7th edition of Santalucía Impulsa: new brand and innovation awards

Last Thursday, October 24, we celebrated the 7th edition of Santalucía Impulsa, the incubation and acceleration program for projects aimed at entrepreneurs, startups, employees and university students that aims to develop innovative business solutions in the insurance sector and adjacent sectors.

Like every year, we organize an event in which we explore key issues such as sustainability, financial education, artificial intelligence or how innovation and startups are transforming the world of business and technology.

On this occasion, the motto around which the event revolved was 'Feel the Future', with three main axes: sustainability and the importance of social impact (the event included the measurement of its carbon footprint in all materials), technology as a travel companion to continue improving and increasing productivity, and, finally, people, who make innovation possible.

New brand, new logo and new website for Santalucía Impulsa

The event kicked off with the presentation and welcome of Ángel Uzquiza, Corporate Director of Innovation at Santalucía Impulsa, who took the opportunity to make special mention of International Day Against Climate Change, which is commemorated every 24 October.

Angel gave way to Jorge Millan-Astray, Innovation Project Manager, and to María Villalobos, Innovation Specialist in Santalucía. On behalf of the company's entire innovation team, Jorge and María presented something very special that has required many months of work and effort: New image of Santalucía Impulsa.

This change of image reflects an evolution of our mission, which is now based on promoting disruptive innovation and the real impact on the insurance ecosystem and on society in general. This new identity, with a dynamic and modern character, has a more humane, collaborative and focused approach to digital and social transformation.

In addition, the new graphic line has been designed with the intention of strengthening the entity's values, which revolve around our commitment to impactful innovation, collective intelligence and social activism.

7th edition of Santalucía Impulsa: day tomorrow

Once the new brand was presented, the round tables that occupied the whole morning began. A total of five presentations led by a moderator and professionals from different companies and sectors who inspired attendees by talking about success stories, real experiences and expectations for the future.

“Generative AI, our co-pilot”

The first roundtable, entitled “Generative AI, our co-pilot”, was led by the Microsoft team: David Gonzalez, Insurance Client Executive, Joaquín Pérez del Real, Senior Customer Success Account Manager, and Ane Iturzaeta, Cloud Solution Architect AI.

David, Joaquín and Ane taught several use cases in real time using artificial intelligence in: analysis and comparison of documents, the insured's experience, teleperitoneering and household photoquoting. This last case, the photoquoter, came from an idea that emerged during an innovation day that Santalucía Impulsa held together with Microsoft, and was finally carried out.

“Innovation and financial education: keys to the future of society”

The next panel, “Innovation and Financial Education: Keys to the Future of Society”, dealt with financial education, innovation and its future in society with a focus on sustainability.

The moderator was José Manuel Jiménez, Director of the Santalucía Institute. As speakers, they participated Jorge Millan-Astray, David Galán, CEO & Co-founder at MIG Group (PRISMA), and Tacho Arrimadas, Commercial, Marketing and Business Development Director at Santalucía Asset Management.

Under the main theme, financial education, José Manuel and Jorge referred to the I Santalucía Report on Trends and Innovation in Savings and Investment prepared by Santalucía Impulsa in collaboration with Vecdis.

David Galán, for his part, highlighted PRISMA's collaboration in the development of the documentary on financial education at the Instituto Santalucía “And to me what the money”.

Tacho Arrimadas said that Santalucía Asset Management is convinced that financial education is a solid pillar for the client, so that they can make savings decisions while being well informed, aware of risks and advantages and thus achieve their financial goals.

“Innovation with social impact for a sustainable future”

María Teresa Díaz, Manager of the Department of Internal Control at Santalucía Seguros, was responsible for moderating the panel “Innovation with Social Impact for a Sustainable Future”, in which they participated Fernando Moreno, Director General of Oversight and Risk Management, Fernando Acevedo, Transcendent Partner, Soledad Díaz, Partner at Management Solutions.

This paper highlighted how sustainability in the Santalucía Group is part of the strategic plan, with emphasis on some specific social sustainability SDGs that they meet, such as Health and Wellbeing, Gender Equality or Reducing Inequalities. However, it also manages to impact society through its services and coverage, for example, with remote assistance.

In fact, as they announced, Santalucía's 2025-2028 Sustainability Plan includes a What's new in impact measurement developed together with the Transcendent team.

“Startups and new tools at the service of business and technology”

The panel on startups and new tools was moderated Israel Garcia, Manager of the Fraud Unit at Santalucía Seguros. As speakers we have the presence of David Martín Erice, Head of Operations Projects at Santalucía Seguros, Jaime Palomo, Head of IT Services Unit at Santalucía Seguros, Víctor Nalda, Data Scientist specialized in Fraud at Santalucía Seguros, and Frederik Endsjö, Customer Success Manager Iberia & Latam at FRISS.

The paper dealt with the evolution of new technologies, innovation and the evolution of fraud, as well as current and future challenges in detecting insurance fraud.

In addition, Frederik addressed the emerging threats facing the industry and discussed how by innovating companies can anticipate these risks. FRISS uses everything from advances in AI and machine learning to the creation of hybrid fraud detection models with a commitment to protecting the integrity of the insurance sector and strengthening customer trust.

“New trends in deaths and funeral services”

Before giving way to the last round table, Ángel Uzquiza gave a presentation on the new trends that were already being applied in the field of deaths and funeral services.

These trends are increasingly moving towards personalization, digital and services in life. Among them, we highlight some such as ecological funerals (natural cemeteries, ecological coffins, alternatives to traditional burial) or cremations and uses of ashes (environmentally friendly urns, turning ashes into diamonds, vinyl, fireworks or even tattoos).

Beyond funerals, there are other trends such as the use of pets as a therapeutic method, the replacement of traditional funerals with commemorative rituals, etc.

In addition, Ángel mentioned some companies that are already applying trends such as these: Funos (funeral home price comparator), Obitus (music, webcasts and tributes for funerals), Borea (funeral services for memorable events), Iteralix (tributes to life beyond funeral services), DEPET (funeral services for pets).

In short, funeral insurance is about to be reinvented, as can be seen in these trends, which is why innovation is so important.

Santalucía is a leader in funeral insurance, accompanying people at the most crucial moment in their lives, but to maintain that leadership, we must know the trends and adapt to them quickly and effectively. For this reason, the innovation area observes all these trends worldwide, to learn about the landscape of the sector and the opportunities for innovation it offers.

“New trends in deaths and a story to remember”

Ángel then moderated the last round table in the morning, also linked to the deaths. Participated Luis Cuarto, Provider Management Technician at Santalucía Seguros, Elena Gonzalez, Business Manager in Albia, and Óscar Montero, CEO of Storiesclick.

The speakers listed some of the trends that, in their experience, they believe will affect the death sector, both insurance companies and funeral homes: live monitoring of ceremonies (which is already happening today) integrating virtual reality and the metaverse, a new destination for ashes and the implication of sustainability throughout the process (there will be a boom in ecological cemeteries).

7th edition of Santalucía Impulsa: afternoon

After the morning and after a break, the second half of the day began. Throughout the afternoon, the awards in the three categories: Santalucía Impulsa Universities, Startups and Employees.

The dynamic was divided into 7 minutes of presentation of each of the finalist projects (with 3 extra minutes for the round of questions) voting for a winner in each category by a jury composed of members of the company and voting by the public for the best project among all those submitted.

But first, Ángel Uzquiza, master of ceremonies, and Rubén Muñoz, General Director of Technology and Operations at Santalucía Seguros, welcomed both the attendees who attended in person and those who followed him via streaming and spoke about the trajectory of Santalucía Impulsa, past, present and future.

Between category and category, there was a special guest. Alberto de Paz Piano, pianist, improviser and showman, enlivened up the day with several interventions. He was able to interact with the attendees playing the piano and involving everyone in his music. With just three notes chosen by the public, 'Do, 'Re' and 'Sol', Alberto created the soundtrack for our 7th edition. But he was also able to interpret the soundtrack of some of the viewers' favorite movies, Titanic, Gladiator or, Star Wars. As Les Baxter said, “All good music must be an innovation”.

Santalucía Promotes Universities

The first category of the afternoon was Universities. Two teams composed of students from Rey Juan Carlos University presented their projects:

· Activate Project: senior physical activity app, because age is not an impediment to achieving great things.

· Primum Project: service suite for first-time families. Proposal designed to accompany and facilitate the lives of parents of children and not so children.

Santalucía Promotes Startups

In the second category of Startups, we had the opportunity to learn about the three innovative finalist projects out of a total of more than 50 startups submitted:

· Nowo.tech Project: embedded insurance that, through a low-code and self-service platform, allows you to embed quotation and issuance solutions on any website or digital medium.

· TRAK Project: digital physiotherapy and telerehabilitation. It includes services that range from the development of a therapeutic exercise plan to communication with a clinical team about evolution.

· AyGloo Project: Generative AI products for companies with a focus on increasing productivity.

If you want to know more about the TRAK project, in the last episode of Santalucía Impulsa Podcast we spoke with Jaime Rodríguez Fernández, Product Director and Co-founder of TRAK. Listen to it here.

Santalucía Impulses Employees

The afternoon day ended with the entrepreneur program, in which three teams composed of company workers presented the three business models that they had been developing for months:

· Dr. House Project: prevention of water accidents thanks to two pillars, identification and action.

· Contra360 Project: digitization of contracts through WhatsApp.

· Crece Santalucía Project: a tool to improve the quality of sales force leads in order to convert them into sales.

Innovation Awards at the 7th edition of Santalucía Impulsa

The members of the jury made an individual vote to select a winner per category.

The evaluation criteria were clarity in the exposure, the target market, the solution and product, the business model, the differentiation from the competition and the prototype or use case.

The award for the best university project was awarded the clarity and conceptualization of discourses developed.

The award for the best Startups project was awarded the concept and possible ways of collaboration.

The award for the best employee project was awarded the effort and involvement of the best participants in the program.

After the deliberation of the jury, the projects that managed to win the prize in this 7th edition of Santalucía Impulsa were:

· Get active in the category of Universities.

· TRAK in the Startups category.

· Dr. House in the Employees category.

These projects will have the possibility to test your business solutions within different companies and business units which make up the Santalucía Group.

Last but not least, the public had the opportunity to vote for the best innovation project among the eight presented. The team that won the prize was Hire 360, of the entrepeneurship program.

This is how the 7th edition of Santalucía Impulsa went. Another year full of enthusiasm, effort, desire, involvement, work, but above all a lot of innovation. We are clear that our participants have set the bar very high, but we will be able to exceed it next year.

If you are a startup or scaleup focused on innovation and transformation of the insurance sector, sign up for the calls for the InsurChallenges 2024.

To summarize the event, we collect the words of Ángel Uzquiza: “We are proud to have celebrated a new edition of Santalucía Impulsa, now the seventh, and to have reached the milestone of having accelerated and incubated more than 60 projects”. “Santalucía Impulsa continues to grow while having an increasingly and more significant impact on the insurtech sector of the industry. In addition, with this new image, we are beginning a new phase and we reaffirm our position as a beacon of Innovation for Grupo Santalucía”.

Now, we say goodbye to this edition by making a separate mention to the entire innovation team of Santalucía Impulsa, which every year makes this event possible and surpasses the previous edition thanks to tireless work. And this time with an extra effort: the creation of the new Santalucía Impulsa brand, which was the protagonist during the event and will continue to be so from now on.