When we quit our jobs to become digital nomads, we discovered that if you are not a full-time employee, you're pretty much on your own. You lose stable income and most benefits when you earn money as a freelancer or entrepreneur, and lose the rest of your safety nets by being abroad. We decided to do something about this, and the result is SafetyWing.
We're three Norwegians: Sondre is also founder of freelancer platform Konsus.com (YC W16). Sarah is CTO, former lead engineer of ad-network Tapdaq & she’s also a musician. Hans a is lawyer and former head of legal at Auka, which is like white-label Venmo.
Our first product is $37 per month (4 weeks) for worldwide travel and medical insurance ($30 add-on for US, since US healthcare is much more expensive). It only works when you’re outside your home country, although there is 30 days home country coverage every 3 months so you can visit home (15 for U.S. residents). Covers hospital, doctor, prescription, etc.
The hardest thing about making the product has been licensing and getting trust from an insurer. To do that we hired two senior insurance experts who have been in the industry for 30 years. They helped us design it, and get the deal with insurance giant Tokio Marine.
Why is it so cheap? 1. Three major exclusions: preventive care, long-term cancer treatment and pre-existing conditions. Acute onset of pre-existing conditions is covered though; 2. The price is for ages 18-39. Other ages can buy though at higher prices—sorry, it’s the way this industry works; 3. Lower commissions compared to insurance sold via agents.
This is the first step in a plan to build a global safety net for online freelancers and entrepreneurs.
Look forward to getting feedback and hearing ideas from HN. We know there are digital nomads frequenting here, and we’d also be really interested in hearing about your experiences with health care or safety nets in general.
So I want:
- table that compares your insurance to alternatives
- clarify "evacuation", many nomads do not have a regular home.
- short extract from terms and conditions (maximal coverage, co-payment, etc...). Web is very vague...
- fix your terms & conditions, it is branded to other company.....
- A comparison is currently in the making. - We will clarify "evacuation" and also add max coverage/deductible for every coverage under the explore button on the website.
I should add that we do provide medical cover, not only evacuation.
Wouldn't most people need some kind of primary health plan, regardless, for standard healthcare visits?
No need to apologize. The young people get higher automobile insurance rates.
What makes your service better than this policy that I've used before? https://www.insuremytrip.com/travel-insurance-providers/inte...
[edit] Or this policy, which looks like it might be the same policy that you're providing? https://www.insuremytrip.com/travel-insurance-providers/hcc-...
The price looks about the same (~$500/yr) for similar coverage options, and I've used them before so I know that they did things like automatically email me a copy of the letter declaring coverage terms needed for stay in the Schengen Area (Btw, if you don't do that, you definitely should). Their maximum policy length is a year but I know from experience that you can easily renew for another year after expiry if you need longer.
[edit] I found your policy links, but I completely missed them at first because of the tiny buried text. Can you make them bigger and not buried so far down?
From your exceptions list:
16. Routine medical examinations,
This surely can't compare to a full service mid-tier insurance of equal price. Other expat insurance do cover 2-3 checkups a year with conditions on checkup venue and price.
36. products that can be purchased without a doctor's prescription.
When a necessary off the counter drug is being prescribed by a doctor, will it not be covered? How this works in countries where you can buy pretty much anything off the counter, sans opiates?
41. Charges exceeding usual, reasonable and customary.
Specific limits? Especially want to know it for countries like China where where the difference in between public hospital - basic private clinic - and in a hospital that is up to international standards is like 8-10 times
More specific language for hospital stay and follow-up is needed. Say you broke a leg. You got released from hospital, but have to come for follow ups, remove the cast and sutures. Both did cost like $100 to me in Shanghai with 150 for the price of visit itself, which is more than I would've paid in Canada. Will follow ups be subject to outpatient visit limits?
My feel is that this more of an extended travel insurance, rather than a dedicated expat insurance that will allow for: a. you to remain in the country if you get in a moderately serious medical situation (on a level of appendectomy, complicated fracture treatment) and cover follow up care, b. cover your regular medical expenses
From stories online and experiences of others, it also seems that a lot of it is about maintaining emotional health when away from home for a while. I wonder if you’ve thought through providing access to counseling services, etc. In other words, safety net in terms of well being?
Yes the second biggest problems nomads cited in our surveys was loneliness / being disconnected from relationships when moving often. One thing we are doing to address this now is to build a community, with social events for our users. I think it sounds like an interesting idea to consider adding counseling services though. We haven't considered it before, but we will take a look at it. Thanks.
ETA: We definitely cover your situation, unless you head to those countries.
The problem with their landing page is the characters have way too much detail (& distracting), and it really detracts away the overall message they are conveying
Maybe it's the pose of the characters. For example, the hand wave of the white ladybird feels unnatural, somehow.
Congrats on the launch by the way! Much needed product.
If you're in a neutral country where will you be evacuated to?
Say for instance, I'm from Syria and I get ill in Venezuela, where will I have the option of being treated?
1) Take a high deductable (because low means you will pay it every year any way ;-)
2) Take a very high maximum. Because that is what you have an insurance for. If something really goes wrong, you need as much support as possible, for as long as possible.
I have a rather expensive insurance with 1000 / yr deductable and 1 million max (or more, depending on circumstances). I never claimed anything in the 8 years that I have it and I hope it will stay that way for a long time to come.
I never reach 1000 / yr so I do not even think of keeping track.
But for an insurance company the human emotion part ('my insurance should cover everything') is probably where the first profit is ?
No preventative coverage seems nonsensical. Basically all of the value I get out of my insurance is for my annual physical and full lab screens. I find it frustrating that an innovative new business model for insurance doesn't focus more on preventing high medical costs rather than simply helping with costs after it's too late.
Reading your full safety-wing-specimen-policy-0118.pdf, there's a bunch of random bold words. Seems most pronouns and many other words are bolded and I can't figure out why. It makes the document visually busy and hard to read. I would fix that unless there's some legal reason you have to do it that way.
The lost checked luggage coverage excludes literally everything of value I might have in my luggage except clothing. Feels like a scam honestly.
Congrats on launching and props for trying to innovate in the world's shittiest industry, but I don't think I'd sign up for this and I'm exactly your target market.
I understand where you're coming from, but consider this: for things you know you are going to do, a subscription is the right product - not an insurance. Insurance is better for unforseen large costs, instead of predictable small costs. And we are in fact planning to add a global primary care subscription to address that. In the Nordic countries where we're from, most of healthcare is delivered (by the government) in something closer to a subscription than insurance.
> random bold words
I agree with this being unnecessary formatting, we will look into and fix this.
> lost checked luggage coverage excludes literally everything of value
It is true that our lost checked luggage coverage has too many exclusions and is not good enough. This is something we are working on improving, and will release and add-on that fixes it, and give people the option of a genuine stuff-insurance.
We'll work on getting this better, would appreciate if you have time for a call with us at one point. Would really appreciate getting feedback on how we can not just remove the bad, but also maybe add some good.
(If you want to, in addition to helping us build something useful, we can like throw in a $25 airbnb gift card, my email is sondre@safetywing.com)
Yes we do intend to add more products, next one is to complete a global health insurance that includes primary care. We currentl offer 40-49, 50-59 and 60-69 as well, but at higher price points. Most of our users are in the 18-39 age-range, so this was the segment we tailored it to.
Could help me clarify my principal residence? I was actually looking to buy insurance a few weeks back, but not knowing the answer to this questions stopped me and I didn't hear back from the insurance company when I asked them.
"Your principal residence where you receive regular mail"
I used to live in country A, where I have a forwarding address for most of my mail. But I don't live or have health insurance there.
I'm currently in country B but will leave soon and travel to various other countries. I want to buy health insurance for after leaving country B.
What should be my principal residence?
Well, more power to you, I suppose.
Off-topic: Would you mind to share who made the illustrations of your website? I really love it!
We are planning to target freelancers and entrepreneurs more generally, with our coming series of products. They will all be global though. This is just the first step.
The illustrations is made by Sean MacIsaac, our genius designer/frontend/illustrator who is on the founding team.
> The "digital nomads" I know fly more than anyone I know. The discounts they find make them beneficiaries of our not accounting for externalities of the pollution from flying.
> Does anyone know the carbon footprint or pollution levels their lifestyle causes? My intuition may be off, but they would seem high.
Does your research enable you to answer better than others?
I don't understand "Home country coverage" so maybe you could do some user testing to come up with better explanation.
Maybe a comparison to other insurances like Alianz Global Insurance. I have that and I'm not sure why yours would be better. I think it was about the same price looking at yearly cost.
Again, great web site.
In order to get to the stage one can do an actual purchase, we do need a few pieces of information though. We have tried minimising this, but we'll take a look at how we can reduce it further. Any specific suggestions you would have for what we should put before registration and after?
Hmmm... makes sense that you're in the insurance business.
