We’re excited to welcome Bastiaan, an expert on the intersection of tech and insurance, to Instabase, where he’ll leverage his deep Insurtech expertise to expand our insurance capabilities. In this spotlight, we’ll highlight Bastiaan’s background, journey to Instabase, and his vision for Instabase.
About Bastiaan:
Bastiaan is a dynamic and innovative insurance professional with a decade of insurance technology experience; credited with helping to establish the innovation arm ‘AXA Next’ at AXA Group – one of the largest insurance groups in the world. Technology was Bastiaan’s first passion – from tinkering with an early XT PC to developing the first website for his high school library – but it wouldn’t be his last. He went on to study business economics at The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and the University of Cambridge Judge Business School and made a career in financial services where he developed a passion for insurance. Now at Instabase, he is bringing his passions for technology and insurance together to drive real, positive change in this industry.
How does insurance benefit from technology?
After spending 10 years in insurance, I am deeply familiar with its pain points. This industry is full of wonderful, intelligent, and hard-working professionals, yet they are often held back by technology limitations. Claims often take between 15 and 30 days depending on the severity and complexity of the claim and can involve signatures and multiple exchanges of documents. With the right technology, we can reduce this time to minutes in many cases. Likewise, in commercial insurance, submissions for a new quotation are frequently sent offshore to have data manually tabulated – leading to errors and lengthy processing times. Furthermore, complex manual Anti-money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) processes are preventing a smooth customer experience and introduce risk.
These are not new problems. Unfortunately, traditional solutions like Robotic Process Automation (RPA) only apply to the 20% of data that is highly structured and digital. Existing solutions for the 80% of unstructured data trapped in documents typically rely on templates with limited efficiency when structure changes, complex sets of rules, or difficult to train machine learning models that can’t adapt to real-world nuances. Lastly, none of these solutions are easy to upgrade, meaning insurance companies are dependent on the whims of a technology vendor.
That sounds complicated. What is changing?
Insurance companies are developing a deeper relationship with technology and are investing in ‘insurtech’ through in-house data science teams and centers of excellence like we had at AXA. In 2020 alone there was $18.3bn of deal value in insurtech according to Pitchbook. At the same time, the risk environment has become more complex, the regulatory framework has become stricter, and the demands from customers have increased. In other words, the competitive environment is becoming more difficult, and current solutions no longer suffice. A new approach is required.
How did these insights lead you to Instabase?
Instabase is delivering real-time value and putting insurance and other industries on a new technology development path. Instabase is bringing real value to an impressive list of enterprise customers such as Standard Chartered and MetLife by taking a unique approach to this problem.
Instabase helps organizations automate processes that are full of documents. As a horizontal application platform, Instabase enables you to seamlessly switch different technologies in and out to solve end-to-end document extraction problems, presenting three key advantages. First, you always use the latest technology and models, leading to higher accuracy with document data extraction like claims or submissions. Second, the modular structure allows you to easily build end-to-end solutions like integrations with a policy or claims management system. And third, the low and pro code platform design makes it possible for all stakeholders in the organization to participate, which is critical as underwriters and claims adjusters know their workflows best. This modular and flexible philosophy extends to the architecture of the platform, making it easy and secure to operate anywhere and at scale.
The comparison of this “horizontal platform” to iOS hit home to me. Apple built a successful platform on which modular elements exist like your GPS and the camera software, enabling multi-billion dollar apps like Uber and Instagram to exist. Every time the camera software is updated, Instagram becomes a better experience. This philosophy does not exist in business enterprise software today. Instabase is here to change that.
Many insurance companies have complex software stacks with legacy products. Changing anything in such an environment is always difficult. Instabase slots in seamlessly next to existing infrastructure and can run on-premise in a private or public cloud. Moreover, it doesn’t create dependency and allows you to easily swap in and out new data science models, allowing you to benefit from best-in-class models and use your existing investments optimally.
What makes you excited about the future?
I am excited to establish Instabase as a critical partner to the global insurance industry in the next year. It will be rewarding to see insurance companies leverage our technology to free up capacity for their underwriters and adjusters and respond to their customers faster, boosting efficiency and customer satisfaction.
And what’s next?
I recently visited my family in the Netherlands after over 18 months apart due to the pandemic and I hope to see more of my wider family in the near future. Speaking of travel, I am also excited about connecting with the many insurance professionals in my network over the coming months at the various insurtech conferences, sharing my industry assessments and predictions, and telling the Instabase story. Looking forward to seeing you soon and do not hesitate to reach out to me directly!
