Feb 2, 2023

February 2, 2023 The New Jersey Department of Insurance has given Honeycomb Insurance approval to sell policies statewide. The technology-based managing general agent (MGA) serves the commercial real estate market and will offer insurance for apartment buildings, condominium associations and single family rental dwellings both online and through brokers. The policies are backed by Accredited Surety and Casualty Co. With the launch in New Jersey, Honeycomb now operates in 10 states, the nine others being California, Texas, Illinois, Arizona, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The MGA reports that it writes more than $5.5 billion of real estate assets. The New Jersey entry comes a year after it raised $15.4 million in a Series A funding and announced plans to expand into more states. Overall, Honeycomb has raised $19 million. The company began writing U.S. policies in June of 2021. “Commercial lines insurance and specifically insurance for multi-family properties is ripe for disruption given the sheer complexity entailed in underwriting this class of risk, its manual processing legacy, and the absence of a leader in the market,” said Honeycomb’s co-founder and CEO Itai Ben-Zaken after last year’s raise. Ben-Zaken said New Jersey has “long been on the top of the list” for the company, noting it is the state with the highest population density. Chicago-based Honeycomb’s technology eliminates the need for on-site physical inspections to assess risk, utilizing instead satellite imagery, computer vision, artificial intelligence and machine learning. As a result, the quote process is quick. Honeycomb also employs market data-driven applications and advanced algorithms that accelerate the process of purchasing and pricing policies. Its digital platform is available to insurance agents. Honeycomb is backed by institutional investors including IBEX Investors, SiriusPoint Ltd, Phoenix Insurance, New Era Capital Partners, IT-Farm Corporation, Sure Ventures, and Distributed Ventures