The insurtechs we met in 2020

December 28, 2020 11:55 AM

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Digital Insurance's semi-regular Meet the Insurtech series aims to help readers learn more about the varied paths startups take from conception to market entry. We've rounded up all the companies we profiled this year. If you'd like to get your insurtech in our queue, e-mail a member of our editorial staff.

Breeze

When conceiving and developing the disability insurance insurtech Breeze, CEO and co-founder Colin Nabity didn't expect the COVID-19 pandemic to be ravaging the globe. But now that they company is ready to launch, he believes the time is right: The need for income protection is abundantly clear. “People are starting to think more about 'what-ifs'. And it's been a good thing for our business, but also in the midst of a time that has not been great to everybody,” shared Nabity. "We are excited to make affordable income protection insurance more accessible to business owners, freelancers, and gig economy workers." Read the full piece

Covered By Sage

Seeing an insurance brokerage sector considerably behind in digital transformation, Rashik Adhikari has set his insurtech startup Covered by Sage up to assist these companies. The company provides a plug-and-play agency platform that aims to lower the financial, operational and technical burden of building, managing and retaining a broker’s book of business. Read the full piece

Foxquilt

COVID-19 is spotlighting the inadequacy of small business insurance to meet customers' full range of risks, according to Mark Morissette, whose insurtech Foxquilt is looking to provide a more tailored experience to those businesses. Foxquilt's goal is to leverage digital and date technology to provide small businesses with tailored coverage at -- hopefully -- significant savings. “We're using data science to built a sophisticated underwriting policy to join and advance small businesses with better buying power,” says Morissette. Read the full piece

Getsafe

Shortly after graduating with a degree in mechanical engineering, Getsafe’s founder Christian Wiens encountered a frustrating situation that led him to change his career trajectory: Needing to make an insurance claim, he found that his insurance coverage was inadequate.
“I had broken something, and my parents had pages of policies and updates, and nothing covered it,” Wiens says. “I had started mechanical engineering because I was fascinated by cars, but found it difficult to start a company in that space. This got me intrigued about insurance.” Read the full piece

Honk

When Corey Brundage’s fiance’s car broke down in 2014, he realized that it would be easier to get an Uber than a tow truck. That led him to launch Honk Technologies, a claims and mobile roadside assistance platform used to connect drivers, towing professionals and insurers, soon after. The company’s network includes more than 75,000 towing and roadside assistance service vehicles. Its Smart Assistant chatbot is linked to AI technology that identifies the ’best positioned’ service provider for each job, leading to response times between 15 and 30 minutes on average. Read the full piece

Lori

HYLA Mobile, a mobile-device trade-in company, has launched Lori, a device protection product with the goal of extending the life cycle of mobile devices. Joe Settimi, Senior Vice President & General Manager of Lori, says "the idea for our Lori device protection plans actually came about after a team member at HYLA broke their smartphone. Because the individual in question wasn’t able to purchase device protection for their older device, they had to pay an exorbitant sum in order to get their smartphone fixed." Read the full piece

Openly

The agent channel has been of greater interest to insurtechs recently, with industry and customer inertia helping to keep distributors a valuable part of the value chain despite digitalization. Openly, a home insurance startup, has recently launched with this in mind. It is live in Illinois and Arizona, with a $7.65 million seed round of funding, led by Gradient Ventures, in tow. Read the full piece

TypTap

When Apple’s Siri was an infant and Amazon Alexa yet unborn, TypTap’s founders began discussing the creation of an automated, data-driven, profitable insurance carrier unlike anything that existed. “In early 2012, we asked ourselves how insurance would be purchased in 2030,” explains Paresh Patel, chairman and CEO of TypTap parent, HCI Group. “We envisioned people speaking their name, address and the type of insurance into a mobile device to receive quotes from which they could select and digitally sign. We felt it was better to make the leap to become such a disruptor rather than be run over by one.” Read the full piece