Greenlight Re invests in construction insurance start-up

Greenlight Re Innovations (GRI), the insurtech unit of Cayman-based specialist property/casualty reinsurer  Greenlight Re, has invested in a construction insurance start-up MGA focused on middle-market contractors.

Shepherd Labs is a technology-centric MGA that plans to leverage new construction technologies to optimise all components of the value chain. By integrating with construction management platforms, Shepherd has access to more underwriting data at a significantly faster speed than traditional, manual data collection methods.

“Underwriting construction businesses has historically been a lengthy and inefficient process due to extensive data collection and entry requirements," explained Simon Burton (pictured), chief executive officer at Greenlight Re.

Justin Levine, chief executive officer of Shepherd, said: “We’re entering a second wave of innovation in the construction industry and insurance is one of the most important frontiers for new ideas. We believe there is so much available data not being effectively leveraged in today’s underwriting, and contractors aren’t being recognised for the investments they’re making in tech to help mitigate risk.

"We believe contractors should be underwritten not only based on the nature of their work, but also the behavioral data that exists about the way they deliver projects. The team at Greenlight understood our vision immediately and is already helping us expand upon it. We’re grateful for their support as part of our seed financing.”

Did you get value from this story?  Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories like this sent straight to your inbox.