Insurers have a great opportunity to benefit from fintech innovation — but there are so many insurtech start-ups that some will fall by the wayside.

That is the view of Mark Watson, chief executive officer of Bermudian-based Argo Group, who was speaking with AM Best TV at the Rendezvous de Septembre reinsurance networking event in Monte Carlo.

Mr Watson said today’s fintech advancements offered the re/insurance industry more potential than previous waves of technology, such as the dot-com boom.

“The thing that is different this time is that the investments are much broader,” Mr Watson said. “They’re really focusing on every aspect of the value chain of our industry, which is giving us a lot more opportunity to get traction in the fintech world today.”

He added: “As a buyer, in a sense, it’s great because there are hundreds, if now not almost a thousand start-ups in the last few years.

“We don’t really have the bandwidth to parse through all the different start-up value propositions, much less use them.

“I think it’ll be interesting to see which companies survive and which ones don’t, because I think there’s just too many for them all to survive.”

Those who survive will be the ones that really help insurers to “move the needle” in ways including connectivity with policyholders and business partners, risk analysis and data processing, he added.

This year, Argo set up a digital ventures team to look for insurtech partnership and investment opportunities.

To see the full AM Best interview, visit http://www.ambest.com/v.asp?v=watson918