2025 Insurathon: Supporting innovation in the insurance sector

What is the Insurathon?

The Insurathon is a Norton Rose Fulbright event which fosters technological advancements and innovation in the insurance sector, now in its eighth year. It enables us to support the finest start-up and scale-up technology businesses looking to develop a business concept in the insurance space.*

Applicants selected as finalists will compete for a prize, consisting of:

• £25,000 of UK legal and regulatory advice from specialist lawyers within Norton Rose Fulbright’s market-leading corporate and regulatory insurance practice
• A potential investment of £25,000 by way of an equity investment, such investment at our absolute discretion, subject to contract, diligence and Norton Rose Fulbright Investment Committee’s approval.

All applicants will benefit from a one-to-one 45-minute free legal clinic provided by our lawyers who cover legal and regulatory issues across areas such as corporate, restructuring, commercial arrangements, intellectual property, data privacy, employment and labour and financial services regulation. All finalists will be eligible for three 45-minute free legal clinics during the competition day.

When and where is it?

The Insurathon will be held on Thursday 13^th February 2025 at our London Office.

3 More London Riverside 
London, SE1 2AQ

Who can I contact if I have questions?

Julie Frizzarin

Entry criteria

The event is aimed at helping those developing new insurance models and business propositions.

Entrants are expected to be start-up or scale-up technology businesses looking to develop a business concept in the insurance space.

Participating businesses must have a focus on providing insurance-related products or services. These can relate to any area of the insurance value chain, be it product, distribution, administration, underwriting, broking, claims, insurance or reinsurance.

The type of start-ups and businesses we are interested in seeing proposals from include those developing technology or propositions relevant to:

• Insurance offerings that seek to digitise some or all parts of a particular insurance value chain using technology such as artificial intelligence (AI), chatbots, internet of things (IoT), analytics, and/or smart contract technology
• The commercial (re)insurance market across a broad range of capabilities, such as platforms, augmented underwriting, machine learning, claims, dynamic pricing, active risk management, data and analytics
• Novel insurance solutions and platforms, whether running off blockchain or similar technology, a secondary trading platform or an information sharing platform for (re)insurance
• Products or services that challenge the existing (re)insurance proposition and way of doing business

When considering the finalists for the Insurathon pitch event, the judges will put an emphasis on the following:

• Genuine insurance-related innovation. There must be a genuine innovation that the judging panel feels has a significant impact on the (re)insurance market.
• Prospects for requirement for interesting and challenging legal or regulatory advice. The business idea may include a new or complex legal or regulatory issue or challenge which needs to be overcome before the idea can be implemented.
• Maturity of concept. Business concepts should be sufficiently mature and have (or at least be in the process of putting in place) the necessary arrangements for them to be viable businesses, for example, a minimum viable product, pilots, some commercial traction.
• Team and execution capability. Team that has the experience to execute on the business model.

All selected finalists will be asked to agree to the NRF Insurathon 2025 Terms and Conditions and any specific terms and conditions of Norton Rose Fulbright in advance. Norton Rose Fulbright reserves the right to unilaterally amend any aspect of the event.

Schedule

Previous winners

Insurathon 2025 - OpenCover

OpenCover was announced as the winner of our eighth annual Insurathon.

OpenCover operates at the intersection of blockchain security and insurance. Founded by veteran tech entrepreneurs, it works with leading underwriters to tackle blockchain protocol risk, including smart contract bugs and severe economic events, and transaction risk, such as malicious smart contract interactions, oracle manipulation and asset depeg.

OpenCover offers onchain portfolio cover, real-time transaction cover and tailored institutional services, and is also a leader in onchain insurance and cover data. It is backed by NFX, Alliance, Village Global, Coinbase Ventures' Base Ecosystem Fund and a Lloyd’s Lab alum.

For its winning best pitch, OpenCover was awarded £25,000 of UK legal and regulatory advice from specialist lawyers within the firm’s market-leading corporate, regulatory insurance, intellectual property, employment and labour and data privacy practices and a potential £25,000 equity investment from Norton Rose Fulbright.

Jeremiah Smith, PhD, Co-founder and CEO at OpenCover, said:

“The Insurathon was as intense as it was insightful — I highly recommend all InsurTech founders apply. We are honoured and grateful to have won this year and look forward to writing an important chapter of blockchain safety history with Norton Rose Fulbright.”

Nicholas Berry, head of Norton Rose Fulbright’s InsurTech practice and founder of the Insurathon, said:

“Each year I am impressed by the degree of creativity and entrepreneurship on display. We once again saw many excellent entrants at this year’s event and it is a true testament to OpenCover’s impressive vision and innovative business model that it was crowned as the 2025 winner. We greatly look forward to working with Jeremiah and the OpenCover team in the months ahead.”

Norton Rose Fulbright has awarded more than £325,000 in prize funds through the Insurathon, since launching the competition in 2017.

The six entrants selected as finalists were:

• OpenCover (winners)
• Pinepeak
• Quotech Ltd
• Athlete Life Ltd
• Legal-Pythia LLP
• TalkTerms

Insurathon 2024 – JustParent 

JustParent as the winner of its seventh annual Insurathon, a competition to identify and support the most innovative tech start-ups and scale-ups within the insurance sector.

JustParent is the first UK provider of parental leave insurance for businesses. The start-up company’s new product enables UK businesses to offer enhanced – above statutory - parental leave pay for their staff without risking prohibitive financial costs. It does this by offering insurance which will pay 100 percent of the basic salary of staff on parental leave, above an agreed excess, allowing businesses to budget for it and plan ahead.

The insurance broker’s innovative platform enables intermediaries and distributors to transfer data to carriers in whichever format the carrier accepts. The platform automatically understands and generates code to connect to an API, allowing intermediaries to build API connections without any coding knowledge and removing the need for developers.

For its winning best pitch, JustParent was awarded a £25,000 investment from Norton Rose Fulbright and a further £25,000 of pro bono UK legal and regulatory advice from specialist lawyers within the firm’s market-leading corporate, regulatory insurance, intellectual property, employment and labour and data privacy practices.

An ‘honourable mention’ was also given to Lukango, a start-up which provides easy-to-understand, flexible insurance to the small business and sole professional community, a sector which has been traditional underserved in the insurance space. It does this through its proprietary intelligent algorithm which uses data gathered from customers to provide them with the most suitable product for them.

The seven entrants selected as finalists were:

• JustParent (winners)
• Lukango
• Husmus
• FireX.ai
• Quotech
• BirdsEyeView
• distriBind

Insurathon 2023 – InsurX

InsurX has been announced as the winner of global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright’s sixth annual Insurathon, a competition to identify and support the most innovative tech start-ups and scale-ups within the insurance sector.

InsurX is a digital exchange for the London insurance market, which enables brokers and carriers to trade risk instantly. The start-up has launched InsurX Exchange, a digital marketplace for the London Market that enables brokers to leverage poorly understood and underused data to secure instant follow capacity (i.e. the capital to back broker risks) from insurers.

The marketplace is designed to help brokers and insurers trade capacity through its data infrastructure, matching of risks and contractual binding services, with each new customer on the InsurX Exchange having an accretive effect on the benefits of the Exchange.

For its winning best pitch, InsurX was awarded a £25,000 investment from Norton Rose Fulbright and a further £25,000 of pro bono UK legal and regulatory advice from specialist lawyers within the firm’s market-leading corporate, regulatory insurance, intellectual property, employment and labour and data privacy practices.

The seven entrants selected as finalists were:

• InsurX (winners)
• Brokit (runners up)
• Superscript
• Breez
• Stubben Edge Group
• Yokahu
• Innovatrix Capital Limited

Insurathon 2021 – ARMD and Sotera Heritage

ARMD won best pitch and was awarded £25,000 investment and £25,000 of pro bono UK legal and regulatory advice from specialist lawyers within the firm’s market-leading corporate, regulatory insurance, intellectual property and data privacy practices.

ARMD offers a complete tool protection solution for tradespeople to deter tool theft and gives them the ability to get back to work quickly. ARMD’s offering is a radical reinvention of the way that tradespeople can protect their livelihoods and provides an inventory management app, smart IoT sensors and smart insurance.

Sotera Heritage was named runner-up and awarded £10,000 of pro bono legal advice. Sotera is developing data-backed insurance for the fine art and specie market, using AI to determine what unusual objects are, and creating secure digital provenance for art, antiquities, and unusual objects. Sotera’s social impact focusses on using their system to protect at-risk collections, combatting the looting and illicit trade in antiquities and art.

Five entrants were selected as finalists including:

• InsurX
• ARMD
• Sotera Heritage
• Innovatrix Capital Limited
• Lossbook

For more details, click here.

Insurathon 2020 - Anansi

Anansi won the virtual Insurathon in 2020, and was awarded £25,000 of pro bono UK legal and regulatory advice. Anansi is building a platform to deliver automated insurance products for ecommerce businesses, so merchants are able to focus on growing their business rather than managing disparate insurance policies or remaining under-insured. The panel of Norton Rose Fulbright judges were impressed with the vision and capability of the management team as well as the potential market opportunity.

Six entrants were selected as finalists including:

• Aazzur
• Anansi
• Aval
• Vida
• CavalRe
• Ultra Assure Limited
• Wetterheld

For more details, read here.

Insurathon 2019 - Riskbook

Riskbook won overall best pitch and was awarded the full £50,000 prize fund. Riskbook is a hyperconnected reinsurance marketplace enabling digitally native brokers to share risks with a worldwide audience of underwriters. The panel of Norton Rose Fulbright judges were impressed with the potential of the platform to transform the (re)insurance placement process.

Norton Rose Fulbright received a record number of applications to participate in the event, being held in its third successive year.

Nine entrants were selected as finalists to pitch for a prize value of £50,000, consisting of:

• £25,000 by way of an equity investment from Norton Rose Fulbright, subject to contract, diligence and Norton Rose Fulbright Investment Committee’s approval
• £25,000 of pro bono UK legal and regulatory advice from specialist lawyers within Norton Rose Fulbright’s market-leading corporate and regulatory insurance practice

The full list of firms who competed in the pitch event included:

• BirdsEyeView
• Caura
• Earthscope
• hlthie
• hyperexponential
• Nayms
• Onceand1
• PORTABL
• Riskbook

For more details, read here.

Insurathon 2018 - Concirrus, Mackenzie Intelligence Services and Pluto

Insurathon 2018 took place at the London offices of MS Amlin on November 2.

Concirrus was named the event winner. The judges awarded start-ups Mackenzie Intelligence Services and Pluto a share of Norton Rose Fulbright’s £25,000 prize fund of UK legal and regulatory advice.

Mackenzie Intelligence Services provides real-time intelligence from satellites and other geospatial and IoT data sources for claims assessment purposes. Pluto is seeking to revolutionise the millennial insurance market by seeking to acquire customers through more relevant channels such as social media and simplifying buying and claims processes.

The full list of firms who competed in the pitch event included:

• CargoSnap
• Concirrus
• Digital Fineprint
• Describe Data
• Felcana
• Glass AI
• McKenzie Intelligence Services
• Pluto
• RightIndem
• Sibyl AI

For more details, read here.

Insurathon 2017 - Flock Cover and Nexus Mutual

The inaugural Insurathon, aimed at supporting the development of innovative technology for the insurance sector and rethinking insurance related processes, took place at the firm’s London offices November 3-5.

The event included a pitch event on November 3 where InsurTech start-ups competed for a prize fund of £25,000 of UK legal and regulatory advice from the firm.

Flock Cover was named the winner of the inaugural Insurathon pitch event and awarded £20,000 of the prize fund. Flock is a start-up offering a drone insurance product.

The runner up was Nexus Mutual, a blockchain-enabled peer-to-peer platform designed around a tokenised discretionary mutual structure. It was awarded the remaining £5,000 of the fund to enable it to get initial advice as to the viability of digitising a discretionary mutual model in this way.

The full list of firms who competed during the November 3 pitch event included:

• Digital Fineprint
• Flock Cover
• Frosha
• Horizon Mind
• Nexus Mutual
• ShieldPay

For more details, read here.