Part of the technical challenge we deal with is, how do we build software that can scale what an agent does? Although we can’t offer a full insurance experience yet, we thought we’d roll out an advice app (https://app.goodcover.com/advice) that makes a stab at giving advice like an agent might, but using software. By analyzing your current insurance docs, we can:
- Benchmark the coverage you have against what is “normal”.
- Provide advice about some specific things that you can fix or at least consider fixing.
- Arm you with information on things you can push back on with your insurer.
Technically, the way it works is we’ve generalized some gotchas, manually looked over a bunch of Home/Renters policies, and built a workflow for us to select where we think you are in the homeowners/renters spectrum. So it’s really just workflow automation, however, it requires obviously being able to translate insurance constructs to user things, but most of it is pretty simple from an automation standpoint. Most of our time is generally spent on building out insurance functions, but it’s been a great experiment in information hierarchy to try and reduce complex concepts and insurance-speak down to actionable pieces of information for customers.
No obligation, and feel free to take our advice back to your current provider and get stuff fixed. Goodcover Insurance Solutions LLC is licensed in California (0M20813) so if you are not in CA we can still have a look, but you should definitely review our advice with a pro in your state.
I don't know what a good, succinct term would be for both renters and homeowners coverage. I know that various kinds of real estate related magazines fall under the umbrella term of shelter magazines. A lot of people seem to not know that, which just highlights how hard it is to come up with a good umbrella term for such diverse things. But I think you need to try to clarify that somehow on your landing page.
And if your advice app is broader than the renters/homeowners insurance niche, then specify that as well. I feel this is just not really clear at the moment.
Best of luck. Insurance R hard. ;)
You might just go with property or A/B test it. Insurance industry terms are often confusing, even for industry insiders.
When I paid accident claims, we went round and round as to what the best term was for the health care provider in question. "Provider" was the gold standard, but both customers and employees found that so vague as to be meaningless.
"Life" claims actually meant "death" claims. It's when someone dies and you file a claim on your life insurance policy. (eyes cross)
So you will need to maybe get with whomever your legal advisors are and whomever your marketing advisors are and find a term that both can accept.
I had a friend who had his apartment burn, the first thing the cops asked him was if he had insurance, and the they told him they were very relieved, otherwise he would have been an arson suspect automatically.
Homeowners generally do have insurance, so they don't face this stigma, but renter's coverage is rare enough that having it and using it makes you look like a crook.
A renter's policy is ridiculously inexpensive for what you get. Because it only covers liability and personal property, and not the full breadth of coverage a homeowner's policy would have, it's easy to get a really comprehensive policy for less than ~$15 a month. I've only had to use my renter's policy once after a break in, and the payout for personal property coverage was more than my entire decade worth of premiums[2]. Especially if you're a techie, electronics/computing stuff[3] really starts to add up if you take a look at all the little gadgets and computers and home office[4] style stuff you have around.
[1] It basically sets it up so that your landlord gets notified of any policy changes (non-renewal, cancelations, limit changes, etc) and can know for sure that you're continually insured, and don't let the policy lapse after you've shown your proof of insurance at lease signing.
[2] Paying a few extra bucks for "replacement cost" coverage vs. "market value" coverage is well worth it. It's the difference between "here's $100 for your 5 year old MacBook Pro" and "here's $1000 to cover the replacement cost for another entry level MacBook Pro".
[3] If you have personal property replacement, you'll generally have per-category limits. If you don't explicitly request a rider for it, your e.g. $20k personal property replacement coverage may cap out electronics at $1k.
[4] If you have company-owned equipment at your house, your personal renter's policy would likely not cover it. If you work for yourself from home, your "for work" equipment is probably not technically covered under a standard renter's insurance policy, so you may want to explicitly clarify if you need a separate policy with your insurance company if you don't want to chance a claim with it getting denied.
Renters insurance is cheap, especially compared to the value of your stuff, the cost of living in a hotel for an extended period of time, or paying someone's medical expenses after an accident.
[0] https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-renters-... [1] https://www.policygenius.com/renters-insurance/learn/what-do...
I'm pretty anti-insurance. If you can find some means to meet your needs that doesn't involve insurance, I say go with that. But the reality is that insurance is a necessity for many people and makes sense in many cases.
I really wish the US would move to single payer health care for the nation. I think major medical insurance is inherently problematic and I hate that the US handles things that way.
Nonetheless, I'm happy to support the development of good services in the insurance industry, especially in areas outside of major medical coverage.
Would love to hear any feedback too! Particularly around the user flow, and whether our instructions make sense.
Thanks!
This should be a really helpful service, kudos on the idea.
The only concern I have here is, privacy. Most of the home owners are not comfortable to upload docs that includes their names or property details (easy to know their net worth) from this. Also, how are you managing data security?
Do you have any plans to address these concerns?
I was in the hospital in February, and I asked the nurse how much it would cost to drain a subungual hematoma. Nobody knew!
Maybe it would've been free; maybe it would've cost $1,000 - it definitely doesn't feel good to decline a procedure because you have no idea how much it'll cost.
You make a really good point on privacy - insurance is a trust business and managing this right is really important. We delete Dec pages w/in 30 days (we don't need to keep them past giving you the advice), so that's a start and something we don't mention on the site but should. We also never expose user data, or show you what you've uploaded.
Unfortunately though to get insurance advice, property details are pretty important, and if you are concerned with your Liability coverage net worth is pretty important for a service to know too. What we don't need are names - actually people could black out that personal info (even address) and it would be fine!
Also, I didn't understand your description of "returning any unclaimed premium back to customers, keeping a fee instead". Being not too familiar with insurance, can you give an example of how this would work?
Hopefully that could help you out in the mean time.
Regarding returning unclaimed premium - good question. The way insurers make money is by 1) collecting premiums and holding on to them, generating some interest, and 2) keeping more premium than they need to pay out in losses and expenses, which is called "Underwriting Profit."
Typically Home/Renters insurance is written in such a way that a company tries to keep 5-15% of premiums as Underwriting Profit.
We think that the conflict over underwriting profit is at the heart of why the insurance experience is bad - there's not much incentive in improving a user experience that you don't want users to use... So we want to give that 5-15% back in the good years where we don't need it to pay claims. So, what you would see is a dividend at the end of the insurance year. It's not going to be much, but it is "putting our money where our mouth is" on our commitment to policyholders.
Turns out that's really hard to do legally and financially - mutual insurers would technically do this, but starting one is a hugely capital intensive process. We're on the path, and hope to be able to share more about the process soon!
Interesting development though is in CA, insurers are legally required to recommend you a replacement cost coverage amount that is adequate for your place. That probably has a lot to do with the changes you've seen on "guaranteeing" something vs just recommending.
"[add if applicable];"
"You are granted a limited, non-exclusive right to create a text hyperlink to the Site for noncommercial purposes, provided such link does not portray Goodcover or any of its products and services in a false, misleading, derogatory or otherwise defamatory manner...This limited right may be revoked at any time."
"You acknowledge and agree that any materials, including but not limited to questions, comments, suggestions, ideas, plans, notes, drawings, original or creative materials or other information, regarding the Site, Goodcover or Goodcover's products or services that are provided by you in the form of email or other submissions to Goodcover, or any postings on the Site, are non-confidential and shall become the sole property of Goodcover. Goodcover shall own exclusive rights, including all intellectual property rights, and shall be entitled to the unrestricted use and dissemination of these materials for any purpose, commercial or otherwise, without acknowledgment or compensation to you."
"If you post User Content to the Site, unless we indicate otherwise, you grant Goodcover and its affiliates a nonexclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable and fully sublicensable right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such User Content throughout the world in any media on or in connection with the Site and the promotion thereof. You grant Goodcover and its affiliates and sublicensees the right to use the name that you submit in connection with such content, if we choose."
"IN A WRITING"
The second is egregious, and embarrassing to be found in a YC company. You should not be asserting rights to how people "link" to you.
Third and fourth basically say any user provided "content" (whatever that may mean) is now "non-confidential" the "sole property of Goodcover", "entitled to the unrestricted use and dissemination of these materials for any purpose".
That sounds like you plan to use some relatively sensitive user provided materials in any way you see fit to advance your company.
But wait! you say...we have a privacy policy! Great, except the privacy policy has an exception...
"We may share information about you as follows or as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy: ... With your consent or at your direction, including if we notify you through our Service that the information you provide will be shared in a particular manner and you provide such information."
which arguably means that since the user accepted the T&C, they've approved your usage of their materials.
I don't feel you did this maliciously, you probably copied this from some template. Doesn't mean you shouldn't be thinking about this much more carefully though.
I don't think there are specific items that the parent commenter is trying to change; instead, the entire document just seems sloppy...
Best of luck with your business, but make sure the fundamental legal contract between you and your customers is thorough so that both you _and your customers_ are protected.
Now there is some space in the high-end personal lines for focus on protection. But there you're competing against entrenched insurance agents.
Small commercial is also a very interesting space to explore. Protection is much more important for these people and the sales process is easier to automate (than med/large commercial.)
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I sold my startup in this space last year. We provided marketing automation for agents. Feel free to reach out.
Would love to get in touch, will drop you a line.
I liked the flow, although I did have an issue where when I dragged the decs page onto the box in Safari it just opened the page, but once I got it uploaded it worked fine. Still waiting for my report now.
Might be a simple way for you to get it done.
