Award Applications

NuvaLaw – the integral cog in the insurance revolution
Submission for the Digital-Insurer European Startup Insurtech Award 2017

Please find below a motivation covering the awards criteria. The leadership of NuvaLaw believes our company is addressing a significant market challenge. By reducing claims costs and driving efficiencies into an industry which is facing ever-shrinking profit margins, NuvaLaw brings a fresh opportunity for a collaborative solution which will benefit the entire sector. This award will assist in raising our profile and help in our drive to build a collaborative approach to addressing sector sustainability. We hope your panel will favourably consider our application.

NuvaLaw is an inter-party negotiation and adjudication platform that brings together tools, processes and services to reduce the time and cost to settle claims.

The problem
Inter-party negotiation processes are unstructured, with no business rules or supporting information management tools. This makes negotiation inefficient and costly. In addition, unresolved disputes are currently settled through long and expensive litigation processes.

The Nuvalaw platform currently focusses on two problem areas:
• Motor recovery claims between insurers in the UK alone cost the industry £1.8 Bn to process 1.1 million claims each year.
• Determining the merits and liability in vehicle accident and personal injury cases result in many disputes. In fact, there are currently more than 1 million claims that require adjudication.
The UK based CII Report of 2012 already identified the problem of the high costs of disputed inter-insurer vehicle claims. However, until now, no company has delivered a sustainable solution.

The NuvaLaw solution

In an environment which is notoriously competitive, and where every action is weighted on careful data analysis, the NuvaLaw founders knew that the introduction of our digital negotiation platform for inter-insurance claims would require a mind shift from insurance company leadership, as well as sound evidence of its business benefits.

Fortunately, work with the South African state-supported motor vehicle insurance fund gave two of the NuvaLaw founders more than 40 000 cases to prove its efficacy.

The project saw 76% of the contested cases settled – 70% of which were settled in the conciliation (first) phase. It also showed a reduction in settlement costs of 36%, with capital payouts 42% lower than the typical costs of litigated cases.

Using our expertise in alternate dispute settlement, and building a new process of information management, the team designed a solution which proved that our way of engaging was not only possible, but profitable.

The benefits of the solution are being tested in South Africa with early signs of local insurance companies willing to embark on collaboration and further co-creation.

The NuvaLaw process, still relies on an early exchange of information and the abandonment of the traditional litigious environment, but adds enterprise-grade new technologies which significantly improve the settlement experience.
Today, NuvaLaw is also winning over insurers in the UK and Europe. We are working together to co-create a platform-based ecosystem, which relies on collaborative technologies to achieve equitable commercial outcomes in both motor vehicle accident and personal injury claims.

Our journey has shown us that while the evidence is there to prove our processes, new technologies such as blockchain and AI can help us catapult the insurance industry into a new age. It is the perfect storm that will disrupt both the legal and insurance industries, for the benefit of the consumer.

Accelerated market capture through strategic partnerships

NuvaLaw has entered a strategic partnership with UK-based Validus-IVC, to provide an end-to-end motor claims solution to the global insurance industry. Making use of leading edge technologies including predictive analysis and blockchain, the new offering will also include a much-needed personal injury offering.

Speaking at the London accelerator, Startupbootcamp InsurTech demo day, where NuvaLaw was part of the 2017 global cohort, CEO Willie Pienaar said: “We are delighted that we can make use of our extensive know-how in the personal injury space and add to the proven Validus solution. Talks with both South African and global insurers have confirmed that this offering fills one of the remaining gaps in the motor insurance claims industry ”

The NuvaLaw process has already been tested by the company founders in a project with over 40,000 cases showing a 40 percent reduction in legal costs and indemnity payments, and disputed cases being settled four times faster than court-based resolution.
Validus’ proprietary claims management software, verify™, meanwhile, facilitates rules-based automated analysis and settlement of subrogated, protocol and common law motor claims.

“The partnership will allow NuvaLaw, together with Validus, to deliver a proven personal injury offering which will enhance our existing product and ensure our customers receive an holistic solution. Insurance companies using verify™ have already seen marked improvements in efficiencies in their claims management. Working with NuvaLaw will further increase this as well as boost cost savings in the personal injury space,” commented Validus CEO, Mike Srokowski.

Measured by Gross Written Premium, Validus has currently secured around 70 percent of the UK market, with the majority of the top ten insurers, signed up and actively using verify™ for the seamless exchange of claims data. Around 48,000 claims now pass through verify™ each month and the volume of subrogated recovery claims that has been transacted through the portal now exceeds 450,000 in less than one year.

The partnership will see both companies afforded the opportunity to grow their market presence. Future expansion discussions with insurers have included the existing UK, Australian and South African markets along with Dutch and Scandinavian companies also showing interest.
For a video presentation on the NuvaLaw solution please visit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GY2fxoXMFE8