Akad Seguros puts the broker in the fast lane

An insurance broker waiting for an answer has a peculiar problem. The customer is ready. The risk needs explaining. Somewhere, somebody has the information. Yet the transaction sits still. Akad Seguros built much of its argument for change around that interval: the unglamorous minutes between wanting protection and being able to arrange it.

• The buyer: businesses and professionals with specific risks, reached through brokers and partners.
• The bet: automate routine work so the broker has more time for advice.
• The scale: about R$1.174 billion in 2025 gross written premiums, according to Akad.

The company’s own AI account supplies a revealing number. Average waiting time for support fell from 47 minutes to three after the introduction of a WhatsApp bot and a system that suggested answers to human attendants. That is a company-reported result, rather than an independent experiment. Still, the choice of measurement is telling. Akad is selling insurance, but one of the things it is trying to manufacture is time.

The R$160 million shortcut

In 2021, GP Investments was looking for an insurance technology company it could accelerate. The search ran into a constraint: promising businesses lacked scale. Danilo Gamboa, now Akad’s CEO, described the decision to NeoFeed: “Olhamos muitas empresas boas, mas que não tinham escala.” They had seen good companies, but not enough size.

The available alternative was Argo’s Brazilian operation. The reported acquisition price was R$160 million. Regulatory approval followed in 2022, and the Akad brand arrived that June. A business operating in Brazil since 2012 became the foundation for a new venture. Buying it brought existing distribution and a history of insured risks that a fresh startup would have needed years to accumulate.

The founding group joined insurance investment experience with software experience: Gamboa, Marcelo Sales, Monique Oliveira, Antonio Bonchristiano and Fersen Lambranho. In April 2024, Akad raised a reported US$22.5 million Series A, co-led by Valor Capital and Across Capital. The funding report put its valuation at US$120 million before the investment.

Protect the accountant. Follow the truck.

Akad’s customers make the proposition concrete. An accountant can face a claim over an alleged professional error. A technology company can face costs after a data breach. A cargo owner can lose goods in transit. Each needs a different conversation, and each gives a broker a reason to exist.

Professional liability, also called E&O, covers eligible claims involving errors or omissions in professional work. Akad offers it for more than 40 activities, including lawyers, dentists, engineers and technology businesses. Depending on the policy, protection can include legal expenses and indemnities. Buying it does not turn every unhappy client into an insured claim.

Cargo insurance addresses another set of problems: accidents, theft and damage involving goods being moved. Akad’s Radar service adds operational monitoring, including tracker checks and attention to alerts during journeys. The expertise lies partly in understanding how a loss develops before a claim arrives.

Its 2024 premium mix is a useful corrective to the technology story. Transport accounted for 53.48%; civil and professional liability, 30.68%. Trucks and professional mistakes were doing most of the commercial work. Cyber, equipment, business property, engineering and surety products widen the shelf around those foundations.

Keep the broker. Fix the queue.

Akad earns insurance premiums and distributes through brokers and partners. Its digital portal lets brokers work with quotations and policies; its Akademia supplies commercial and educational material.

That relationship also exposes a weakness. A HubSpot case study describes Akad’s earlier support operation as fragmented, with shared Outlook inboxes and limited visibility into histories and performance. The problem was mundane and consequential: difficult handoffs, weak measurement and an operation that struggled to scale.

With HubSpot and implementation partner Nexforce, Akad centralized tickets from several channels. The vendor case study reports a 70% reduction in ticket-closing time in less than a year. This is a separate measure from the WhatsApp waiting-time result. Both point toward the same practical lesson: faster software requires an organized service operation.

A larger carrier can offer established relationships and broad coverage. Akad’s argument for a broker’s attention is specialist products with less administrative friction. The useful comparison is the actual quotation, wording and service experience for a particular risk.

Put the policy where the purchase happens

Distribution can also begin inside someone else’s software. In 2023, Akad announced a partnership with MarketUP, working through PDV Box, to bring subscription insurance into a business management platform. The proposed offerings included business and equipment protection. An entrepreneur already using the system could encounter insurance there, with fewer repeated details to enter.

By March 2025, Akad was planning at least 30 new partnership agreements and targeting R$1.4 billion in annual premiums. Its subsequent company presentation reports about R$1.174 billion for 2025. Growth continued, but the reported figure sat below that earlier ambition. A target deserves its own label.

The company also announced a DataPelago partnership in November 2024, projecting faster data processing and lower workload costs. Those were projected benefits. The commercial idea is easier to judge: customize protection for a partner’s customers, integrate it into their existing journey, and make distribution less laborious.

“Temos uma missão de criar de dentro para fora.”

Odete Queirós, Head of Partnerships and Affinities, March 2025

“Our mission is to create from the inside out.”

Speed still needs a careful question

For a business owner, the starting point is the exposure: professional advice, customer data, equipment or goods in transit. A broker can translate that exposure into a suitable quotation. For a broker, Akad offers a portal, training and products that can extend an existing client relationship.

The transferable idea is to find the repetitive work surrounding expert judgment and remove it. Centralize the queue. Preserve the history. Measure the wait. Then give the expert a usable answer. Akad’s stated values of transparency and ownership fit that work, although a values page cannot prove how every team behaves.

The conditions matter. Automation works best when inputs are reliable and the risk fits the product. Cyber eligibility depends on the business’s risk profile. Complex cases still need underwriting. In March 2026, Akad announced suspension of additional war-risk coverage for specified international shipping regions. A quick interface cannot make every risk insurable.

That returns us to the waiting broker. Three minutes is useful only if the answer helps the customer choose the right protection. Akad’s bet rests on the quality of that next conversation.