InsuranceFoundersITC Vegas 2026September 2026
One Risk at a Time: Embea’s Johannes Becher on Healthcare Data, Underwriting and the Future of Life Insurance
Embea founder and CEO Johannes Becher pulled double duty at ITC Vegas: moderating a fireside chat on turning healthcare data into an underwriting edge, then joining a panel of founders from three continents on closing the protection gap.
Left: the Health Connect Summit fireside chat · Right: the ITC LATAM panel · Photo: Jaffar Jayme for A Founders Corner
LAS VEGAS Johannes Becher spent September 29 on two very different ITC stages, both asking how insurers should use data and technology to reach more people.
In the morning, he moderated a fireside chat with Jared Kaplan, CEO of Indigo. The session centered on a carrier that used healthcare claims data, which most of the industry uses only to pay claims, to price physician liability risk: 1,500 data points per physician from a single ID number instead of a 300-question application. The questions on the table were universal to underwriting: which data actually predicts loss, why horizontal “AI underwriting” layers stall, and how to grow fast without pricing below your loss ratio.
That afternoon, Becher joined the ITC LATAM Program for a panel framed around a simple point: the protection gap is not unique to Latin America. Founders from different countries, regulatory systems and cultures compared notes on a shared infrastructure problem, alongside McKinsey insurance associate partner Fernando Ohata.
Becher on both ITC stages · Photo: Jaffar Jayme for A Founders Corner
Both conversations sit close to Becher’s own work. He is founder and CEO of Embea, a Berlin-based MGA that unbundles life and health insurance into single-risk products. Embea sells standalone cancer cover in Germany through a cross-border MGA partnership with Triglav, Slovenia’s largest insurer, and is expanding into more European markets.
He previously co-founded Getsurance, one of Europe’s first direct-to-consumer digital life insurers, which he exited to Nürnberger Versicherung in 2021. Earlier, he was Director of Global Venture Development at Rocket Internet and Head of Business Development at Lendico, the peer-to-peer lender later acquired by ING. He holds a PhD in Law and Economics from Bucerius Law School.
