I(N)A

Five months ago, Daniel Haik, a political analyst for i24 Francais, mistakenly reported a satirical claim from Telegram as fact. During a live broadcast, he stated that Iran’s president had died in a helicopter crash piloted by a “Mossad agent named Eli Copter“—not realizing it was a joke.

Eli Copter.

Helicopter.

Similarly, Ebenezer Hazard could be seen as the insurance world’s Eli Copter: his first name means “stone of help” in Hebrew, and his last name—well, you get the idea.

Hazard stumbled into insurance in the late 18th century, much like many of us do—unexpectedly. After graduating from what is now Princeton University, he became Postmaster General in the 1780s, streamlining the postal system. But he stirred controversy by replacing stagecoaches with faster, cheaper post riders, disrupting news distribution during pivotal Constitutional debates. George Washington dismissed him over this. Hazard then co-founded the Insurance Company of North America (INA) in 1792 (incorporated in 1794), the first US company to insure both buildings and their contents.

INA was a powerhouse. At its peak, the company kept operational expenses below 25% of its premium income—well below the industry average of over 40%. This efficiency allowed it to retain more profit and invest strategically, making it one of the most financially stable insurance firms of its time. Yesterday’s INA evolved into today’s Chubb through a series of acquisitions. After struggling to compete with direct writers despite diversifying into life and workers’ compensation insurance, INA merged with Connecticut General Life in 1982 to form CIGNA. In 1999, ACE acquired CIGNA’s P&C operations, including INA. Finally, in 2016, ACE acquired Chubb and rebranded under the Chubb name, transforming INA into part of a global insurance leader through strategic mergers and acquisitions.

Insurance for (any) century

This week, Tuio, a Madrid-based MGA, secured a $16.7 million Series A round with participation from MassMutual Ventures, bringing its total funding to $20 million. Insurance partners include the struggling iptiQ, Wakam (thankfully rebranded), and Element. Their offerings cover home, life, pet, and mortgage insurance, but what really stands out is how much it resembles Lemonade. Tuio even adopted a tagline similar to Lemonade’s “Insurance for the 21st century,” with only minor translation differences. Offering insurance for buildings and contents is a hallmark of the 19th century. Expanding to cover pets emerged in the 20th century. Selling insurance via a mobile app is very much a 21st-century development. Yet one constant remains: insurance is a logical purchase.

Insurance M&A

Coverager’s Tuesday edition was a deadly one, covering ~four inactive insurance startups. Adding to this list, in a not-so-surprising move, the site deadhappy(dot)com is now offline, largely due to its limited product offering and controversial marketing strategies, compounded by high marketing costs. DeadHappy, a digital life insurance startup from the UK, was founded in 2013 and raised $36.6 million before filing for bankruptcy around June 2024.

Meanwhile, Athlete Insurance (lifeathlete.co) is live, but it appears to be a basic landing page with little substance, seemingly inspired by Health IQ’s early days. This cycle isn’t worth repeating. Health IQ began with a typo, aiming at insurance for weightlifters and runners, and ended up in the Medicare business, ultimately filing for bankruptcy in September 2023 after raising $136.5 million since its 2014 inception.

To this day, my top example for building a digital agency remains Policygenius before 2020. However, its Series D and subsequent funding rounds led the startup to lose its original spirit, part ways with its co-founders after being acquired by Zinnia, and deviate from its initial mission of selling insurance as digitally and directly as possible.

The second most-clicked link in Coverager’s Wednesday edition was Policygenius’s Glassdoor review, which mentioned employees feeling like “human robots.” Shifting gears, Meta introduced several new features to its AI products this week. Users can now interact with Meta AI using their voice on Messenger, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, with the option to choose from various celebrity voices like Judi Dench and John Cena. We’re living in a world where bots are getting the human treatment, and humans are getting the bot treatment. The latter is not okay.

And it’s likely to get worse. According to a recent KPMG survey (take it with a grain of salt), 81% of insurance CEOs are prioritizing generative AI investments. Meanwhile, most insurance leaders expect workforce growth to be less than 5% over the next three years, and the majority of CEOs are keen on pursuing mergers and acquisitions. In a landscape where minimal job growth and increased M&A activity coexist, some of us, like Hazard, may be driven to innovate and build rather than conform to the chaotic hiring realities.

And that might just be good business.