By Lori Widmer, The Rough Notes Company

Original article published by RoughNotes and available here.

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“Our mission is to reinvent insurance with a model that takes us from risk reaction to risk prevention.”

­Anthony Marshi

Co-founder and CEO

1Fort

“Insurance wasn’t built for a tech-driven world,” says Anthony Marshi. “It’s a reactive model that’s been unchanged for 600 years, and that model no longer works in a now incredibly fast-paced risk environment.”

Marshi is co-founder and CEO of 1Fort, a two-year-old company that combines insurance products with AI-driven risk mitigation services to help businesses get ahead of risks and actively prevent loss. That in itself is new in an industry that was built on a model of response and remediation.

“Our mission is to reinvent insurance with a model that takes us from risk reaction to risk prevention,” he explains.

Marshi, along with his 1Fort co-founder, Toby Hung, saw that the rapid changes in technology that were driving losses higher meant that clients and their insurance companies were running to catch up. The increased use of technology means that cyber losses have been increasing in frequency and severity. While security tactics are implemented, cybercriminals are becoming experts at finding weaknesses and breaching systems.

Such uncertainty, says Marshi, makes technology exposures increasingly unpredictable. It also leads to larger, more painful losses. That’s where he and Hung believe that loss mitigation needs to change. While insurance is vital, necessary protection, prevention should be at the forefront of that mitigation. “Traditional insurance, with its reactive approach, no longer does the trick for threats that are growing exponentially,” Marshi says.

He explains that system downtime equals business interruption and loss of revenue. “Our vision is that companies need now more than just a reactive insurance policy. They need a partner that helps them stay ahead of fast-moving risks, and that’s exactly where we come in.”

1Fort’s solution, he says, leverages AI’s capabilities to help companies assess and prevent loss. The company partners with insurance brokerages using the 1Fort platform to manage clients and attain instant quotes from top carriers.

The brokers, he says, invite their clients to the 1Fort portal where clients will complete their digital insurance application. Clients then connect their own cloud-based apps to the 1Fort portal, a process that Marshi says can take up to a few weeks. At that point, 1Fort is managing their policies and claims from the portal.

It’s also managing their exposures, he says. When they connect their cloud-based apps to 1Fort, Marshi says, the AI-based 1Fort risk management portal will then generate “actionable insights” on their risk exposures, allowing them to see in real time what issues they need to address. “They get access to our risk management software throughout the policy period.”

Clients, he says, can regain control of losses, improve their insurability, and gain peace of mind. That in turn can help clients save on premium costs. “The goal is to help companies assess and prevent risks so that they never need to use their insurance,” Marshi says.

What users say

For Garrett Droege, senior vice president, director of innovation, and digital risk practice leader for IMA Financial Group, preventing technology-related losses is vital. Droege says his company works with leading technology companies, and IMA’s role is to understand their risks and help them mitigate them. “Something we often encounter with emerging tech company clients is their lack of strong cyber security hygiene.”

That includes cyber insurance protection. “We spend a lot of time educating them on what they need to do prior to applying for coverage but have never had an efficient way to help guide clients on the specifics,” Droege explains.

1Fort solved that issue for IMA. “1Fort has been a great solution for our clients that have either never had cyber insurance and need help getting their house in order, or they’ve had a major cyber incident in the past and attracting carrier options is proving problematic,” Droege says.

While Droege and company evaluate new platforms and tools regularly to help clients improve insurability and premium costs, 1Fort was an easy choice. “The implementation timeline was very short. We went from evaluation to proof-of-concept to implementation in a couple of weeks.”

Throughout the process, Droege says 1Fort was, and remains, actively involved. “They have done group onboardings, as well as on-demand 1-on-1s, whenever we have requested them. Additionally, they are available for client consultations. We’ve even had clients engage them for consulting services beyond the initial cyber security evaluations.”

It was the perfect choice, in Droege’s opinion. “There aren’t many solutions out there that can help clients in the way that 1Fort can. There are numerous tools that offer cyber scanning services. Many of these tools are common for underwriters to use to evaluate applicants. But they don’t offer the same roadmap that 1Fort does.

“1Fort basically gives companies a score on how they look today and, critically, gives them the path forward on improving that score,” he adds. “Once a company has reached a sufficient cyber security posture, they can easily help deliver the applications to various insurance carriers and aggregate the results of the marketing effort.”

Going off script

While 1Fort works best for cyber risks, Marshi says the platform’s capabilities extend well into employment practices liability and fiduciary liability, because let’s not forget that a lot of the technology that companies use to manage their employees and finances are cloud-based tools. 1Fort, he explains, can easily gather the risk data from those systems to understand the full scope of a company’s exposure, and “what they can do to actually reduce risk.”

Droege says with cyber risks being one of the top loss areas in nearly every industry, “companies are looking to their brokers to help them manage this risk and locate the best possible cyber insurance. Having tools like 1Fort available helps our clients be more educated, proactive and insurable.”

That’s music to Marshi’s ears. “We’re flipping the mode on its head. We enable companies to anticipate and manage risks before they become problems.” In that way, he says, 1Fort is facing down the need for modernization in the insurance industry. “We’re really closing the gap by offering proactive tools that not only help businesses avoid risks, but also turn insurance into a strategic advantage.”

The author

Lori Widmer is a Philadelphia-based writer and editor who specializes in insurance and risk management. BrokerTech Spotlight offers a look at insurtech offerings from startups that have partnered with BrokerTech Ventures (BTV), a convening platform for brokers, carriers and wholesalers, and tech firms, and includes insight from other BTV member owners.

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