Co-founder of Cover here.
We’re working on a property and casualty insurance product built from first principles on mobile for millennials. Our product takes in a picture of property you want to insure, and connects you with a network of brokerages across the US & Canada to fulfill the requests. Soon we’ll be binding insurance ourselves.
Depending on the geography, 80-90% of all insurance transactions end up getting bound over the phone, it only makes sense that they start there.
Happy to take any questions. Thanks y’all!
@karnsaroya Hi Karn, nice to see Cover here. Covered you guys in a short post I wrote in Feb. https://www.cbinsights.com/blog/...
Re: your mention that 'Soon we’ll be binding insurance ourselves.' Curious your thoughts on recent AXA survey (https://twitter.com/AXALab/statu...) that seemed to question whether younger demo actually wants entire bid to bind process on mobile?
@mlcwong I'm not sure that customers have been given a compelling option. Most carrier insurance apps are basically a wrapper around a web app that involves 8 pages of questions, and ultimately results in you having to call an agent. Also, each carrier focuses on particular type of risk/market -- and under no circumstance is a customer going to download 4-8 apps to get quoted. Current mobile insurance products aren't exactly inspired.
@karnsaroya Agreed...tough to take poll at face value (given few to none likely experienced even a wrapper). Look forward to keeping up with Cover's progress
@karnsaroya@mlcwong As long as the insurance carriers each continue to have their own criteria for underwriting/rating I'm not sure there is a way around this. It makes it impossible to properly compare carriers with a few questions. One carrier asks about bedroom count, another asks the type of garage, another asks if you are a college grad, another will give you credit if you are AARP, etc, etc, etc. And all of these things answers are rate bearing. With all of the autonomic driving systems now this is only bound to become even more complex. All of the carriers would have to scale back and formalize their underwriting questions in addition which seems to be a herculean task.
Cover is probably the easiest way I've seen to get insurance on an object in the real world. All you have to do is take a photo with their app and they'll get you a quote. Need car insurance? Take a photo of your car. Need homeowner or rental insurance? Take a pic of your crib. Want to insure your jewelry? Photograph that bling.
They've brought extreme usability to insurance quoting and it's probably why Apple featured them as one of the best new apps in the App store.
Cover Insurance
Cover Insurance
Y Combinator