we want to ensure in our markets is that more people get insurance. We're convinced that the more people get insurance coverage, the better their social and economic development will be.

InsurTech can bring insurance products closer to everyday individuals who can benefit from insurance coverage, and do so straightforwardly and efficiently. This opportunity must be leveraged by both incumbents and InsurTechs alike – and they both can do so. As collaborative as insurance has been over the centuries, the opportunities of InsurTech are no different. We believe that incumbents and InsurTechs can collaborate across the entire value chain, and that we can promote and influence this more and more, the better everybody's going to be, from industry insiders to consumers.

The InsurTech sector in Latin America remains very active. Unlike what we’ve seen in other markets where valuations plummeted, we haven't seen an effect in the LATAM market. There are over 400 InsurTechs in LATAM. The growth rate is about 20% year-on-year, and about 6% of companies die each year (just like any venture ecosystem). Some of the fastest-growing markets are in Colombia and Brazil, with one-third of the market in Brazil.

We saw the early days of InsurTechs focusing on personal distribution, that type of disruption, which typically is the sexy aspect of where people want to go. But over the years, we’ve seen more and more companies tackling the commercial space – whether it's small commercial or more traditional, larger-scale commercial. There's a great deal of opportunity in the sustainability space of commercial insurance. We're starting to see more opportunities there and, therefore, more InsurTechs. That's one of the angles that will drive many of the region's economies to see more solutions and innovations in that space, which could also be taken to other markets.

BEST MOMENTS

‘I've been on this InsurTech journey since 2016. Back then, InsurTech was just starting in Latin America, so there wasn’t much activity going on, and sometimes we even wondered if we made the right choice to get into InsurTech then!’

‘Through InsurTech, we see greater customization and personalization of value propositions. That is key because traditionally, insurance has been very structured and hard to tailor to customers' specific needs.’

‘Argentina is a country that has been known for innovation way before FinTech and InsurTech, it's a very entrepreneurial country, and precisely because of the economic circumstances, they have a robust pipeline of solutions created and grown in Argentina, but want to go elsewhere for growth.’

‘In terms of smaller markets that punch above their weight, our first InsurTech unicorn comes from Chile. It's a great balance between large pipelines of InsurTechs coming from big markets and smaller quantities but tremendous quality coming from smaller markets.'

ABOUT THE GUESTS

Find out about our guest using those links.

Pablo Duarte: https://www.linkedin.com/in/duartepablo/

Hilario Itriago: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hitriago/

InsurLab LATAM: https://www.latam-insurtech.com/

ABOUT THE HOST

Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet.

If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights.

And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at [email protected]

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