Rotem Iram, a former Israeli military intelligence officer who leads cyber insurance startup At-Bay, which made this year’s Fintech 50 for its second year.
CODY PICKENS FOR FORBES
Fintech startups have taken longer than many expected to crack the insurance business. Some of the companies that have exited the private market, like auto insurer Root and home insurer Hippo, continue to see deeply depressed stock prices years after going public.
But six insurtech startups still made standout progress over the past year and earned spots on our Fintech 50 list for 2024, with each using technology differently to try to make insurance cheaper, more effective and more accessible.
Cyber insurance, where companies offer coverage against incidents like ransomware attacks and phishing emails, is the fastest growing category of insurance, and two startups made our list again this year: Coalition and At-Bay. The two six-year-old San Francisco companies, both founded by former government intelligence analysts, have used tech to better assess the risks that small and mid-sized businesses will suffer from costly hacks–and to alert their customers to potential threats. Coalition grew gross written premium revenue to more than $630 million in 2023, up 15% from the year prior, while At-Bay grew to $301 million, up 20%. (Read more about Coalition and At-Bay here.)
Life insurance fintech Ethos, which first made the Fintech 50 in 2020, fell off our list for two years before making a comeback in 2024. It uses predictive technology to quote life insurance rates in about five minutes through its app and then verifies applicants’ self-reported data with their actual medical and pharmacy records, requiring no medical exam for most buyers. Net revenue in 2023 reached $160 million, up from $104 million in 2022.
Next Insurance, which sells small business insurance policies like liability, auto and workers’ comp online and uses AI to process applications quickly, made the Fintech 50 for its fifth year. Companies like Intuit
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Here are the six insurance companies that made the Fintech 50 in 2024:
At-Bay
Provides cybersecurity insurance to more than 35,000 small and midsize businesses to protect against everything from ransomware and social engineering attacks to privacy infractions. It retains about 20% of the insurance risk, passing on the rest to big insurers. At-Bay scans customers’ networks for technical vulnerabilities to assess risk and price its insurance. In 2023, it pushed deeper into security technology by launching a managed detection and response product (which customers pay extra for) that monitors their physical computers and provides dedicated customer support for detecting threats.
Headquarters: San Francisco, California.
Funding: $292 million from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Khosla Ventures and Shlomo Kramer, among others.
Latest valuation: $1.35 billion.
Date of last valuation: October 2021.
Bona fides: In 2023, it wrote gross insurance premiums of $301 million (up 20% from 2022, despite falling insurance prices) and had more than $110 million in net revenue.
Cofounders: CEO Rotem Iram, 43, a former captain in the Israeli Military Intelligence; chief risk officer Roman Itskovich, 41; Etai Hochman, 36; Tilli Kalisky, 46.
Coalition
As the largest startup offering cyber insurance and proactive monitoring tools with 85,000 customers, Coalition insures against incidents like cyberattacks, email scams and accidental privacy violations. It partners with traditional carriers and reinsurers to write insurance, retaining about 10% of the financial risk. It recently expanded to offer directors and officers insurance, (which covers losses if a company’s leadership or board members are sued for actions like financial mismanagement or breach of contract), crime insurance and fiduciary insurance.
Headquarters: San Francisco, California.
Funding: $770 million from Valor Equity Partners, Allianz X and T. Rowe Price, among others.
Latest valuation: $5 billion.
Date of last valuation: July 2022.
Bona fides: In 2023, it wrote more than $630 million in gross insurance premiums, up 15% from 2022, despite a drop in cyber insurance prices.
Cofounders: CEO Joshua Motta, 40, a former CIA analyst and Goldman Sachs investment banker; John Hering, 41, also the founder of Lookout.
Ethos
Uses predictive technology to quote term life insurance rates in about five minutes through its app and then verifies applicants’ self-reported data with their actual medical and pharmacy records, requiring no medical exam for most buyers. The policies Ethos sells, designed specifically for its platform, have level premiums lasting for 10 to 30 years and cap out at $2 million in coverage. Ethos takes on none of the financial risk–it partners with carriers like Legal & General America and Ameritas Life Insurance Corp. In 2023, it sold 188,000 policies.
Headquarters: Austin, Texas.
Funding: $400 million from Sequoia, Accel and GV, among others.
Latest valuation: $2.7 billion.
Date of last valuation: July 2021.
Bona fides: $160 million in net revenue in 2023, up from $104 million in 2022.
Cofounders: CEO Peter Colis, 34, and CTO Lingke Wang, 33, were roommates at Stanford Business School when they hatched Ethos.
Kin Insurance
In a bid to keep costs and rates low, it sells home insurance policies digitally and directly to consumers in eight states (Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina, Texas, Arizona and Virginia), instead of employing a network of insurance agents. The insurance company itself is structured as a co-op owned by policyholders, with Kin taking 32% of premiums as a management fee. Reinsurance covers about 50% of the risk. In September 2023, Kin raised an additional $33 million from QED
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Headquarters: Chicago, Illinois.
Funding: $264 million.
Latest valuation: $1 billion.
Date of last valuation: September 2023.
Bona fides: In 2023, Kin’ revenue grew to $106 million, up from $68 million in 2022.
Cofounders: CEO Sean Harper, 43, who previously cofounded ecommerce startup FeeFighters, which was acquired by Groupon
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Next Insurance
Provides industry-tailored small business insurance policies (liability, auto, workers comp, etc.) online using artificial intelligence to process applications in 10 minutes and to offer 24/7 access to certificates of insurance and claims support. Companies like Intuit use Next Insurance’s white-label service to offer commercial insurance to their own customers. It reached 500,000 active customers in 2023, up from 420,000 in 2022.
Headquarters: Palo Alto, California.
Funding: $1.1 billion from Munich Re, Allstate
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Latest valuation: $2.5 billion, according to PitchBook, down from $4 billion in March 2021.
Date of last valuation: November 2023.
Bona fides: Annualized gross written premium revenue reached $920 million in December 2023, up from $809 million in December 2022.
Cofounders: CEO Guy Goldstein, 56, a former jet pilot in the Israeli air force who also cofounded Check, a personal finance and bill payment app that Intuit acquired in 2014 for $360 million; CTO Nissim Tapiro, 53; chief growth officer Alon Huri, 47.
Sure
Provides embedded insurance software, meaning back-end technology that helps large companies manage their insurance operations and launch new insurance offerings more quickly. Sure’s tech does everything from generating insurance policy documents to moving money between consumers and insurers to pay premiums. Revenue in 2023 grew 50%, the startup says, reaching more than $30 million.
Headquarters: Santa Monica, California.
Funding: $123 million from Declaration Partners, Kinnevik and W.R. Berkley Corporation, among others.
Latest valuation: $550 million.
Date of last valuation: October 2021.
Bona fides: Reached 125 customers (with Toyota, Farmers and Mastercard
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Cofounders: CEO Wayne Slavin, 40, a serial entrepreneur who cofounded and sold a data backup service and worked on Barnes and Noble’s Nook e-reader; chief strategy officer Jarod Kolman, 47, Slavin’s cousin who is also the founder and chairman of a South African real estate management company.
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Based in New York, Stephen Freeman is a Senior Editor at Trending Insurance News. Previously he has worked for Forbes and The Huffington Post. Steven is a graduate of Risk Management at the University of New York.