DeadHappy, the UK pay-as-you-go life insurance provider, raises £4M Series A

DeadHappy, a U.K.-based insurtech startup that wants to offer more flexible life insurance and remove the taboo surrounding death, has raised £4 million in Series A funding. Backing comes from e.ventures, alongside the company’s seed investor Octopus Ventures.

Founded in 2017, DeadHappy claims to be the U.K.’s “first fully digital pay-as-you-go life insurance provider.” It offers flexible life insurance policies that are designed to be “cheaper, easier and better” than existing traditional providers. This includes pricing insurance based on your current circumstances and the option to add (or remove) further coverage on a rolling basis.

More broadly, the startup is developing what it calls its “Deathwish” platform, which is something akin to a will. The idea is that you can specify how you wish any future insurance payout to be used, such as paying off your mortgage. And there are also plans to incorporate other wishes not related to finances.

“Our vision is to change attitudes to death and we are tackling that in a number of ways,” DeadHappy co-founder Phil Zeidler tells me. “Despite death being the one certainty humans face, it remains for many a taboo subject, and the failure to talk about it and plan for it is both counterintuitive and leads to significant further trauma at the most difficult of times for family and loved ones.”

Currently the Deathwish platform offers financially motivated Deathwishes, but the longer-term plan is to enable practical Deathwishes, such as making sure your funeral is the way you want it, and what Zeidler calls emotionally motivated Deathwishes.

The idea is to help offer a way to help loved ones “achieve something meaningful in their lives, whether that’s learning how to play the drums or funding an expedition to the Amazon,” he explains.

“Crucially, customers can share these Deathwishes as they choose, which is a practical tool to ensure their wishes are clear and understood. Our platform acts as a catalyst for opening a conversation with loved ones and a place to share recorded video messages and stories.”

Meanwhile, DeadHappy says it will use the new funding for future growth by further building the technology and capabilities of its Deathwish platform. It also plans to expand its product and partnership offerings to major financial service distributors.

Source. TechCrunch, Steve O'Hear, September 27, 2019

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Ethos Raises $60M Led by GV to Bring Modern Life Insurance to Millions of Families

SAN FRANCISCO, August 27, 2019 — Ethos, the company making simple, ethical life insurance, today announced it raised a $60 million Series C financing led by GV (formerly Google Ventures). This financing follows major revenue and customer growth, and supports Ethos’ mission to make life insurance coverage accessible for millions of families in the U.S. In addition to GV, Goldman Sachs is a new participant alongside existing investors Sequoia Capital and Accel, bringing the total funding to-date to more than $100 million.

The traditional life insurance application model hasn’t meaningfully evolved in 150 years. The historical application process is long, complex, and invasive – often requiring medical exams and weeks of paperwork. The ubiquitous practice of employing commissioned insurance agents can mean agents are incentivized to make a sale, not to find the policy that is right for the individual. Incentives are fundamentally misaligned. These outdated practices are one reason a massive coverage gap exists in the U.S. Seventy percent of Americans consider life insurance a necessity, yet 41 percent have no coverage at all.

Ethos was founded on the radical idea that everyone deserves access to ethically designed, easy-to-understand term life insurance policies tailored to fit people’s lives. Ethos is a pioneer in using predictive analytics and sophisticated data technologies to eliminate the traditional barriers keeping people from getting coverage. The result is an application process that takes minutes instead of weeks, no medical exams for most applicants, no commissioned agents, and a life insurance company that prioritizes people over profit.

“Since our original investment in Ethos last year, we’ve been consistently impressed by the company’s commitment to growth, customer traction, and execution to date,” said Tyson Clark, General Partner at GV. “With the company’s product differentiation and singular approach to modern life insurance, Ethos is well-positioned to disrupt a $100+ billion industry.”

This latest round of financing comes after significant company growth. Ethos has quadrupled revenue since October 2018 and announced several integral leadership hires, including Head of Finance David Zhang and VP of Insurance Phil Murphy. The company is also driving increased customer acquisition, insuring thousands of new families. The Series C funding will fuel continued momentum, supporting product refinement, technical team hires, and ultimately, the ability to protect more families.

“Getting life insurance is one of the most selfless financial choices someone can make. You shouldn’t have to endure what’s essentially a medical and financial strip search in order to protect your family,” said Peter Colis, Ethos CEO and Co-Founder. "What makes Ethos different from other providers is our core values are aligned with the expectations of American families: life insurance should be easy and ethical. We aren't motivated by capitalizing on individuals. Instead, we make choices like right-sizing policies for customers, so they have the best coverage for their families without ever paying more than they should.”

ABOUT ETHOS

Ethos is a new kind of life insurance, designed to give millions of families access to ethical, modern coverage. Ethos uses predictive analytics and sophisticated data technology to eliminate traditional barriers to life insurance. The application process takes minutes instead of weeks, there no medical exams for most applicants, and no commissioned agents. The result is a life insurance company that prioritizes people over profit. Ethos is backed by GV (formerly Google Ventures), Sequoia Capital, Accel, Goldman Sachs, Stanford University and Arrive, a subsidiary of Roc Nation. The company is headquartered in San Francisco. To learn more, visit www.ethoslife.com.

Source. Ethos, News Release, August 27, 2019

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Breath Life Raises $4.5M in Funding to Address the Insurance Market

By Isabelle Kirkwood

Montreal insurtech startup Breathe Life, which offers consumer-centric digital solutions for the insurance industry, announced the availability of its ​Consumer-Driven Module​, a white-label B2C solution, that helps carriers and agencies sell direct to consumer online while providing an engaging buying experience.

​A report from Accenture​ estimates the resulting life insurance gap to be around $12 trillion for American middle market customers, with $12 billion in new revenue to be gained by simply serving them. Breathe Life’s Consumer-Driven Module was designed to help the insurance industry bring financial security to millions of customers in the middle market that are currently underserved, since it takes the same amount of effort to write a small policy with small profit margins as it does to write a large policy with large margins.

“The Breathe Life Consumer-Driven Module is designed to do the heavy lifting of targeting qualified prospects, making it easy for them to do business with you online,” said Ian Jeffrey, co-founder and CEO at Breathe Life. “At the same time, the solution keeps agents available throughout the process to help answer questions, add value to the online experience and even close sales at a distance through its omni-channel features.”

He stated that by reducing the cost of customer acquisition, Breathe Life enables the insurance industry to make financial security accessible to more people.

Breathe Life provides life and health insurers, distribution organizations, and advisors with white-label solutions to “quickly and cost-effectively” onboard new clients. It provides clients a way to find life insurance without going to a broker. The ​Consumer-Driven Module​ marks the first product Breathe Life has brought to market since it was founded by ​Arach Tchoupani​, ​Jean-Nicholas Hould​, ​Sébastien Malherbe​, and Ian Jeffrey in January 2018​.

The new module offers a suite of tools, the first being an online application and quoting system for multiple insurance products, the second is a set of omni-channel engagement tools​, and digital marketing insights, including analytics and marketing tools​ that helps providers of all sizes to reach target audiences across multiple channels.

The solution aims to deliver a cost-effective solution for carriers and agencies to digitize and pursue new customer segments, reduce costs with digital acquisition and distribution, and open new market opportunities with custom-branded digital tools.

In February, Breathe Life raised $4.5 million CAD in a seed round of equity funding from ​Diagram Ventures​, ​Real Ventures​ and other angel investors. In December, National Bank Insurance also announced a partnership with Breathe Life to develop direct online life insurance distribution solutions.The company is looking to expand its team, which sat at 20 people in February, to at least 30 by the end of the year.

Source. Betakit, Isabelle Kirkwood,  May 13, 2019

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Health IQ Raises $55M In Series D Funding

Health IQ Insurance Services, a Mountain View, Calif.-based life insurance company, raised $55m in Series D funding.

The round was led by Greenspring Associates, Aquiline Technology Growth, Hanwha Asset Management, with participation from existing investors such as Andreesen Horowitz and others.

The company, which has raised a total of $139.5m to date, will use the funds to continue to expand operations and its business reach.

Led by CEO Munjal Shah, Health IQ is an insurance company rewarding runners, cyclists, weightlifters, swimmers, yogis, well-managed diabetics, and other individuals living a healthy lifestyle through discounts they get when buying life insurance.

The company, which leverages science and data to measure the impact of correct lifestyles, has grown to $21 billion in coverage in the last three years.

Source. FinSMEs, May 8, 2019

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Health data startup Human API raises $10M on new life insurance capabilities

By Kevin Truong

San Mateo, California-based health data startup Human API has raised $10 million in funding to support growth and expansion for its health data aggregation platform.

The company’s technology collects and connects medical data from disparate sources including EHR systems, labs, pharmacies, wearables and health apps onto one platform.

New investors participating in the funding round were Guardian Life Insurance Company and SCOR Life & Health Ventures, the VC arm of global reinsurance company SCOR. Other participants in the round included returning investors BlueRun Ventures and SciFi VC.

Traditional insurers have gotten much more active in venture capital investing in recent years as they look to shore up their existing business against new market entrants and boost their own internal digital transformation plans.

Human API entered the life insurance space last year by launching a product specially intended to help the industry in their underwriting decisions. This tracks with how the underwriting process has changed with direct access to EHR records another sources of medical information.

The company’s technology allows both carriers and reinsurers to build more automated and efficient models to speed up the underwriting process, avoid time consuming and expensive third-party medical exams and create a more user friendly experience for potential plan purchasers.

“This partnership with Human API supports our efforts to accelerate the underwriting process through electronic health data and automated decision making,” SCOR Global Life Deputy CEO Brona Magee said in a statement.

“Human API is in a unique position to transform health data exchange and create innovation opportunities across the healthcare and insurance ecosystem.”

Human API isn’t alone in trying to collect and organize patient medical information at a single point. Other startups with the same mission include San Diego, California-based Seqster and San Francisco company PicnicHealth. 

Apple has also made major strides in the rollout of its Apple Health Records application, including a recent deal with the VA to provide access to the tech giant’s personal health records system to more than 9 million veterans.

The companies’ efforts feed into larger trends like the rise the consumerization within healthcare and the need to extract meaningful information and insight from the reams of data being produced and collected daily.

Source. Med City News, Kevin Truong, February 15, 2019