Business News: KCC, Betterview, Coverys

Catastrophe modeling firm Karen Clark & Company (KCC) announced the release of RiskInsight-lite, a new modeling platform that enables (re)insurers to track their claims and losses in real time from live hurricanes as well as estimate their Exceedence Probability (EP) curves, including PMLs and AALs at location-level resolution.

RiskInsight-lite’s capabilities can be made available to insurers immediately and in time for Hurricane Irma, which is threatening to impact the Caribbean and the U.S. as a major hurricane.

KCC has already estimated and released detailed industry insured losses for Hurricane Harvey, including estimates for the individual hazards of wind, storm surge and inland flooding. KCC clients use RiskInsight’s unique capabilities to estimate their own claims and losses from live hurricanes starting days before landfall.

Betterview recently announced the closing of a $2.05 million dollar Series Seed round, bringing its total funding to $3.65 million to date.

Betterview’s latest fundraising round was led by Compound Venture Capital, with participation from Maiden Re, 645 Ventures, Arab Angel, Winklevoss Capital, Chestnut Street Ventures, Pierre Valade, Edward Lando, along with earlier investors Haystack and MetaProp.

Founded in late 2014 by insurance and technology veterans David Lyman and David Tobias, Betterview provides software & services that capture, organize and analyze data for buildings & properties to unlock valuable insights. The company uses drones to capture highly detailed imagery, which it then processes and combines with other data sources to make every property thoroughly understood.

The San Francisco-based firm has inspected over 7,400 buildings for more than a hundred businesses, most of which are insurers. It provides software & services in three key areas: workflow, data management & compliance, and insights.

Coverys, one of the nation’s largest insurers of medical professional liability, and Global Insurance Management Company, Inc. (GIMC), a provider of medical professional liability insurance for physicians and other healthcare providers, announced that they have entered into a definitive merger agreement pursuant to which Coverys’ ProMutual Group, Inc. will acquire GIMC.

GIMC and the predecessors to its insurance subsidiary, Healthcare Underwriters Group, Inc., were founded by physicians and insurance professionals in 2003 to bring long-term availability, predictability and stability to the marketplace in Florida, Ohio and Kentucky. Since that time, GIMC has expanded to Texas, Indiana and Nevada. Coverys, a provider of healthcare professional liability insurance and market-leading risk services, continues to expand its delivery of products and services to meet the demands of the changing healthcare market. The combination of the two companies will strengthen GIMC’s ability to offer superior products and services to a core group of hospital and physician policyholders.

The Board of Directors of GIMC has unanimously approved the transaction and has resolved to recommend that its shareholders approve the merger agreement. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2017 and is subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of regulatory approvals and approval by the holders of a majority of the outstanding shares of GIMC common stock.

Sherman & Company LLC served as financial advisor and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP served as legal advisor to Coverys. Sandler O’Neill + Partners, L.P. acted as exclusive financial advisor and Thompson Hine LLP served as legal advisor to GIMC.