BLOGS

Insurance is a notoriously difficult market to enter as a full-stack carrier. This is why many startups choose to go the managing general agent (MGA) route, at least initially. Entering the insurance world as an MGA allows startups to apply their technical knowledge and focus on proving a business model, while leaving risk management and underwriting to the underwriting insurer or reinsurer, i.e...

Simply selling a product online is no longer innovative. As I wrote last week, startups can sell almost any coverage online, from low-complexity and high-volume lines like renters to more complex coverages like individual annuities or group benefits. Many startups are rethinking distribution, bringing products to consumers rather than merely enabling a direct online purchase via an...

Startup insurers are not often built for scale or longevity. They usually have the advantage of writing on someone else’s paper, so they can go after historically unprofitable market segments and focus on customer experience. Often, the goal is to prove a business model, as most are running on limited funding. Yet a handful of startups are positioning their models for long-term growth—some as...

Something all startups have in common is a love of data, regardless of the solution they provide. Increasingly, startups are lending their expertise with unstructured data. Startups don’t usually provide pure data sets or data aggregation, as many large and established vendors have a foothold in these spaces. Yet many offer platforms to ingest data, process it, and derive insights....