The General Assembly of the Swiss InsurTech Hub on 13 January marked the start of the year without any start-up time: the Hub team outlined a program that not only discusses innovation, but also aims to bring it to the market via specific formats. The hub announced a full-day symposium on “Embedded Insurance” for the following week. The focus will be on practical implementation: insurers, consumer platforms and telcos will meet InsurTechs and technology providers to show how products can be developed and placed more quickly. Demand is so high that a second edition is already in the pipeline.
The Swiss InsurTech Hub sees “embedded insurance” not as a niche topic, but as a structural change. The announced symposium at ETH Zurich will therefore be based less on theory and more on real use cases and platform models. The aim is to make visible how technology layers, partnerships and new sales logics interact in order to offer insurance where customers actually need it.
Internationalization: London as a starting point
At the same time, the hub is pushing ahead with its international presence. Roadshows are planned, and further activities in the MENA region and Italy were also mentioned. With the ITC event in London (26/27 January) and the second anchor, Insurtech Insights, Europe’s largest insurtech conference on 17/19 March in London, organized with members and the Swiss Embassy, two important events for the industry are on the agenda. The network aims to extend invitations to local contacts in a targeted manner, thereby increasing reach and relevance.
Conferences as a marketplace for decision-makers
A guest article by Hung Wai Wong, Asia President of Insurtech Insights, positioned the major industry meetings in London, New York and Hong Kong as global hubs for decision-makers. There are preferential conditions for hub members. The subtext is clear: international scaling requires locations with a high density of decision-makers, a clear meeting structure and systematic networking.
Three forecasts for 2026
Florian Graillot, investor at astorya.vc, formulated three expectations for the coming year. Firstly, the market will not only be characterized by large takeovers, but also by mergers between start-ups. He particularly mentioned the areas with many similarly positioned providers such as cyber, SMEs and personal lines. Secondly, RegTech (regulatory technology) could become more important in the insurance sector, because although regulation is often seen as a brake on innovation, in practice it is a core operational problem that can be solved more easily with technology. Thirdly, AI could lower the barriers to entry to such an extent that even a solo founder could reach the 10,000-policy mark, which would represent a milestone that was previously only realistic after millions in financing.
From search engines to AI answers
Another presentation by Gennaro Cuofano, CRO of Wordlift , showed how classic search logic is increasingly being replaced by AI overviews and agent interfaces. For insurers and brokers, this means that placement in “blue links” (hyperlinks) is less important than the technical ability to be visible at all in AI responses and agent recommendations. Visibility thus becomes a question of data structure, semantics and system architecture.
Agentric AI in Claims
Agentric.ai presented the concept of “digital colleagues”. Using travel insurance as an example, the claims agent “Clara” takes over large parts of the end-to-end processing, from document processing and decision logic to the reasoned response to customers, as CEO and co-founder Domen Gluhar put it. It promises massive time savings, high accuracy and a reduction in the workload of employees, who can concentrate more on special cases.
Platform approach for fraud, claims and compliance
Jocelyn Rivollet, Senior Account Executive at Shift Technology, showed how a provider originally focused on fraud detection has developed into a broad AI platform for underwriting, claims and compliance risks. Scaling across many markets, a transparent operating model and a strong data science base should ensure measurable ROI and continuous improvement.
Digital response to the protection gap
In conclusion, Lifeinsure highlighted a typical Swiss bottleneck: the protection gap for families and the “analog barrier” of term life insurance with long processing times and high friction. The promise is fully digital conclusion in minutes with immediate protection, geared towards life events such as starting a family or taking out a mortgage.
Operational and agency
All in all, the General Assembly conveyed less rhetoric about the future than a clear work programme: embedded insurance as a growth lever, internationalization via London, roadshows and a shift from “AI as a feature” to agent-based workflows that reorganize entire process chains. 2026 begins visibly operationally at the Swiss InsurTech Hub.
Binci Heeb
Read also: Swiss InsurTech Hub: Winners & Agenda 2026
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