Canadian insurance technology companies need to push ahead and showcase their valuable wares to not only grow themselves but to meet the expanding needs of small businesses throughout North America, said Mark Morissette, founder and CEO of insurtech Foxquilt.
Morissette told an innovation summit of the Travel Health Insurance Association of Canada (THIA) that the Canadian insurtech ecosystem is vibrant with talent, renowned for building trading platforms.
“But we stay underground and are very discreet. We are not bold and loud … [but] we are going to try to shift that paradigm. We want to build multi-national companies with the purpose being to meet the needs of small businesses.”
Morissette said he founded Foxquilt in 2016 to empower small businesses to save on small business insurance, which includes general liability, workers’ compensation and professional liability/E&O.
Newcomers to the field need the fortitude to build technology with proof of concept, funded mainly by private equity. All small insurtech companies can raise capital in the U.S. quickly to build the required software, but Morissette said Canadian firms need to be able to do this many times better than their American counterparts if they are to succeed.
He suggested newcomers in insurtech start out with six channels, noting Foxquilt began with the consumer channel. It now has hundreds of products it sells in Canada and the U.S., but noted that he had to court large Canadian firms for their financial buy in. “They said no to the challenge south of the border,” he told the summit attendees. “It’s that ‘can’t do’ attitude … but I believe in the Gen Zs and millennials. We pushed through.”
He said there is no cross-border facility right now to service the interests of all the different businesses trading back and forth across the border. But he said companies like Staples, Walmart and Amazon need cross-border facilities that basically bridge their entire network of tens of thousands of e-commerce retailers.
“We’re taking on that challenge with more boldness than these million-dollar carriers – but we’re partnering with more of them to build value together.”
