The insurance industry is on an upswing. According to a survey published by S&P Global Market Intelligence, net premiums in the U.S. totaled $1.2 trillion in 2017, with premiums recorded by life and health insurers accounting for 52%. In the first half of that same year, insurance tech startups attracted roughly $162.38 million, and Investopedia forecasts that the overall market will grow 41% between 2019 and 2023.
It’s perhaps unsurprising, then, that startups like GetSafe — which bills itself as a “mobile-first” insurance company — are gunning for expansion. The Heidelberg, Germany-based firm today announced that it’s secured of €15 million ($17 million) in series A funding led by Earlybird, with participation from CommerzVentures and other existing backers. It brings GetSafe’s total raised to nearly $40 million, and cofounder and CEO Christian Wiens says it’ll be used to fuel the company’s customer care, software development, and data science efforts and its market expansion.
“We want to become the go-to insurance brand for a whole generation of young customers in Europe,” said Wiens, who added that GetSafe’s goal is to sell 180,000 policies by 2020 as it doubles its headcount to over 100 employees and as it enters Britain and other European markets. “Now it’s time to expand our activities at home and abroad.”
GetSafe’s app-based model has folks apply for policies exclusively through their smartphones, a process which the company says takes less than five minutes on average. Once they’re signed up for coverage, they gain access to a dashboard through which they can file claims, cancel plans, update their personal information, and access insurance documents.
GetSafe offers things like liability insurance (starting at €4.70, or $5.28, per month), which protects against damages accidentally caused against another person or thing. (Family members can sign on at a rate of €1.99, or $2.24.) Some of the more esoteric products in its catalog are drone and bike liability insurance, which extend protection to damage caused by quadcopters and bicycles, and contents insurance, which covers storms, fires, burglaries, and gross negligence.
Additionally, GetSafe has general health plans and dental plans (for high-cost and tooth cleaning treatments), plus legal protection and household insurance, the latter of which insures furnishings, clothing, household objects, valuables up to 30% of the total sum, and cash up to €3000 ($3,370.12) “We rely on technological solutions that simplify the lives of our customers and have built one of the most powerful insurance platforms in the world,” said Wiens.
The mobile-centric approach evidently appeals to millennials, GetSafe’s target market — Wiens claims that policyholders are on average 29 years old, and that 75% of them have never taken out insurance before. He says that furthermore, thanks in part to a proprietary AI-powered backend, which enables GetSafe to support several insurance lines efficiently, the company managed to sell 50,000 policies in 2018 — just a year after launch — for 10% of 20-to-35-year-old insurance buyers.
“At Earlybird, we invest in innovative and scalable technology companies that have the potential to revolutionize entire industries. The disruption of the insurance industry is in full swing and offers large growth potential,” said Earlybird’s Christian Nigel. “Getsafe’s app provides the simplest and most flexible access to affordable insurance products, especially for young people — a clientele that has remained hard to reach for the insurance industry.”
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