Less than a year after winning the $1 million InnSure Innovation Prize, Dublin-based insurtech Exante has successfully launched its first U.S. product in partnership with Qixent, a leading embedded insurance platform headquartered in Chicago. The product, Sunshine Guarantee, marks a breakthrough for climate-aligned insurance, automatically compensating homeowners and businesses when solar energy output falls below expected levels due to lack of sunshine.
The collaboration embodies this year’s report theme, international partnerships illustrating how an Irish-founded technology company is enabling global insurers and distributors to bring data-triggered protection directly into consumer transactions.
“At Exante, we’re redefining how insurance supports the clean energy transition,” said Aidan Breen, Co-Founder of Exante. “Sunshine Guarantee gives solar retailers and installers a powerful new tool to build customer confidence by turning objective environmental data into fast, automated payouts. This is what parametric insurance was made for.”
A Seamless Partnership Between Two Markets
The partnership between Exante and Qixent bridges Ireland’s strength in parametric insurance design with the U.S.’s vibrant embedded-insurance distribution market. Exante provides the parametric engine—using satellite data and predictive environmental models to measure solar irradiance and automatically trigger payouts. Qixent contributes its AI-native insurance exchange platform, enabling the rapid launch and integration of new insurance products across digital retailers and marketplaces.
Together, the two companies have delivered a product that is:
- Fully embedded: no hardware, forms, or manual claims.
- Instantly responsive: payouts are automatic and objective.
- Commercially transformative: solar retailers report up to 30% higher conversion rates when offering Sunshine Guarantee.
“Sunshine Guarantee shows what’s possible when insurance is automated, data-driven, and built into the customer experience,” said Randel Bennett, CEO of Qixent and former Swiss Re executive. “By guaranteeing solar performance, we remove risk for solar panel owners while giving retailers a powerful tool to close more deals, faster.”
From Prize-Winning Concept to Market Reality
Exante’s Sunshine Guarantee journey began in 2024 when it received the InnSure Innovation Prize, funded by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and the Insurance Innovation Exchange (InnSure). The award recognized Exante’s potential to accelerate climate resilience through data-triggered, parametric protection.
That recognition provided not only financial resources but also credibility with international partners and underwriters. Within twelve months, Exante transformed its prototype into a live product with Qixent, validating Ireland’s growing reputation as a hub for insurtech exports and climate-tech innovation.
“Winning the InnSure Innovation Prize gave us the momentum and visibility to scale internationally,” noted Breen. “It proved that Irish technology can compete on a global stage and solve real-world climate challenges.”
Expanding Across Europe
Exante’s parametric platform now powers multiple products and partnerships across Europe. In Italy, Exante is working with Zurich and ENI Plenitude to deliver Sunshine Guarantee as part of a broader clean-energy initiative—bringing automated protection to homeowners and businesses adopting solar energy.
Building on that success, Exante and its partners are expanding the framework to include an Extreme Temperature Protection product, addressing both heatwave and cold-weather impacts on energy consumption. This evolution demonstrates how the same data-driven infrastructure can scale across perils, geographies, and industries.
Part of Ireland’s Growing Insurtech Ecosystem
Exante’s achievements also highlight the strength of Ireland’s innovation pipeline. The company powers Solvera, one of the inaugural members of the Insurtech Foundry accelerator, backed by leading insurers and profiled recently in The Irish Times (“Insurtech accelerator backed by insurance giants picks first 10 startups,” October 2025).
That same ecosystem, linking start-ups, incumbents, and government agencies, is helping Irish insurtechs like Exante commercialise globally relevant solutions that address climate risk and financial resilience.
Transforming Solar Sales and Confidence
Sunshine Guarantee debuted at RE+ Las Vegas, the largest clean-energy event in North America. Its appeal is simple yet powerful: homeowners and small businesses who install solar panels are compensated automatically if their systems underperform due to insufficient sunlight.
This shifts the conversation for solar retailers. Rather than defending uncertain performance projections, they can now offer buyers a guaranteed outcome backed by objective data.
Retailers embed the protection directly into their sales journey—no new paperwork, no claims adjusters, and no delays.
“An innovative product directly aligned with solar retailers’ customer acquisition goals,” commented Andrew Linhares, Senior Manager at the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA). “This kind of solution can accelerate deployment by addressing one of the core objections in solar sales—performance uncertainty.”
Looking Ahead: New U.S. Pilots
The launch of Sunshine Guarantee is more than a commercial milestone, it’s a tangible proof point of how Irish innovation can integrate into the global insurance value chain.
By combining parametric intelligence with embedded distribution, Exante and Qixent are showing how insurance can become a real-time enabler of the clean-energy transition.
Exante is now preparing to launch three additional pilot programmes in the U.S., to be announced in the coming months. Each will apply Exante’s data-triggered protection model to new categories of environmental and financial risk, further strengthening the company’s international footprint and reinforcing Ireland’s reputation for world-class insurtech leadership.
Super proud of the team and to have been involved. Checkout more at www.exante.io
