The rise of enigmatic insurtech unicorn Bolttech

Bolttech is no ordinary insurtech.

Launched in April 2020, the Singapore-headquartered firm achieved coveted unicorn status in just 15 months.

The firm is also backed by some of the biggest names in the public sphere. On the board of Bolttech sits Richard Li, chairman of telco firm PCCW and son of Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka Shing, and Malcolm Turnbull, the former prime minister of Australia.

The younger Li’s presence is unsurprising: Bolttech is backed by the Pacific Century Group – the private investment firm that he chairs – and was incubated within FWD, a digital insurance firm where he is the majority shareholder.

Photo credit: Bolttech

Despite that, Bolttech remains an enigma. Part of the reason may be its relatively unique positioning: Bolttech dubs itself an “insurance exchange” that helps both insurance players and non-insurance firms – such as Maya (formerly PayMaya), Lazada, and Tiki – to offer insurance products.

“We’re connecting a seller of insurance to a buyer of insurance,” Bolttech CEO Rob Schimek tells Tech in Asia, likening the company to a stock exchange. Prior to joining Bolttech, he was FWD Group’s managing director and group chief operating officer. He was also previously the CEO and president of AIG’s commercial insurance businesses globally.

On paper, Bolttech’s meteoric rise defies the struggles of well-capitalized US insurtech firms like Lemonade and Root. Since going public in 2020, both companies have been plagued by an inability to scale and high loss ratios, among other challenges.

Currently, Bolttech links over 700 distributors with over 189 insurance carriers, offering more than 5,000 products. In 2021, US$44 billion in premiums were quoted on Bolttech’s platform. (For comparison, Axa Insurance customers in Singapore paid US$85 million in new premiums in 2020.)

Those metrics are perhaps no barometer for Bolttech’s topline, which the company is tight-lipped about. However, it was enough to pique the interest of backers including Activant Capital and EDBI, the corporate investment arm of Singapore’s Economic Development Board.

What’s an insurance exchange?

Underpinning Bolttech’s core engine is a rising trend of embedded insurance, where non-insurtech players like banking, telecommunications, or ecommerce apps offer insurance products on their own platforms.

Through Bolttech’s platform, distributors can offer a range of products – mainly general insurance products for travel, cars, or homes – from various carriers. Bolttech claims it can embed its insurance exchange on a platform through APIs.

Image credit: Timmy Loen

“Extremely overvalued”?