This year was a breakout one for InsurTech companies. The insurance industry has been long overdue for innovation and disruption, and 2018 saw the industry attracting both talent and funding.

FT Partners Research announced InsurTech's quarterly financing volume for Q3 2018 totaled $1.2 billion, which is up from $749 million in Q2 2018. The excitement increasingly surrounding InsurTech indicates that 2019 promises to be an even more meaningful and game-changing time for the InsurTech space.

Here are three InsurTech trends you should keep an eye out for in 2019, and beyond.

Sophisticated analytics

Any successful InsurTech startup is not only passionate about transforming the current insurance model to be more cost-effective and automated, but is invested in exploring the role data analytics plays at the core of this process. Intelligent and productive data aggregation, integration and analysis, are crucial in achieving this.

Related: 3 technologies supporting the InsurTech revolution

When it comes to data analytics, the insurance industry's antiquated business model has much room for improvement. Insurtech is modernizing insurance as we know it by implementing advanced big data analytics to optimize insurance products and services. And investors are taking notice.

Significant investments are being made in data analytics and modeling techniques to improve nearly every part of the business. By embracing data analytics, your business can gain a competitive advantage by finding revenue opportunities, enhancing customer service, and improving operational efficiency."

Over time, this rise in digital innovation is sure to bring significant opportunities for a more efficient, competitive and sustainable progress for insurtech as a whole.

Transparency

The vast and complex insurance industry has long awaited simplification. Insurers' underwriting models have historically been a black box for consumers, while easy comparisons of complex data have been reserved for the experts. Transparency is critical to earning the trust of customers, especially in this digital age.

People are now accustomed to online shopping, and they want procuring insurance plans to be less complicated — similar to shopping for and purchasing other high ticket items such as homes and financial products. Consumers desire their pricing and product information to not only be transparent, but comparable as "apples to apples" so they can make smarter choices. Users can access online marketplaces to compare prices and benefits of different plans side-by-side.