3 Women Entrepreneurs Transforming the Insurance Industry
Insurance has traditionally relied on paperwork, intermediaries and processes that can be difficult for customers to navigate. Insurtech is changing that model through digital distribution, automation, data analytics and customer-focused services.
Women entrepreneurs are helping drive this shift, building businesses that make insurance easier to access and understand, bringing fresh ideas to a traditional industry.
3 Women Bringing Change to Insurance
Three notable founders shaping the global sector are:
Vidya Sridharan: Building Digital Infrastructure
In India, Vidya Sridharan, along with three other individuals, founded Riskcovry in 2018, after realizing a deficiency in technology infrastructure in firms that are looking to offer insurance. As a software engineer with Oracle, McAfee, TCS, and Intuit on her resume, she offered a technology-based approach to an industry plagued by a piecemeal system.
Riskcovry offers ‘insurance in a box,’ allowing businesses to give their customers the means to purchase insurance products, interact with clients and issue insurance products and claims. Riskcovry’s platform enables firms that do not fall in the insurance space, such as banks, to offer insurance within their service portfolio. This is a solution for insurers to find ways to reach out to customers through existing channels.
Janthana Kaenprakhamroy: Cover for Small Businesses
Janthana Kaenprakhamroy is the CEO and founder of Tapoly, a digital managing general agency in the UK specializing in self-employed people. Having worked as an investment banker and chartered accountant, she recognized the lack of appropriate insurance solutions among commercial products for such clients.
The company uses digitization to assist small businesses in getting insured and to develop technology that allows insurers to communicate with their distributors. Her efforts demonstrate how insurtech can be used to adapt to new labor markets and insure independent workers who are not covered by traditional insurance categories.
Jane Wang: Customer Engagement Through Technology
Optimity is a technology firm based in Toronto that partners with life insurance companies to create digital health and wellness engagement programs. The rationale for creating this firm came from Jane Wang’s experiences, having had to face the financial ramifications of insufficient coverage after her mother passed away.
Optimity focuses on developing programs that will help people engage in healthy behavior and assist insurers in customer engagement. This model represents an evolution within the insurance industry from providing services to being constantly engaged with the customers.
Final Takeaway
These founders illustrate three directions in insurance technology: infrastructure for digital distribution, specialised cover for underserved businesses, and customer engagement supported by technology. Across markets, they aim to make insurance more responsive to how people live and work today.
As insurers invest in automation, embedded products and data-led services, entrepreneurial leadership will remain essential. Women such as Sridharan, Kaenprakhamroy and Wang are not simply adapting existing systems; they are building alternatives that challenge the industry to become more accessible, efficient and customer-centred.
