Q&A with Esurance and eCoverage co-founders. This week in insurance tech.
Dot-com daze
Hi there,
While the full impact of this morning’s election results won’t become clear for a long time, here are a few areas relevant to insurance startups that we’ve seen attract some early buzz.
Obamacare: After ACA was signed into law in 2010 and later upheld in the Supreme Court in June 2012, we’ve seen a number of entrepreneurs launch new digital employer-based and personal health insurance brokerage models, platforms for self-insured companies to manage benefits and new tech-enabled carriers.
In June, Oscar CEO Mario Schlosser chimed in on what a Trump presidency, and more specifically a substantial repeal of ACA, would mean for the health insurer (video here). With some already proclaiming the death of Obamacare as it currently stands, how the election results affect various health insurance startups and broader startups who rely on Obamacare will be watched closely.
US insurance M&A and investment from China: For Chinese cross-border acquirers, insurance firms have been a hot target. Notably, last month saw China Oceanwide acquire mortgage and long-term care insurance provider Genworth for $2.7B and we’ve even seen some cross-border investment activity into insurance tech such as China Pacific Insurance’s investment into Metromile.
Not surprisingly, the vibrancy of this activity might look quite different under a Trump presidency. Related: We’ll be covering China investment into Silicon Valley in a webinar next week.
Cyber: While some investors are already predicting an influx of security spending and startups, the Republican platform actually includes a section advocating for “a free market for cyber insurance and make clear that users have a self-defense right to deal with hackers as they see fit.” While the latter part has many nervous, we could see cybersecurity (and insurance) garner more investor interest.
Insurance tech: dot-com edition
On a completely different note, we have a great Q&A segment this week documenting the histories of two insurance tech startups launched in the dot-com days with former Esurance co-founder Chuck Wallace and former eCoverage co-founder and CEO Jon Kelly covering everything from aggressive full-page WSJ ads to raising capital to advertising on Google, pre-AdWords.
Be sure to check out the full post here, which features some great anecdotes like the one below:
