Meet the insurtech: Amplify Life Insurance

January 18, 2022 10:58 AM

Traffic on the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge in California. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg — Traffic on the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge in California.

Amplify Life Insurance, a digital life insurance platform, is focused on helping everyday customers to build wealth through permanent life insurance.

Amplify offers customers the ability to invest in public equities or alternative investments with their life insurance premiums, accessing tax-free returns throughout their lifetime. Customers can invest 90% of their monthly premiums in a variety of traditional and alternative assets, customize plans based on their financial goals, risk tolerance and underwriting risk profile. Customers can also customize how much of their premiums are invested in tax-efficient, high-growth investments and how much goes towards their life insurance coverage.

Hanna Wu, co-founder and CEO at Amplify said the company is working to provide Americans with a financial vehicle that can help them build wealth while protecting what matters to them.

“Our goal is to build the first full-stack customer-centric life insurance company by meeting modern consumer purchasing expectations [with] cost-efficient, transparent and innovative life insurance products. While continuing to bring value and a delightful and engaging customer experience post-policy purchase,” Wu said. “We are either insane or ingenious for building a new category of financial products that bridges fintech and insurtech, either way, we’re determined to see our vision become a reality.”

Digital Insurance spoke with Wu about Amplify. The responses have been lightly edited for clarity.

When creating Amplify, what was the mission and what was the need for the company in this industry?

My life insurance journey started when my parents started a policy for me at a young age, and I was able to access some cash from my policy to start my first business, which was a financial planning agency. There, we helped many wealthy families and businesses with legacy planning and life insurance strategies used for building tax-efficient wealth, including investing in public and private equities and alternative assets within life insurance policies.

I realized that most everyday Americans were unaware of the wealth-building features of life insurance, including the ability to invest up to 90% of your premiums in tax-efficient assets and being able to access your funds for whatever you wish, and how the current fragmented value chain was becoming more and more disconnected from the modern consumer.

If you could describe Amplify in one word, which word would you use and why?

If I had to use one word to describe Amplify it would be growth. When customers purchase an Amplify policy, we hope that they feel that they are growing closer to their goals, that they’re growing multi-generational wealth and that with this policy they can also grow closer to their loved ones.

As a company, we hope to continue to grow and evolve the life insurance and financial services industry through building a new category that transects life, health and wealth for the benefit of the modern consumer.

What technology was used to help Amplify stand out especially during the current pandemic?

We launched the first digital platform that offers direct-to-consumer policy quoting and customization for cash accumulation products in early 2020 when the rest of the permanent life insurance industry was operating through face-to-face life insurance agents. We were therefore able to capture the market share of customers who were approached by agents previously but ended up making the purchasing decision through Amplify since it was faster and more convenient.

Amplify recently announced it has raised $12M in Series A funding co-led by Greycroft and Crosslink Capital. One of the upcoming goals for the company is to launch a mobile application for customers to manage their investment portfolio and coverage details. The end-to-end mobile application allows for policy quote and submission, instant decision and policy management. Our policyholder’s application will allow for current customers to manage their investment portfolios and policy details for themselves and their families in one place.