Members of the Freshfields insurtech committee recently gave a webinar - expanding on one of its briefings on the “do's and don'ts of insurtech M&A”. We see this as a great time for incumbents to prepare themselves for insurtech M&A as interest in this space continues to grow and the market is maturing.
The webinar is structured around the lifecycle of an insurtech M&A transaction: (i) structuring; (ii) due diligence; (iii) transaction documentation; and (iv) integration. The webinar focusses on the differences between “traditional” M&A and an insurtech transaction, with each stage of the lifecycle given three key do’s or don’ts.
The webinar considers a range of issues, to highlight a few:
1. How diligence should be approached considering insurtech companies are often characterised by quick growth, founder-centric organisations with smaller teams and less management time available for diligence. In particular, which areas should be prioritised and are different approaches required?
2. Given the importance of intellectual property to insurtech companies, should these be treated as fundamental warranties with a higher (or no) caps on liability? Further, is the insurtech market mature enough to start seeing the use of warranty & indemnity insurance?
3. What is the view of the regulators (including financial, competition and data protection) to the current insurtech M&A landscape? For example, in Europe we’re seeing antitrust authorities focus much more on a target’s value – and a deal’s potential to bring together large data sets – as possible triggers for merger control filings.
The webinar can be viewed here. We would welcome any questions or feedback, please do get in touch
