Ryanair and CarTrawler announce strategic partnership

Today, CarTrawler, the leading B2B technology provider of car rental and mobility solutions to the global travel industry, announces a new car rental partnership with Ryanair, Europe’s No. 1 airline.

Ryanair operates one of the most extensive short-haul networks in the world, carrying 207 million passengers per year. Its relentless focus on low fares and high efficiency has made it the most commercially important airline in European aviation.

Ryanair customers can enjoy exclusive rates, top-tier car rental options, market-leading customer service and a fully integrated booking experience through Ryanair’s website and on the myRyanair App.

Ryanair CEO, Eddie Wilson, said: “We’re pleased to announce our new partnership with CarTrawler. CarTrawler delivers great value with an outstanding range of car rental options at competitive prices, fully integrated into the Ryanair booking journey. Ryanair passengers already enjoy the lowest fares in Europe and this new product will offer them the best value with our price match guarantee.”

Powered by CarTrawler’s Connect Platform, the company’s proprietary cloud-based technology, the service makes it easier for travellers to secure the right car at the right price as part of their overall journey, an experience that keeps car hire aligned with the airline’s low-fare promise and supports its broader commercial strategy.

Peter O’Donovan, Chief Executive at CarTrawler, commented: “Ryanair’s decision to partner with CarTrawler is a powerful endorsement of our industry-leading Connect Platform, which delivers unparalleled results for our airline partners. We’re delighted to be reuniting with Ryanair to build a long-term, mutually successful partnership and to provide their customers with world-class car rental offers and exceptional value.”

Unlike many travel technology providers that divide their focus between consumer and business channels, CarTrawler operates solely as a B2B partner, focused on enabling its customers to succeed. Every innovation and investment in its platform is designed to strengthen partner brands and drive measurable commercial growth.

Building on this foundation, CarTrawler is evolving the platform into a wider ecosystem, integrating Insurtech and new ancillary products designed to boost partner revenues and traveller loyalty. This multi-year agreement enhances Ryanair’s ancillary offering and reinforces both companies’ commitment to delivering outstanding value and choice for millions of Ryanair passengers every year.

Kayna announces plans to create 13 new high-skilled jobs over the next two years,

Kayna, the Cork-based InsurTech founded by local entrepreneurs Paul Prendergast and Peter Bermingham, welcomed the Minister of State with responsibility for Financial Services, Credit Unions and Insurance, Mr. Robert Troy T.D., to its headquarters on Friday last for a high-level meeting focused on innovation, international growth, and the role of government support in Ireland’s thriving tech sector.

The Minister’s visit comes as Kayna announced plans to create 13 new high-skilled jobs over the next two years, as the company accelerates its expansion into the US and UK insurance markets. Kayna’s platform aims to simplify and embed insurance at the point of need, targeting underserved SME sectors such as construction, hospitality, and legal services. The model addresses a critical market gap: 40pc of small businesses in the US alone currently have no insurance, while a majority of the rest are underinsured.

Paul Prendergast, chief executive and co-founder, Kayna, spoke of the company’s future plans,

“The opportunity is huge. Embedded insurance is forecast to account for 15pc of the global insurance market, worth $1.5 trillion, within a decade. Kayna’s goal is to lead from the front, and to do so from Cork.”

Minister Troy met with Kayna CEO Paul Prendergast to hear directly about the company’s scaling plans and the wider policy considerations that can support home-grown InsurTech success stories like Kayna.

Speaking at the meeting, Robert Troy TD, Minister of State for Financial Services, Credit Unions and Insurance, said: “Kayna is a real success story, and represents the growing environment for InsurTech innovation in Ireland. I congratulate them on their plans to hire new staff and expand further into more markets. As Minister of State with Responsibility for Financial Services, Credit Unions, and Insurance I am committed to ensuring that Ireland remains a globally competitive and supportive environment for financial services, including InsurTech. A well-functioning insurance market is vital for any economy, and the work that Kayna is doing to support businesses navigate the sector is the sort of innovation I want to continue to foster in Ireland.”

Kayna, founded in 2021 is the third start up from its co-founders, whose previous ventures in the sector have achieved international scale. Backed by €1 million in funding and a partnership with multinational broker Willis Towers Watson (NASDAQ: WTW), Kayna is delivering embedded insurance solutions that allow small businesses to access tailored coverage directly through the software platforms they use daily.

Kayna has announced plans to begin hiring software engineers and business development specialists to support its growth plans.

The team will remain rooted in Cork, a city Mr. Prendergast describes as “central” to their entrepreneurial journey,

“We’ve always believed in building from Cork. Over the years, we’ve launched and scaled three insurtech companies here with invaluable support from Enterprise Ireland. That backing combined with strong government policy has never been more important. If Ireland is to remain a tech hub of global relevance, we must continue to invest in the ecosystem that enables founders to take bold ideas to market quickly and effectively.”

Enterprise Ireland, which has supported Kayna since its inception, was also represented at today’s meeting.

Anna-Marie Turley, Department Manager for Fintech and Financial Services, Enterprise Ireland, said: “Enterprise Ireland is committed to supporting Irish-owned businesses to start, compete, scale and connect, and this includes innovative companies like Kayna, who are providing cutting-edge solutions to global challenges. It is our long-term ambition that exporting Irish companies become the primary driver of the Irish economy, and we are proud to work with Paul and Peter as they scale their third business, having already secured a major partnership with WTW for the UK and US markets.  We would like to congratulate them on this milestone, and wish them every success on their business journey.”

Irish InsurTech Kayna Wins Insurtech NY Award

Kayna, an Irish InsurTech outfit that developed a unique embedded insurance infrastructure, enabling distribution through vertical SaaS, has won the Carrier/Broker Competition for Global Early-Stage Insurtech at InsurTech NY’s Spring Conference held in New York.

The co-founding pair of Paul Prendergast, CEO and Peter Bermingham, CTO developed the solution to provide the technology orchestration layer between Insurance Carriers, Brokers and any Vertical SaaS platform to distribute insurance products. This novel technology-enabling layer is optimised for Embedded Insurance distribution.

Kayna’s No-Code embed integrates with Vertical SaaS platforms that manage the daily operations for thousands of SMB customers. It leverages the unique data of that platform to provide insurance products specific to the needs of each business. It then tracks the relevant changes to the data to enable real-time updates to insurance policies, which adapt continuously to changes within a business. This ensures that Carriers and Brokers are seamlessly serving SMBs with relevant policies based on real-time SMB data and in turn SMBs benefit from the provision of right-sized insurance cover.

Speaking of the win, Kayna CEO Paul Prendergast, commented that, “This award is a great validation of our technology and business model. We are focused on working with carriers and brokers to allow them to compete in an increasingly crowded SMB insurance sector. As an enabling-technology company, we provide an end-to-end service regardless of carrier and broker technology capability and our infrastructure works across any platform to use real-time SMB data. This is unique and transformative in terms of embedded insurance distribution and it fixes a massive problem of over and under insurance. We were honoured to compete with the brightest InsurTech talent in the world for this win which represents huge opportunity, giving us exposure to 10+ early-stage investors and insurance leaders, and the chance to present in front of 400+ InsurTech influencers live in New York.”

David Gritz , Managing Director InsurTech NY, in announcing the win stated that, “The Carrier/ Broker award is given to the startup that is seen to have the largest commercial potential. The award was developed to recognise the innovative early stage innovators in the space.” 

How it Works

Kayna accesses Vertical SaaS platform for SMB operations data

Kayna embeds Carrier/Broker with No-Code

Kayna deploys end-to-end orchestration layer

Kayna enables Insurance distribution

Kayna actively conducts real-time SMB data tracking, enabling Vertical SaaS platform to serve unique, real-time carrier/broker insurance solutions to platform customers providing them with relevant, right-sized policy offers.

The Embedded Insurance market is forecast to grow to US$722bn in GWP by 2030 – more than six times its current size.

Technologies That Are Currently Used in the InsurTech

Currently, every manager dreams of automating his business. He will be able to ensure the best work of the enterprise because software is a great way to control the process, keep records of customers, and also skill fully coordinate the work of all his employees. Currently, Insurance Software Development is indispensable for a variety of areas, you can separately find software for credit companies, banking companies, for trading. A separate category is software for automation of the insurance sector.

Features of software selection

It is important that companies from the insurance sector improve their solutions so that the software is ideally suited to the tasks of the enterprise so that it guarantees perfect work and promises the opportunity to improve all indicators. In addition, automation is a great chance to remove the human factor, reduce the likelihood of errors. This is an opportunity to make the work of the enterprise as high-quality and profitable as possible.

Every manager should understand that only by turning to real professionals it is possible to truly improve the work of the entire system. It is important to choose the right technologies that are used for the insurance industry. Many software solutions are developed separately for each user, while they have a huge advantage over other areas. There are many platforms that allow you to develop software, so you can independently determine what is most important to you, and you will be able to conduct full digital management of your company’s personnel.

This is an opportunity to save time and increase efficiency. It is necessary to get technological support for the entire process, select staff, organize the work of employees, and monitor the movement of documents among clients. If you find the right platform, you can easily create the perfect software for your field, which will answer all your questions. Altamira software is a provider of HR management software.

Deployment settings that have been used and debugged by hundreds of clients for a long time, when creating their programs, companies focus on what is important for employees of a particular field, on what they consider necessary in order to improve their skills, and make the work as profitable as possible. The fact is that most often, software could be found in the banking and financial spheres, but many began to realise that special digital technologies are required in the insurance sector.

Such technologies help to improve the quality of customer service and practically reduce dissatisfaction with services to zero. However, after insurance companies realised that they were significantly lagging behind other areas, that negative reviews about the company appeared due to the lack of automation, they decided to expand this range of services that are focused on all customer segments. Those companies that decide to automate their activities stand out significantly and are competitive in the markets.

Signs of reliable software

Computer technologies are based on different factors, they use different digital capabilities in order to improve their services and internal work processes. Any insurance company can introduce digital technologies into its work, make sure that all the necessary data is obtained in order for the company to work optimally, efficiently. Factors such as data analytics, rapid service delivery, and personalization play an important role. The company gets cost reduction, anti-fraud. All this is under the power of a single technology that you can implement into the successful operation of your enterprise.

If we consider such a factor as analytics, it is very important that the insurance company assess the risk parameters as quickly as possible, predict any events, as on https://www.softwareadvice.com/insurance/. Based on these data, you can easily make a decision. However, you should entrust this to a robot, an automation program. The work will go much faster, more correct decisions will be made because the human factor is excluded. The client no longer needs to meet personally with the insurer, or visit the office, all services can be provided online.

Personalization allows you to provide services through different Internet sources, it is an opportunity to establish close relationships with customers, you can use mobile applications, and access a wide range of information. You should learn as much as possible about customers. Such a factor as reducing costs is associated with the fact that the company gets the opportunity to reduce its costs for maintaining a huge number of personnel.

By choosing the best software, more customers will appear, they will be able to process more applications. With the help of robotics, it is possible to significantly improve the efficiency of work. As for fraud detection, this problem can be solved with the help of forecasting. This is an opportunity to reduce the risk of unfair use to the very minimum. All this is possible if you create a special artificial intelligence yourself, a special program that will make the work of the enterprise as fast and efficient as possible.

Using this way of improving the quality of work, you will understand that the work will be improved, many functions will appear, and you will be able to count on software support. However, it should be understood that in order for the program to suit you, you must trust real professionals.

Employees must maintain databases, manage documents skillfully, and understand the possibility of organizational schemes. All employees of the company must have sufficient experience in IT technologies, must constantly come up with any integrated solutions. Due to the fact that the company offers a variety of software solutions in order to manage personnel, the company can organize management processes at different levels.

You can always:

  • track attendance;
  • vacation plan;
  • manage documents;
  • manage learning in a team;
  • view employee profiles.

All this makes it possible to create the perfect software that will make the company’s work fast and efficient. There is always an opportunity for managers to independently make decisions about what software they need, what exactly they need to take into account when creating. They usually develop special custom applications to provide an excellent user experience. The software should use various algorithms, mobile applications, platforms and implement financial software. This is a special moment of software development and consulting for individual insurance. These programs have long established themselves as the best, as those that constantly introduce new products. Artificial intelligence is an opportunity to achieve a new level. A large role is given to the expansion and predictive analytics, also, artificial intelligence has a feature to process large amounts of data and find the necessary pattern. All this makes the work of the enterprise profitable, affordable, and allows you to get rid of any difficulties.

@BlinkParametric announced among @LloydsofLondon Cohort 5 selection #insurtech #BlinkParametric #Tech

Blink earned its place as 1 of just 10 InsurTechs selected following a competitive ‘virtual pitch’ process that had 140 of the world’s insurance industry  trailblazers vying for a place on the prestigious Lloyd’s Lab innovation accelerator programme.

Lloyd’s, the world’s leading specialist insurance and reinsurance market announced Blink’s selection to join its fifth cohort which will be focussed on 3 themes including data & models, new insurance products & markets and response to COVID-19.  The 10-week programme will commence on 7th September. The 10 successful companies can be viewed here.

Speaking of today’s announcement, Blink’s co-founder and CEO Paul Prendergast said: “This has already been a tremendous experience for us and we’re just getting started. The pitch process allowed us to really refine our platform’s potential with an exciting range of commercial solutions and Lloyd’s Lab is going to work with us to accelerate the development and realisation phases by providing us not only with Lloyd’s market access, but with rich historical data, analysis, modelling and testing forums. Our parametric platform’s effectiveness in supporting increasingly Covid-19 prone, high frequency, low severity claims environments was a major success factor in this process so we’re ready to showcase its full potential with this golden opportunity. We also get to collaborate with some of the world’s best minds in insurance innovation, so we are hugely honoured and thrilled to have been selected.”


PICTURE Darragh Kane

 

Blink, founded in 2016 and bought by AIM listed CPP Group just 6 months after it was set up is now a world leader in parametric insurance product innovation, transforming its clients’ complex offerings into superior service experiences with simple, intuitive, online products. It was recognised in 2019 as one of the world’s fastest growing Travel Insurance InsurTechs making it onto The INSURTECH100 –  an annual list of the world’s most innovative company in the InsurTech ecosystem solving significant industry problems, generating cost saving or efficiency improvements within insurance. The company partners globally with insurance and financial services companies, driving innovation in Asia, Europe and North America.

Trevor Maynard, Head of Innovation at Lloyd’s, said: “This cohort of InsurTechs will play an important role in our response to the COVID-19 pandemic and to help us develop the new models and insurance products of the future. We will undoubtedly need new products and services for insurers to deliver confidence and security against future waves of this pandemic and other systemic risks of the scale we have seen in 2020. I’m thrilled to have the best InsurTech’s across the globe join the Lloyd’s Lab and look forward to seeing the progress they make. Lloyd’s has thrived on its purpose of sharing risk and its as important now as it has ever been to combine minds and build a braver world.”

Blink launches Blink Luggage parametric insurance solution. #Insurtech #Travel #BlinkLuggage

An Irish Insurtech looks to the horizon as it launches Blink Luggage, building the next generation of Travel Insurance services in a changed world. The launch comes as Blink works with its Travel Insurance partners on developing post-COVID-19 Travel Insurance solutions.

Speaking of the launch, Paul Prendergast, CEO of Blink, “Although Travel is very tough right now and everyone is dealing with personal and business difficulties, we are bullish and continue to invest to allow our partners to innovate at speed.”

Blink Luggage:

–          offers travellers an immediate pay-out if luggage is delayed and offers service options ranging from lounge access to care benefits based on the travellers outbound/inbound transit status,

–          after 4 days, if it is officially confirmed that luggage is deemed lost, travellers receive an additional immediate pay-out.

Blink Luggage cover does not impact on any separate valid claims on any Airline Luggage Policy.

Mr. Prendergast explained,

With the COVID-19 pandemic triggering a massive influx of claims across the Travel sector worldwide, we face a major turning point opportunity for the travel insurance industry. Claims processing delays and system inertia are the ultimate proof that a major shift in how claims are paid is now critically important for the long-term future of the sector. We are working with our partners to deliver parametric solutions to address these challenges efficiently as Blink can process more than 60,000 claims per hour and today’s consumers demand and expect immediate remedy which we can deliver”.