Insurtech soars to its best quarterly total since 2017Dec 31, 2020

The insurtech sector raised $1.9 billion in VC funding during Q3 2020, a 69% increase over Q2 and its biggest quarterly total since Q4 2017. Health and life insurtech companies continued to drive a significant share of deal value, accounting for roughly half of the total invested capital.

Several startups hit unicorn status as the pandemic accelerated a shift to digital insurance sales, according to our Q3 installment of Emerging Tech Research on the insurtech sector. Yet 2020 is on pace to fall well below 2019's dealmaking activity, and deal sizes have decreased markedly. Other takeaways from the report:

Late-stage pre-money valuations through Q3 stand at $70 million, down from a decade high of $235 million in 2019

Cyber insurance has proved highly attractive to investors, notching multiple major deals in 2020

Reinsurance and underwriting technology are in early stages, but have potential for significant growth as the world emerges from the pandemic.