Windsock Score for Lemonade ($LMND), a member of the Fintech 50 Index of publicly traded stocks.

Windsock Score is our qualitative rating of companies in the Fintech 50 Index. We expect investors to use this together with quantitive analysis. We call it Windsock because we are looking for both headwinds (strategic obstacles to growth) and tailwinds (strategically well positioned for growth). We start with Lemonade ($LMND), the only member of the  […]

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The last will be first, and the first will be last:tension in the InsurTech entrant and incumbency environment

entrants and incumbents

 

 

Funny how things can change- one week riding the funding train, next week sitting in the startup exit car.  Skinny jeans, Vans and untucked shirts change into a wardrobe that has a descriptor- business casual.  Same idea in start-up accounting- paid in option value becomes the eagle flying twice a month and performance bonuses.  Evolving from a role that suggests you handle all tasks to the paint drying on the corner cubicle placard that reads, “Chief Marketing Officer.”  Startup to post-IPO organization, and in time-incumbency. Welcome to quarterly reports and silo culture.  All the same customers, however.

An unexpected tension exists between insurance start-up culture with the unicorn hunt, and the cash flush, ‘we are happy with a combined ratio under 100’ culture of the incumbents- the status of industry legitimacy is pursued but once gained is treated like being in the clique the other players deride.  It’s clear that much of insurance innovation is founded in the existing industry being seen as an unresponsive, callous, cash grabbing, seldom paying monolith.  A product that is sold, seldom bought, with businesses that hide behind clever spokespersons to craft a façade of ‘hip’.

And the legacy monolith?  Always comfortable riding a train of convention.  Think of it- incumbent carriers know the route they traverse, little option to change the route because the route is like a rail track.  Hook up the cars, open the throttle of written premiums, hope there aren’t unexpected steep grades that might depress the profitable results of the trip.  Not that incumbents don’t occasionally start a string of cars that take a new path, but seldom does the main string of cars slow to allow connection of the cars that tried the new path.

Consider the recent comments cited from the Financial Times attributed to UK-based insurer, Aviva’s former CEO, Mark Wilson:

“(Aviva) took space in an old garage in London’s Hoxton Square to house the digital projects that he believed would transform the insurance company. The idea was that, away from the actuaries and the bureaucrats at head office, trendy millennials with coding skills could let their creativity loose and turn Aviva into an insurer fit for the future.” 

Not waiting for that parallel-running train to catch speed, the current CEO for the firm, Maurice Tulloch, suggests the firm’s course remains upon the main track, “and (Aviva) is set to take a more hard-nosed look at the garage and the projects that are housed there.”  Seemingly not patient enough for results to take hold, and in probability a disconnect between the ‘garage’ and the existing culture.

Even the Street is discouraging alternate routs for the insurance incumbent. From the same article is found:

“Huge amounts of money were being invested (at Aviva) and it looks like it got out of control,” said Barrie Cornes, analyst at Panmure Gordon. “Reining it in is the right thing to do. They need to look at the costs and it wouldn’t surprise me if they looked to cut some of the expense,” he added.  Looks like?  Based on what?

It was controversial how much he talked about it. He said that pulling back some of the digital investments could add 5 percent a year to Aviva’s earnings per share. Few people expect the garage to close, at least in the short term. Aviva is not the only insurance company to sharpen the focus of its tech investments in recent years.  (thanks, Graham Spriggs for the share of the article)

Five percent per year additional profit by reining in the firm’s potential future.  Huh.   If “All the Insurance Players will be InsurTech”, by InsurTech influencer, Matteo Carbone voices the insurance industry’s future, a five percent savings to the bottom line might be better spent on maintaining competitive advantage by leveraging tech and process innovation.  It’s that tension between quarterly expectations and seeing down the road.

Along the same line, incumbents that take the path of innovation often stray from the InsurTech digital path when results aren’t immediate.  A key player in the US P&C market that touts itself as a data company has initiated many digital service changes; same company however reaches for the analog diagnosis methods when unexpected (read as not positive) results are experienced.  Digital/AI innovations should be addressed using the same AI if there’s to be an effective feedback loop, right?  Not if the quarterly results demon is waiting.   No naming names because all are guilty of the method- it’s too hard to change right away.

A recent announcement by Lemonade regarding the firm considering exercising an IPO, further exemplifies how a poster-child insurance start-up may migrate to insurance ‘legitimacy’, and potentially step aside from its game theory approach to serving customer needs.  The very basis of the firm’s leading principle supporting its charitable giving approach to claim handling/premiums, the Ulysses Contract, may be preempted post-IPO by the quarterly ratio chase and Daniel Schreiber’s hands will be tied no more, and will become available to take the cash or craft the next opportunity.  The firm has traveled far from the day where the first seventy renters’ policies were observed rolling in through the company website.

Not that there aren’t innovating companies/startups that have either migrated to conventional insurance forms through investment exit or by IPO- see German Family Insurance-Deutsche-Familienversicherung, the first European InsurTech IPO, or firms that have made effective partnerships with incumbent carriers, e.g., Lucep PTE that forged an effective working basis with MetLife Portugal .  Each of those firms found effective ways to bridge the perceived gap between innovation and incumbency.

It just doesn’t matter which insurance route your organization is following- incumbent or entrant, each customer is dear, all firms need to act with a sense of customer service urgency.  Today’s startup chasing seed money is next year’s IPO, and in quick time an incumbent that even newer entrants are focused on disrupting.  And there’s no reason skinny jeans can’t be worn at one’s corner cubicle while the wearer peruses the corporate 10-Q or ECOFIN dictates.

image source

Patrick Kelahan is a CX, engineering & insurance professional, working with Insurers, Attorneys & Owners. He also serves the insurance and Fintech world as the ‘Insurance Elephant’.

I have no positions or commercial relationships with the companies or people mentioned. I am not receiving compensation for this post.

Subscribe by email to join the other Fintech leaders who read our research daily to stay ahead of the curve. Check out our advisory services (how we pay for this free original research).

Insurers love NPS- can the IoT help show why it remains an important measure?

 

 

TLDR  What to do, what to do, in the InsurTech, innovation insurance world?  Insurance remains a ‘sold, not bought’, product.  Virtual service is not only becoming a demand of customers, but carriers are embracing the concept based on expectations of efficiency and economy.  Will there be a disconnect between service efforts and how customers perceive it?  As customers change their habits, can insurance change theirs?  What is the common thread?

How an insurance carrier performs is typically known only when an adverse situation occurs, i.e., a claim, and service is triggered for the customer, a customer who doesn’t really know what to expect during a claim experience.  So of course the industry knows this and has devised many ways of gauging service performance: from internal surveys, JD Power ratings (Customer Service Index), and most recently, by asking claim customers how they would rate the service they received in terms of one question,

How likely is it that you would recommend this company to a friend or colleague?”  

 The answers to that clever question are the basis of the calculations for a ‘Net Promoter Score’ (NPS), a service (loyalty) measure devised by Fred Reichheld and other clever minds at Bain and Co.  How does this tie in with InsurTech principles?  Seemingly through another three-letter acronym, IoT (Internet of Things).

 

What are you talking about, you say- NPS is a survey administered measure made available to but a fraction of insurance customers, is but one question, and disregards the experience of the majority of the customers.  IoT speaks to connected devices, ostensibly meant (to many in the insurance world) to detect adverse conditions, track adverse conditions, determine behaviors that might predict adverse circumstances, and by extension reduce carriers’ exposure to claims. One measures experience, and one works to predict experience.

Well, I’m here to say that the two concepts couldn’t be more intertwined, and as innovation within the insurance industry becomes more practical, and as IoT becomes more ubiquitous, the interplay of NPS and IoT will become clearer.

At its root NPS was developed as a means to measure what the folks at Bain found as the key driver of business growth and success- customer loyalty.  Loyalty has been a proven factor in business growth and businesses who foster customer loyalty not only retain those customers’ business, but those same customers are motivated to bring other business along.  Enhancing customer loyalty, adding value to the customers’ lives, and refuting the contention that “loyalty is dead” (see Mr. Reichheld discussing that here ) is the foundation of NPS.  And everyone touts their NPS results, don’t they?

So along comes IoT principles as part of the InsurTech wave, and its primary advocate in the InsurTech world, Matteo Carbone. (In an odd coincidence as with Mr. Reichheld, Mr. Carbone is also a Bain alumnus.)  Mr. Carbone has espoused the concept that “all insurers will be InsurTech”, but in addition to that his IoT Observatory has become a central authority regarding insurance effects of connected devices in autos, houses, and to some extent, wearables.  And a main principle he covers within his recent article, “Smart Home Insurance Strategy 101”, is loyalty :

This way of enhancing proximity and interaction frequency with policyholders (connected devices and value addition) – while creating new customer experience and expanding relationships – is one of the reasons for adopting IoT in home insurance. These interactions with customers are one proven way to earn higher loyalty and allow the differentiation from competitors.”

There’s that word- loyalty.  In an insurance world where virtual service is becoming the holy grail for carriers, how will loyalty remain a factor that can be influenced by carrier service?  Even the InsurTech poster child, Lemonade, has to have concerns that as long as NPS remains an important measure of customer service (Clearsurance may have ideas about that), interactions with insureds must remain focused on maintaining or building loyalty.  Can a bot do that?

IoT programs have that opportunity to integrate technology, virtual service, and value addition that can build customer loyalty, for example, value-added services as noted by Mr. Carbone.  “But the real opportunity is to solve customer problems by delivering enlarged value propositions for their homes. (Some) services enabled by home IoT are:

  • Safety/Security: remote monitoring and emergency services to provide peace-of-mind to the homeowner;
  • Efficiency: tracking and optimization tools to contain the expenditures (energy and water) at home;
  • Property services: concierge with a platform of certified service providers (such as plumbers, metal workers, carpenters, construction workers or electricians) for home administration;

Seems any or all of those points would serve to build customer loyalty in the absence of direct service from claim staff.  And what of agents?  Insurance sales and servicing of policies remain a predominantly agency-driven proposition in the US and Europe- agents/brokers are beginning to recognize the need for provision of more to customers than just quotes.  In markets where ecosystems and smart device access are the primary entry for customers to insurance, loyalty may be even more fragile as ecosystem change is simply an app away.  In all matters the focus must remain on enriching customers’ lives, on #innovatingfromthecustomerbackwards.

NPS and IoT- the concepts can’t make insurance a more ‘bought, not sold’ proposition, but effectively focusing on IoT in an increasingly virtual insurance world can help maintain or build loyalty, and as the architects of NPS found, that is the foundation of an effective growth strategy.  The two principles have previously marked different paths but are now on intersecting courses.

 

image source

Patrick Kelahan is a CX, engineering & insurance professional, working with Insurers, Attorneys & Owners. He also serves the insurance and Fintech world as the ‘Insurance Elephant’.

I have no positions or commercial relationships with the companies or people mentioned. I am not receiving compensation for this post.

Subscribe by email to join the 25,000 other Fintech leaders who read our research daily to stay ahead of the curve. Check out our advisory services (how we pay for this free original research).

 

Pondering the cool discussion of InsurTech carrier Lemonade- is it as sweet as presented?

TLDR As discussed in the prior post Lemonade is many things, per CEO and co-founder, Daniel Schreiber– revolutionary tech platform, charitable giver, P2P service provider (no, strike that), but at its core it is a property insurance company.  The hows and whys matter not when the application for license goes before the respective jurisdiction’s regulators.  The company must be organized and operated in a manner that is recognized as secure for its policyholders and adequately financed as such, must comply with the same accounting standards as other insurance carriers, and must be ready and able to comply with the agreements, provisions, and conditions its policies include.

Why belabor these points?  Because the company leads with its innovation chin, its behavioral economics, and its promises to act as a totally different insurance company than what those crabby octogenarians (who) think we are making too much noise companies do.

One of the foundational points the firm makes at its outset is that there is a recognition by Lemonade’s founders that, “There’s an inherent conflict of interest in the very structure of the insurance industry.”  (Chief Behavioral Officer, Prof. Dan Ariely, see around 0:54 of the video).  He continues, “Every dollar your insurer pays you is a dollar less for their profits.  So when something bad happens to you, their interests are directly conflicted with yours.”  

Of course there is conflict between payment of premiums and indemnification- absent the ‘tension’ insurance would not exist, or perhaps would be free! It might be said that Professor Ariely’s perspective has an inherent flaw in not acknowledging that an insurance policy is a contract for risk sharing between an insured and carrier, that a respective policy premium and deductible are the insured’s agreed cost of sharing the risk covered by the policy, and that the carrier promises to indemnify the insured for damages due to causes of loss the policy covers.  It’s not a pure quid pro quo financial agreement because the cost of underwriting, selling and administering the policy falls upon the carrier, and the deductible and premium cost falls upon the insured.  The use or equality of the costs are only considered upon inception of a claim.  In addition, the insured is not involved in devising the terms of the policy, as a contract of adhesion a prospective insured’s sole power is accepting the contract in its entirety or not.  Absent optional inclusion of additional contract scope or details (endorsements and/or coverage limits), the insured is powerless in respect to a contract that ostensibly is in equilibrium between the parties- premium on one side, equivalent policy benefits afforded by the other side.

The price of the risk is determined by the carrier and approved by regulators based on volumes of data, actuarial smarts and with an eye to profitability balanced with service.  The frequency of CWPs (closed without payment) and paid claims is part of the actuarial machinations (regulators are comforted by carriers whose data are in concert with the industry at large), as such denials of coverage are, if absent, a concern for regulators. Is there an undue conflict of interest for incumbent carriers where policy provisions apply, or is Lemonade leveraging a message based on clever marketing?

Consider the typical property insurance claim pool:

Not every policyholder has a claim each premium period; in fact less than 20% of a typical insurance carrier’s homeowner’s customers experience a claim during a policy year.  Of that pool of claims the  frequency of denial is on average less than 30% of the total claims closed.  Extending the thought process, a carrier with 500,000 policyholders experiences on average 100,000 claims during a year, and of those 100K customers 30,000 may be denied coverage, so one can say approximately 6% of the subject carrier’s customers’ insurance services end in coverage disappointment.  Compare that with the carrier’s YOY customer retention rate and it may be clear that denials of coverage are not the only factor in customers’ renewal algorithms.  Is that the basis upon which differentiation can reside?

There may be a stronger position for the firm to take that the inherent issue may be in pricing losses, confirming losses at FNOL, or sorting out the spurious (read as fraudulent) claims.  Per the firm 90% of FNOL reports are through Maya or similar service bots, and since that service entry is tied to the entire suite of AI it can be said that FNOL may be the best vehicle to mitigate the effect of any ‘inherent conflict.’ 

Why that?  The firm (through marketing and per discussion) relies on the position that a ‘Ulysses Contract’ is in place for the firm- a figurative ‘tying of hands’  for Lemonade in focusing on denials of claims since any excess of earned premium over the firm’s flat fee is donated to the policyholders’ charities of choice.  No path to the bottom line, no incentive for capricious denials.  Is there legitimacy to this position?  Insurance is a contract, 90% of Lemonade’s claims are being handled by bots, pricing is established by regulated filings, and claim denial ‘touches’ affect only a small percentage of customers.  It’s probable that most denials of coverage are due to contractual reasons, i.e., policy provision reasons including the cause of loss not being a named peril.  At this juncture the carrier has primarily renters’ policies as its portfolio, and claims are comprised of unscheduled personal property that has relatively concrete pricing.  In addition, claim customers have limited knowledge of what comprises effective claim handling- other than prompt receipt of proceeds into one’s account.  If there’s a Nash Equilibrium in place, customers seem to be unaware, and can a bot be adversely subject to the vagaries of Game Theory?   

Lemonade must be respected for its InsurTech effect on the property insurance industry- everyone knows of the Lemonade entry and journey.  The growth of the firm (while overall PIF is small) continues to engage the attention of all.  As Daniel Schreiber said in our discussion and in his recent blog entry Two Years of Lemonade: A Super Transparency Chronicle, “ the fact that our reinsurance agreements protect us from too many claims can’t hide the fact that, since launch, we’ve paid out more in claims than we’ve collected in premiums. Clearly, that can’t continue indefinitely.”

As the carrier evolves into a multi line policy organization (renters’, condos, homeowners) the bot approach to claim handling will be tested.  Renters’ claims are personal property tasks- named peril, concrete loss description, concrete valuations.  A house claim may involve multiple parties- the insured, emergency services vendors, public adjusters, field adjusters, third party administers, and so on.  The Nash Equilibrium will be complicated to affect in that multi-player game, and a Ulysses Contract will be toothless to address the covered damage, partial denials, additional living expense wranglings, and other unknown factors. 

Regardless of the company’s cover portfolio, the need to become viable within the framework of insurance accounting looms over the discussion of social good. To quote from a October, 2018, article posted by Coverager, “Lemonade’s Cards“,

“And while Lemonade ‘solved’ this conflict by only taking a flat fee and giving unclaimed money to charity, are they really a conflict-free company? Do they not have a strong desire to improve their loss ratio? Isn’t the loss ratio an important part of their business? Will they be able to attract investors or potential buyers with a high loss ratio?”

The firm will find its data aggregation, analysis, and predictive capabilities invaluable from underwriting to claim settlement, and may find the expected diversity of its claim portfolio meaningful in building its flow of ‘excess’ to charitable organizations. There’s a cadre of claim staff developing their service skills- in other words they are learning to be insurance pros.  And at a minimum Lemonade has been patient with the industry placing them under a magnifying glass, watching every step being made- that’s not a bad thing and has added to the collective knowledge of insurance innovation. However, at this juncture having a Ulysses Contract as a mainstay of its business model appears to serve Lemonade’s marketing more than it does its loss ratio.

image
source

Patrick Kelahan is
a CX, engineering & insurance professional, working with Insurers,
Attorneys & Owners. He also serves the insurance and Fintech world as the
‘Insurance Elephant’.

I have no positions or commercial relationships with the companies or people
mentioned. I am not receiving compensation for this post.

Subscribe by email to join the 25,000 other Fintech leaders who read our
research daily to stay ahead of the curve. Check out our advisory
services
 (how we pay for this free original research).

Enjoying a cool discussion of InsurTech carrier Lemonade, not too sweet, not too sour

Lemonade- it’s not just a drink anymore

TLDR How can an interview with an insurance startup founder go from discussing InsurTech and innovation, and end up focusing on the concept of a Ulysses Contract, Game Theory, Prisoners’ Dilemma, and the Nash Equilibrium?  Simple- find some time to talk with Daniel Schreiber, serial entrepreneur and now CEO of Lemonade Insurance.  It’s certain that additional perspective would have been added by Daniel’s co-founder, Shai Wininger, but we’ll focus on Daniel’s views for this article.

Lemonade has been under intense scrutiny since its entry into the insurance world in 2016, and Mr. Schreiber has been the guest of many interviews since then.  As is expected for any figure that resides in a legacy industry, finances and insurance ‘stuff’ have in general been the main topics of those discussions.  It seems all the questions related to insurance accounting and finance had been asked, and those at Lemonade have been rather public in getting out their ideas of what the industry should know about the company, so I was not interested in simply conducting another ping pong contest of convention versus innovation.  In planning for this Daily Fintech interview I thought I’d take a different approach- ask others what they would want answered by the CEO of this very public startup- so I crowd-sourced the questions.  More questions came than there would be time to ask, but the questions were shared with Daniel ahead of time so we figured we could sort out some key points.

Spring boarding off a recent optimistic posting by the firm’s Chief Insurance Officer,  John Peters  (read that here ), Daniel was asked of his impression of Lemonade in the insurance market- customer impressions, marketing, industry reaction, any factor that was meaningful.

The primary response- gratification that the insurance incumbency is tolerant but somewhat unimpressed based on ‘backhanded’ compliments, e.g., “they are good at PR,” “have a delightful APP,”, “they don’t ‘get’ insurance,” “Lemonade is not serious,” and the like.  Not ‘getting’ insurance is due to the app that is at the core of change in insurance, with invisible to the eye analytics, transformed user experience (UX), and predictive risk tools that are unavailable to traditional broker systems.  Not getting it means the firm’s approach is truly different/innovative.  And as time passed, the firm’s growth prompted comments such as, “if it grows like a weed it probably is one.”

The discussion led to a general touch on the first of the crowdsourced questions (answers quoted but paraphrased from Daniel’s remarks):

At the very beginning of Lemonade’s creation, what was the vision, who was the target customer, what value could you add to them?”

DS:         This, of course, touched on a primary reason for the firm’s existence- how could insurance be made available to customers in a way that was entirely different than the legacy system that was by some estimation, “A business that involves selling people promises to pay later that are never fulfilled?” (Urban Dictionary) .  Early on, per Daniel (and recounted by co-founder Ty Sagalow in his recently published book, “The Making of Lemonade”) , the founders of Lemonade worked to form an insurance company that aligned the interests of the carrier and the customers, in a fashion that was economically viable, applied cutting edge technology, and contributed to a common good.  Insurance is a need for most and is not a product that people yearn for, it is as is said, ‘sold, not bought’.  The vision was to be a 24/7 insurance company that delighted customers, and not one that irritated them.

“What early action do you regret was handled in the manner in which it was?”

DS:         At the initial launch of the company we announced Lemonade as being the ‘world’s first P2P insurance company’, a designation that posed immediate issues.  First off, the phrase only made sense within the insurance industry, insurance customers didn’t know what P2P was and didn’t really care.  In addition, those within the industry questioned the definition and if Lemonade was truly peer-to-peer.  Rather than wrestle with semantics and the distraction we backed off from that marketing.

An important aspect of the firm’s make-up is the charitable contribution (up to 40% of premiums.)  Shouldn’t contribution levels be detached from an arbitrary loss ratio result?

DS:         We are very proud of the amount of premiums that Lemonade has shared with charitable organizations on behalf of our policyholders.   2018 found the contribution to be approximately 2% of premiums.  It’s understood that Lemonade is not the only company to make charitable contributions, but compared with other companies Lemonade’s efforts represent not a bilateral, traditional approach where a portion of a company’s revenues are donated to a charity, Lemonade expresses a trilateral approach- the policyholder, the company, and the designated charity.  As discussed, Lemonade’s financial operating model allows for a set percentage of earned premiums to be set aside for operations, a portion for reinsurance backing, and the balance for payment of claims.  When claim/loss payments have a favorable performance versus the set aside, the balance is apportioned by group to the respective policyholders’ choice(s) of non-profit.  As a B Corporation, or Public Benefit Corporation, Lemonade is proud of its efforts to be a social good that is also an insurance company.  

“When it’s said in Lemonade’s press and marketing that traditional insurance companies make money by denying claims, which claims do incumbents deny that Lemonade would pay?”

DS:         Lemonade clearly understands that an insurance policy is a contract between the carrier and the policyholder, and the intention is not to say that in handling claims from customers Lemonade will pay claims outside of the policy provisions.  What is being said is that for both parties to the contract incentives matter, and alignment of interests matter, and actions follow the incentive structure.  If there is a reduced temptation for the carrier to deny claims because the outcome is to do good, and there is a reduced temptation for the insured to embellish claims for the same reason, then the dynamic of denied claims, or incentive structure affecting both sides is reduced and in fact there becomes an even closer alignment of interest to do good.  In actuality the principle is a foundation of Lemonade- the Ulysses Contract and Game Theory (author’s note- these concepts will be addressed in more depth in a future article).  Just as Ulysses ‘tied his own hands’ to the mast due to his knowing that the sound of the Sirens would tempt even him, Lemonade ties its financial hands by setting a designated amount for operations, reinsurance, and claims, and the remainder is contributed to good.  There is not a unilateral financial benefit to denying claims (or arbitrarily not paying claims) because any excess is not the company’s.  And, customer knowing that if they embellish claims they are in essence reducing that which goes for the common good.  So it’s not that Lemonade is paying or not paying claims, it’s that the company has its own Ulysses Contract to guide its behavior.

“There are fans of the firm’s Instagram vids- How did you come up with the idea, and what else is the company doing like that to propagate your overall message of transparency and social good?”

DS:         Those videos with the pink goo and others are from a variety of sources, primarily from Lemonaders within the company.  The goo was an idea from a product designer, for example.  If you recall the publicity driven by the Banksy art piece that shredded itself in front of an auction audience not long after that a Lemonade quality assurance staffer came up with a quick homage here .  We are unafraid to encourage these types of contributions.

“A recent Forbes article and LinkedIn article by Chief Insurance Officer John Peters mentioned Lemonade’s loss ratio tracking in the high 80% range, a significant improvement/trend from the prior year’s results.  Is the reported ratio result being ‘subsidized’ by ceding premium and loss cost amounts to the firm’s reinsurers?

DS:         Lemonade are the guardians of the insurance ecosystem as established by the company, and operations are to the benefit of all stakeholders.  there is no financial ‘game playing’ to meet an arbitrary result.  The firm’s reinsurance agreement sets excess limits where the reinsurer accepts responsibility for claim costs above the set threshold.  There is recognition that traditional measures are what the market sees and holds as comparatives but we figure if the original business model is followed the results will speak for themselves.

“You’ve done great stuff, is there one thing of which you are most proud?”

DS:         The ability to create an insurance system that delights customers, allows growth, and generates data sets where the system begins to feed off the customer and claim experience.  Seeing the loop succeed gives us great pride.  90% of FNOL processed by Bot, and 100% of sales?  Validates our founding thesis.

So many questions, and not enough time for them all.

As I reviewed our conversation, recent results/articles, and Mr. Sagalow’s book several things were apparent:

    null
  • The company is ‘all in’ on allowing the data analysis approach to continue its development,
  • Growth within markets is driven as much by external forces, e.g., requests from European countries, as it is by internal plans.
  • The firm’s start and development benefitted greatly from the founders’ past experience in startups and connections developed therein,
  • Lemonade is impatient- that in itself is innovative in the insurance industry.
  • The firm remains too new to have financial trends that aren’t subject to variance from reporting period to reporting period.  86% loss ratio can be celebrated today but the vagaries of growth in a new carrier and claim volume can produce unexpected results, and some interesting ceding to reinsurers.  (keeping things grounded with ongoing analysis by Adrian Jones and Matteo Carboneinteresting summary here )
  • Customers who have provided service surveys like the insurance products and service they receive from Lemonade, see Clearsurance’s survey summaries here
  • There’s pride in how charitable contributions have been an important piece of the firm’s entry into the market
  • The entry into the industry is not a sprint- a carefully run marathon is what the firm needs.  The P&C business is a trillion-dollar (US) business and Lemonade holds a very small part of that; its operating premise is still fragile
  • There is strength and opportunity in the firm’s digital approach to operations

The original intention was to interview a CEO and produce a summary of the firm through crowd-sourced questions.  The interview came off well, the questions were presented in volume, where the problem arose was in the expansiveness of the firm’s concepts, the great interest in the entry and growth of the firm, and the author’s inability to distill the available information into one column.  The discussion with Daniel Schreiber did not change my status of being a pragmatic optimist where Lemonade is concerned, but many questions were answered.

I look forward to further examination of the Game Theory concepts as applied by Lemonade in a future column/posting. 

My thanks to those who provided questions in addition to my own (and apologies that not all could be addressed in this article):

Ben Baker Billy Van Jura Anand R (Lucep) Nick Lamperelli Pat West

image source

Patrick Kelahan is a CX, engineering & insurance professional, working with Insurers,
Attorneys & Owners. He also serves the insurance and Fintech world as the
‘Insurance Elephant’.

I have no positions or commercial relationships with the companies or people
mentioned. I am not receiving compensation for this post.

Subscribe by email to join the 25,000 other Fintech leaders who read our
research daily to stay ahead of the curve. Check out our advisory
services
 (how we pay for this free original research).