Lemonade (insurance)

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Lemonade Insurance Company is an American property and casualty insurance company headquartered in New York City offering renters and home insurance policies for homes, apartments, co-ops and condos.

Operating in the fintech sector, Lemonade created a new business model for insurance based on behavioral economics and technology. The company uses artificial intelligence and chatbots to deliver insurance policies and handle claims for its users on desktop and mobile (through its iOS and Android applications) without employing the use of insurance brokers. Social good is another aspect of the business model, where underwriting profits go to nonprofits of the customers' choice, in the company's annual "Giveback."

Lemonade Inc., the parent company of Lemonade Insurance Company, was founded by Daniel Schreiber and Shai Wininger in April 2015, Lemonade launched its insurance company on September 21, 2016 in New York City. As of May 2018, Lemonade offers renters and home insurance policies in New York, California, Illinois, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Texas, Nevada, Georgia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Iowa, Wisconsin, Arizona, New Mexico, and the District of Columbia.

Lemonade Inc. is backed by investors including Aleph, General Catalyst, GV (formerly Google Ventures), Sequoia Capital, Thrive Capital, XL, and Japanese tech investor, SoftBank, having raised $120 million as of December 2017.

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History

Lemonade was founded by veteran tech entrepreneurs, Daniel Schreiber (former President of Powermat) and Shai Wininger (Co-Founder of Fiverr), in April 2015. While the two founders were relative newcomers to the insurance industry, they viewed it as an untapped opportunity given it $4.6 trillion market size and relative lack of technological innovation.

As one of the least trusted sectors of the U.S. economy, insurance ranks extremely low in all customer satisfaction categories. With this in mind, Schreiber and Wininger set out to create a new insurance model that would change up the industry's misalignment of incentives towards consumers while promoting social good by focusing on behavioral economics and transparency.

Key personnel

Daniel Schreiber is Co-Founder and CEO of Lemonade. In his previous position as President of Powermat, Schreiber oversaw its transformation into an industry standard and a default feature in the world's foremost smartphones (Samsung Galaxy), venues (Starbucks) and cars (GM). Prior to Powermat, he served as SVP Corporate Marketing at Sandisk, with global responsibility for the company's social media, press relations, 50 web and ecommerce sites and major rebranding.

Shai Wininger is a veteran tech entrepreneur and inventor; Lemonade is Wininger's seventh startup. Wininger is the Co-Founder and "Chief Lemonade Maker" at Lemonade and is currently a Board Member at Fiverr which he co-founded in 2009. Wininger also co-founded Mobideo Aerospace (2005), Handsmart Software (2003), DailyDo (2000), Trimus Inc. (2000), and Ananas Group (1991).

Duke University professor, author and economist, Dan Ariely is Chief Behavioral Officer at Lemonade with much of his research on behavioral economics integrated into the DNA of the company, in pursuit of transforming the adversarial relationship between client and company. Ariely is tasked, in part, with helping design systems and processes that ensure that the interests of the insurer and the insured are aligned.

Funding

In December 2015, Lemonade Inc. announced that it secured $13 million in seed funding from Sequoia Capital and Aleph. In August 2016, Lemonade Inc. raised $13 million in funding from XL Innovate (part of XL Group), followed by a $34 million Series B funding round in December of the same year. The Series B round was led by General Catalyst with participation from Thrive Capital, Tusk Ventures, and GV (formerly Google Ventures), the VC arm of Google's parent company Alphabet Inc.

In April 2017, the company announced additional investors: Allianz SE and Ashton Kutcher's Sound Ventures. In December 2017, Softbank invested an additional $120 million in Lemonade in a Series C round, increasing the total money raised by the company to around $180 million.

Financials

A full-stack insurance company, Lemonade underwrites its own policies and is reinsured at Lloyd's of London.

Lemonade's financial stability is rated A-Exceptional, by Ohio-based financial analysis firm Demotech.

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Business model

Lemonade's business model differs from that of typical insurance companies; Lemonade keeps a flat 20% fee of a customer's premium while setting aside the remaining 80% to pay claims and purchase reinsurance. Unclaimed premiums go to a nonprofit of the user's choosing in an annual "Giveback."

Technology

Lemonade uses artificial intelligence in the form of chatbots and machine learning to provide insurance policies and handle claims, replacing brokers and paperwork traditionally associated with the process. When a customer applies for insurance, the company's software pulls data and cross-references information about a particular home or neighborhood from a variety of sources. Policyholders file claims through Lemonade's app with the company's chatbot 'A.I. Jim' who reviews the claim, cross-checks it with the policy, runs 18-fraud algorithms, and determines whether or not to approve the claim.

In 2016, a customer filed a claim for a stolen coat; after answering a few questions on the app and recording a report on their iPhone, Lemonade's claims bot set a world record by reviewing, approving and paying the claim in three seconds.

Behavioral economics

Lemonade uses behavioral economics research to displace fraud and conflict while aligning interests to remove motivation for not paying claims and keeping the inclination to defraud an insurer in check. Integration of these principles are found in Lemonade's policy purchase and claims processes, with users signing their name on a digital pledge of honesty at the start of the claims process - rather than the end - and speaking into a camera to file a claim rather than using forms. The company is also applying principles of behavioral science to itself, publishing articles on data surrounding customer growth, and bank account balances, among other topics.

Social good

Lemonade Inc. which is registered as a public benefit corporation, has a stated mission of 'transforming insurance from a necessary evil into a social good." This includes the Giveback, the charity component of the business model which is also an attempt to mitigate fraudulent insurance claims. Upon signing up for Lemonade, users select a nonprofit or charity that will receive payouts on an annual basis from the unclaimed premiums (also known as underwriting profit) of their respective cohort.

This annual donation is known as a "Giveback." Companies chosen by Lemonade users include: Charity: Water, Citymeals-on-wheels, New Story, Robin Hood Foundation, Women in Need (WIN), ACLU, American Red Cross, Code to Inspire, Evolve Creative Alliance, Feeding America, Make-a-Wish Foundation, MEET - Middle East Entrepreneurs of Tomorrow, New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Teach for America.

In May 2016, Lemonade became one of the only insurance companies to receive B-Corporation certification.

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Reception

Within the first 48 hours of launching in New York in 2016, Lemonade reported that 36,000 people visited their site, 140 which purchased policies equating to $14,300 in gross written premiums. After the first 100 days, the company released a follow-up report noting that 2,000 people signed up for Lemonade, with over 80% of this statistic composed of first-time insurance buyers. By June 2017, 14,315 customers signed up for a Lemonade insurance policy.

Lemonade was recognized as one of the NYC startups ready to take on 2017, by Inc. It was also recognized as one of the top 25 tech companies to watch, by the Wall Street Journal.

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See also

• List of United States insurance companies

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References

Source of the article : Wikipedia