Shefi Ben-Hutta
Editor at Coverager

2023: Mid-Year Review

In 2022, we began the year with Root laying off ~330 employees. A thorough analysis of the space suggested that there was an inflation of insurance companies that look and sound alike, but aren’t enough customers to go around. Ironically, customers flocking to incumbents are being turned away:

  • AAA will not be renewing package policies that combine home, car and optional umbrella coverage in Florida.
  • AIG decided it will no longer insure houses along Florida’s coastline.
  • Farmers recently announced that it would discontinue its coverage for cars and homes in Florida to “effectively manage risk exposure.”
  • Nationwide announced specific business actions to manage new personal lines coverage including the requirement of pre-quote documentation in select states.
  • Progressive is taking measures to rein growth in, raising rates and drastically cutting marketing costs.
  • State Farm stopped writing new personal and business insurance (excluding personal auto) in California

Root was also the start of 2023. This time, we covered their internal investigation into the marketing initiatives of their previous CMO. Here is what else transpired between that time and now…

Name-change:

Protection is prevention:

  • Hanover announced the launch of its Hanover CyberSecure Program, a proactive cyber risk management program offering a set of cybersecurity services, which is now available to commercial lines cyber customers.
  • Munich Re Specialty launched Reflex, a proactive cyber risk management program offering complimentary risk control services.
  • State Farm  started to roll out ADT’s home security system in select states (Indiana, Illinois and Pennsylvania).
  • Swiss Re is testing the accident prevention capabilities of Luminar’s automotive sensors. This is an attempt by a hardware company to pile on an insurance service that’s differentiated by its access to underwriting data.

Commercial insurance:

  • Arch Insurance acquired small business insurance startup Thimble.
  • Donegal prioritized expanding its commercial lines book of business as it plans to rollout a new agency facing portal with enhanced small commercial products and straight-through processing capabilities. The rollout will be completed in Q3’23.
  • MGU Foresight Commercial is now writing coverage for solar installers in California.
  • Joyn Insurance, a NY-based E&S MGA, closed a $17.7 million Series A funding round led by OMERS Ventures with participation from Avanta Ventures, SiriusPoint and others.
  • Wholesaler NARDAC is planning to launch Community Solar, an online quoting portal for mid-scale solar companies.
  • Next launched a Certificate of Insurance (COI) Analyzer.
  • Superscript, the UK-based insurance startup offering commercial insurance, raised $54 million in a Series B funding round led by Comparethemarket owner BHL UK, with participation from The Hartford, and Concentric. The Hartford’s move is reminiscent of Travelers’ acquisition of Simply Business in 2017 and Zensurance the year after.
  • TD Insurance announced the launch of TD Insurance for Business, a new direct insurance product offering, tailored for small businesses in Canada.
  • WeSure Digital launched in Ohio, Indiana and Michigan, offering a BOP product from AmTrust.

Embedded insurance:

  • Alicia Insurance, a Rotterdam-based insurance startup with an embedded insurance proposition, raised €7 million in seed funding from Volta Ventures, Randstad Innovation Fund, and Achmea Innovation Fund.
  • Assurant launched the Assurant Product Experience Exchange (in short APEX) that allows partners to choose an integration method from APIs, a customized website, or widget.
  • The City of Paris is offering home insurance for low-income city residents in partnership with a unit of VYV Group and Wakam.
  • Brazilian digital bank Nubank introduced a new insurance product in partnership with Chubb that allows a person to take out two life insurance policies while gifting one policy to an individual.
  • CoreLogic acquired digital mortgage technology provider Roostify. Roostify is a dynamic point-of-sale system that will now be combined with CoreLogic’s data assets to leverage pre-fill capabilities. In the future, it’s possible CoreLogic will want  to own the embedded insurance journey.
  • Hippo developed an alternative distribution channel by launching the Hippo Builder Insurance Agency, which seeks to attract builders who will send home insurance leads to Hippo for Hippo to shop the market for them.
  • Zillow started to offer renters insurance from Homesite.
  • Chewy rolled out pet insurance from Lemonade (not an exclusive partnership).
  • Marsh Commercial now offers UK Costco members business insurance.
  • Pet insurance from Nationwide became available via Walmart.com (not an exclusive partnership).
  • Amazon picked up a fourth insurance partner – Policy Expert – for its UK insurance store.
  • Construction management software Procore launched a construction brokerage – Procore Risk Advisors – in partnership with Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty and Swiss Re.
  • QuickBooks Insurance has been discontinued after failing to achieve traction.
  • Vertical Insure closed a $2 million funding round, bringing its total seed raised since inception to $6 million. The round was led by Greenlight Re, with participation from others.
  • Sky, the European media and entertainment company that’s part of Comcast, introduced Sky Protect Smart Home Insurance, which includes smart home products, as well as home insurance from Zurich.

Agencies/MGAs-turned insurers:

  • Cyber MGA At-Bay acquired E&S carrier At-Bay Specialty Insurance Company, which is licensed in 44 states, from XL Insurance America, Inc. With this move At-Bay joined the growing list of MGAs-turned-carriers, which includes Clearcover, Coalition, Embroker, Hippo, Next, Openly, Pie, and Vouch.
  • Coalition acquired Digital Affect Insurance Company, a P&C insurer licensed in all 50 states, from Munich Re Digital Partners US Holding Corporation.
  • General Motors filed a trademark for GM Financial Insurance Company.
  • Orion180 transitioned from a managing general underwriter to a standalone carrier by launching Orion180 Insurance Co. The new company is an affiliate of Orion180 Insurance Services LLC, which as an MGU has produced ~$150 million in written premium in under five years and serves 80,000+ policyholders in six states throughout the Southeast.

Public companies-going-private and vice versa:

  • Duck Creek was acquired by Vista Equity Partners in an all-cash transaction valued at ~$2.6 billion. The company is no longer publicly listed.
  • Minneapolis-based FOXO may be out of compliance with the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). As an aside, FOXO is now targeting clients in academia, healthcare, and pharmaceutical research with a B2B offering that has nothing to do with insurance.
  • Niche insurer Skyward Specialty became a public company.
  • TypTap, the home insurance subsidiary of HCI Group, withdrew its plans to go public.

Exits:

  • Cover Genius acquired the assets of product protection startup Clyde.
  • Direct Line Group acquired By Miles. By Miles raised $26.5 million in funding to write £26 million in gross written premium and serve 50k customers.
  • Insurance Quantified acquired Groundspeed (according to a source, the deal’s value is $22 million, which is less than the approximately $80 million that Groundspeed raised).
  • Admiral exited its US comparison business via the sale of Compare.com to Insurify. Compare.com lost £2.8 million last year.
  • Jenny Life has reportedly been acquired by Forbes.
  • Luko, the troubled online property insurer from France, has been acquired by Admiral for ~€11 million.
  • Zinnia acquired Policygenius.
  • Vivint shelved its MGA insurance plans and sold its insurance book to Goosehead.

Incumbent-operated

  • Haven Life’s AgeUp product is no longer available for purchase.
  • American Family, through its venture studio Tenney 110, launched Fixle, a mobile app that allows homeowners to capture, store, and manage home systems such as water heaters and HVAC units, as well as appliances.
  • Allstate’s carsharing program Avail closed its airport locations. Several insurers have taken the risk of going beyond insurance, and many have failed. Examples include Sundial Labs by State Farm, Hedge by American Family and Peril Protect by Indiana Farm Bureau. Allstate is still at it.
  • Canada Life launched a life insurance product for charitable giving, which allows clients to choose a registered charity that will be both the owner and beneficiary of the policy.
  • CUNA Mutual Group got out of pet insurance by selling Bivvy, sharing that “Pet insurance was not core to CUNA Mutual’s vision of the future and that level of investment could be better deployed into opportunities more closely aligned with the company mission.”
  • The Hartford took down its web page for Putty Insurance, a short-lived experiment for short-term GL insurance.
  • MetLife Pet reunited with Snoopy.
  • TrustedPals, the pet insurance unit of Marsh that was launched in 2019, stopped accepting new applications. Coverage was underwritten by Zurich.

Lows:

  • Buckle stopped selling rideshare coverage joining others such as Slice, OptOn and Stable that have exited this market.
  • GEICO CEO is rebuilding the company, taking no prisoners.
  • Health IQ reached a zero valuation.
  • Onuu, an all-in-one banking and insurance solution, terminated its services as quickly as it had launched them.
  • Root is now engaged in two lawsuits against its former CMO and against Embedded Insurance. Root also fired its CFO – Robert Bateman.
  • Sensa has asked agents to find their policyholders a new home.

Finally, Coverager Research members can download our H1 2023 recap, where we highlight insurance investments, strategic investments, M&A, tech trends, and distribution partnerships.