Latin America's insurtech sector attracted $90mn in investment during the first half of 2026, while the number of active companies climbed to 576, a 14% increase from a year earlier and the highest level since 2023, according to a report published this week.

The findings, contained in the "Latam Insurtech Journey" study produced by Digital Insurance Latam and sponsored by insurer Mapfre, also showed the sector's mortality rate falling to 7%, as the region's technology-driven insurance start-ups continued to expand despite two years of subdued funding.

The report found that the capital raised in the first six months of the year was the third-highest total for that period since the coronavirus pandemic. It added that, if the current pace of investment continued through the second half of 2026, full-year figures could match those recorded in 2025.

Hugues Bertin, chief executive and founder of Digital Insurance Latam, said the period marked "a turning point" for the sector, attributing the shift in part to the wider adoption of artificial intelligence, Europa Press reported. "The democratisation of AI is one of the factors that explain this trend . . . by internally transforming insurtechs, allowing them to improve their efficiency and strengthen their value proposition," Bertin said.

He added that established insurers were also under pressure to modernise. "The traditional insurance sector also needs to evolve and collaborate with external solutions . . . that can be implemented quickly and generate concrete impacts," he said.

According to the report, 18 insurtechs in the region now specialise in agentic artificial intelligence, a category it described as having been "practically non-existent" two years ago. These companies are developing applications in claims management, fraud prevention, underwriting and customer service, the report said.

Start-ups outpace failures

The report recorded 102 new insurtech start-ups launched over the past 12 months against 35 that ceased operating, producing a birth-to-death ratio of 3.5, which it said was the highest in recent years.

Brazil remained the region's largest market with 217 insurtechs, ahead of Mexico with 150, Chile with 112 and Argentina with 110, the report said. It also pointed to sharp growth in smaller markets, with Uruguay expanding by 39%, Central America by 29% and Colombia by 20%.

Some 19.7% of insurtechs in the region now operate across multiple Latin American countries or were founded outside the region, the report found. It noted that although this proportion was "high," it had grown by only 7%.

Bertin said the trend reflected the ecosystem's underlying strength rather than a slowdown in international expansion. "It's not that insurtechs aren't internationalising, it's that more and more local companies are being created and, sooner or later, they too will internationalise," he said, adding that a single-country insurtech was now four times more likely to fail than one operating internationally.

The report's foreign company attraction index, which measures the share of insurtechs in a given market that originated abroad, stood at 33%, up from 31.9% in July 2025. The effect was most pronounced in Colombia, where 53% of insurtechs were foreign-founded, followed by Mexico at 42% and Peru at 32%.

Carlos Cendra, head of investments and corporate innovation scouting at Mapfre, said the sector's momentum pointed to a strong year ahead. "The strength of the sector . . . positions 2026 as a year of great potential," Cendra said, citing agentic AI, growth in the Life & Care segment and new distribution models as the principal drivers of what he called "a new stage of insurance innovation in the region."

Mobility and Life & Care lead segments

Mobility remained the largest insurtech segment by number of companies, accounting for 211 start-ups, or 37% of the regional total, the report said. Growth within the segment was concentrated in digital distribution, specialist brokers and telematics-based products.

The Life & Care segment, comprising 151 companies and representing 26% of the total, accounted for 76% of the $90mn raised in the first half of the year, according to the report. The study also identified growth in categories linked to artificial intelligence, fraud detection, data and pricing, as well as in platforms serving brokers and intermediaries, which it described as among the fastest-evolving segments over the past year.

The report divided the region's insurtechs roughly evenly between business models, with 48% classified as distributors and 52% as enablers. Most distributors focused on personal motor and home insurance lines, with brokers and managing general agents accounting for 40% of that group. The report also noted a shift among digital intermediaries away from direct-to-consumer models towards business-to-business-to-consumer structures supplying distribution platforms, alongside the emergence of fully digital operators.

Among enablers, artificial intelligence agents made up 6% of the category and fraud, data, pricing, risk and underwriting solutions accounted for 7%, which the report identified as the most dynamic areas. It said the largest share of investment, at 18%, remained directed towards the digitisation of traditional insurance intermediation.