Hartford Business Journal

4 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | OCTOBER 4, 2021 Startups, Innovation & Technology By Sean Teehan steehan@hartfordbusiness.com E quipped with a scribbled-on whiteboard, small putting green and a sign that says "Think Big," the Innovation Lab at the top floor of The Hartford's Asylum Avenue headquarters evokes a respite from the buttoned-down insurance company feel. Casual atmosphere aside, the 14 staffers who work in the two-year-old innovation lab play the increasingly important role of figuring out how The Hartford can deploy new technology to prevent losses for commercial clients from things like water damage and worksite accidents, and generate data to adjust insurance products the company offers. It's already showing signs of progress. For example, the lab spent a year experimenting with sensor technology that detects leaks in a building's piping system before they result in water damage. The Hartford — which employs over 6,000 people in Connecticut and generated $20.5 billion in revenue in 2020 — is now gearing up to deploy those sensors in thousands of customers' buildings, said Dan Campany, The Hartford's vice president of innovation and head of IoT (Internet of Things). "Our experiment process is kind of the primary component of what we consider is the lab's purpose," Campany said. While The Hartford has long conducted insurance-related research — it opened its Industrial Hygiene Laboratory in 1968 — establishing an innovation lab largely focused on IoT technology marks the 211-year-old insurer's embrace of insurance technology, or insurtech, which many predict will transform one of the Hartford region's most important industries. The insurtech sector is already booming with activity. According to market research firm CB Insights, insurtech companies raised $7.4 billion during the first half of 2021, more than the $7.1 billion raised in all of 2020. In recent years, Hartford has made efforts to attract insurtech companies to the city, while local insurers have created in-house insurtech products, or adopted technologies from startups. Travelers, for example, last year bought InsuraMatch, which helps individuals compare plans from more than 40 carriers nationwide. The company also partnered with South African insurtech startup Pineapple to create a mobile app through which customers can buy insurance for valuables that aren't traditionally covered. Return on investment Unlike companies such as specialty insurer Hartford Steam Boiler — which has long developed its own in-house products that use sensor technology to prevent things like pipe bursts — The Hartford's innovation lab doesn't try to create new technologies, but works on solving problems using existing IoT devices, Campany said. "Let's say we get a new idea from an underwriter, 'we're seeing a lot of these types of losses, can someone do something to help us mitigate these losses?' " Campany said. "We'll come up here and we'll get together and say ... let's figure out what technology we have that could solve the problem, and let's figure out what the design of the experiment and the hypotheses need to be." Key questions they have to answer include what technologies exist to solve the problem, whether companies would actually embrace them and could they work at scale? Once they develop a solution they'll test the technology on a small number of customers. Researchers at The Hartford have The Hartford's new innovation lab reflects insurance industry's embrace of insurtech Lab manager Bob Ross examines samples in The Hartford's Industrial Hygiene Laboratory in Hartford. HBJ PHOTO | STEVE LASCHEVER HBJ PHOTO | STEVE LASCHEVER Dan Campany, The Hartford's vice president of innovation and head of IoT in the company's innovation lab.

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