The Fintech Genome was designed as a P2P Knowledge Platform, where people share knowledge and insight. So what better subject to crowdsource than P2P Insurance, heralded by many as the game-changer in an industry that has hardly changed in 300 years. Today we gather information by asking the following questions:
Is this the definitive list of P2P Insurance ventures?
We list 12 that we know about. This is a Wiki. You can edit this list directly (as long as you are a Member of Fintech Genome with Level 1 status or higher). If not, please not any missing companies in comments.
Jointly
Dynamis
FriendSurance
Hey Guevara
Inspeer
Versicherix
Teambrella
Inspool
Lemonade
PeerCover
TongJuBao
Is Blockchain the secret sauce in P2P Insurance?
Blockchain is a disruptive technology that facilitates value exchange between strangers. P2P is a disruptive business model that enables strangers to aggregate to get better insurance terms. Theory says that they should go together like horse and cart. I decided to crowdsource research into that that theory by asking Fintech Genome Members to contribute their knowledge and insights. The P2P ventures that are publicly showing that they are using Blockchain are:
Teambrella. Thanks to @RickHuckstep for clarifying that although the Teambrella site pitches āTeambrella is the first peer-to-peer insurance service powered by Bitcoinā, they use Bitcoin as the mechanism for internal movement of funds among peers, but donāt use Blockchain as their tech base.
Please add any that we have missed.
Is P2P insurance a game changer or a mirage?
On Thursday we will put this as a Poll to Daily Fintech readers. Tell us what you think here.
Hi Bernard, a couple of corrections to the post if I mayā¦
BoughtByMany are not a P2P Insurer.
Teambrella do not use Blockchain as the tech base for their platform. They do use Bitcoin as the mechanism for the internal movement of funds amongst the peers.
Dynamis is currently on hold.
Here are some of the posts Iāve written on P2P. In them I describe the 3 models of P2P - Distribution (eg Friendsurance), Carrier (eg, Guevara and Lemonade) and Self-Governing (eg, Teambrella)
Thanks @RickHuckstep Great posts, thanks for sharing.
The Teambrella site pitches āTeambrella is the first peer-to-peer insurance service powered by Bitcoinā. Is that wrong? OK, I see the distinction you are making. It makes sense. I tend to think of Bitcoin as an application of Blockchain technology so in that inclusive term they use Blockchain, but I can see that in the way that you are defining it, it is incorrect to label them as Blockchain.
Thanks for correction re BoughtByMany - will take them off the list.
I am keeping [Dynamis](http://dynamis general insurance company) up there for now as the site is still active and I would prefer if I heard from one of the founders that it is on hold. This is what they say publicly:
āOur team is passionate about working in the newly developed Ethereum space. With experts in the insurance and blockchain industries, we seek to create an Ethereum based peer to peer supplemental unemployment insurance protocol which uses policy holdersā social capital to replace underwriters.ā
I know Ethereum has been having some issues and so I can see that could delay things, but all of this is at the bleeding edge stage with technical risk as well as business model risk.
Other P2P insurance companies Iāve heard of are: Glow First (Canada), Gather (USA), Besure (Canada), Broodfonds (Netherlands), CommonEasy (Netherlands), CycleSyndicate (United Kingdom), SHAcom (Taiwan), WorldCover (International), Riovic (South Africa), WeSURA (Columbia), Insure A Peer (USA), Uvamo (USA), so-sure (United Kingdom), Gaggel (United Kingdom), Allied Peers (United Kingdom), Hudddle (Australia), and PeerSure (South Africa).
Iād also think the United States Christian Health Share plans are P2P insurance. They include: Samaritan Ministries (USA), Christian Healthcare Ministries (USA), and Christian Care Ministry (USA)
Also, I donāt think BoughtbyMany is P2P insurance. It is just group purchasing power to get insurance discounts.
Well it appears that I have successfully kept KarmaCoverage under the radar for the last few years.
We are designed as a Distributed Ledger based P2P Coverage service offering.
We are specifically designed the financial service to not legally qualify as āInsuranceā therefore we will not be subject to the regulatory burden.
We have had multiple F500 companies reach out to us. All of those conversations resulted in a request to see a proof of concept, but they want that will require some resources first.
I have spoken to several of the founders of other P2P offerings around the world, including some researchers who put out papers on P2P insurance. I am waiting to get my hands on the Lemonade offering for NY whenever that comes out! You can see one of my answers on Quora regarding Lemonade here
@Rstar(Hi Ross, I just invited Pascal to join your LinkedIn group) Ross is right to add the Christian Health Share plans to the list, as they are the among a few Operating offerings in the US.
RickHuckstep & BernardLunnā¦ regarding TeamBrella, they are the closest to KarmaCoverage, and hence (in my opinion) the closest to being a true P2P service offering that can succeed.
That said, using the Bitcoin blockchain as the base accounting system is a mistake, I can elaborate on this if necessary. There are better options.
I have been focused on this since 2012, and am available for expertise requests or discussing potential partnership arrangements focused on getting KarmaCoverage the resources it needs to get going.
Glad to find this Genome.dailyfintech area!
Ron
Edit: along with Teambrella, TongJuBao deserves special attention for the legal design of their service offering, due to their financial service not qualifying as an āInsuranceā product.
PS: @RickHuckstep I receive & enjoy your Digital Insurer emails, and have noticed that KPMG is mentioned on your site. I am also in touch with one of KPMGās Capital Markets partners (I believe he is a partner, but maybe not) with the nature of our conversations revolving around Capital Markets & Distributed Ledger technology.
Hi Ron, my bad that I hadnāt seen KarmaCoverage before. Iām glad you replied and made your comments.
I agree, Teambrella are the closest to a pure P2P model to provide financial cover for simple exposures. Alex just sent me a link to their demo this week. He has it up and running in a sandbox environment and I had a look around the platform. I must say it is looking very good.
Iām also a big fan on the platform Tang has built at TongJuBao.
We should talk. Can you contact me on email please, thanks, Rick
Hi @KarmaCoverage interested to hear about F500 interest. Is that related to them doing Self Insurance? I know that is a big deal in USA, particularly in Health Insurance. Bernard
One was with Strategic folks, the other with a corp VC fund. In both cases first meeting went very well, and they really āgot itā! In both cases the second group meeting was derailed by folks trying to dive a few layers too deep into the details, and me answering them, when I should have kept the focus at the 50k foot level. One offered an introduction to various incubator/seed stage funds, and another f500 C level guy at another corp VC fund.
IMO Iām not sure Corp VCs are the right route at this point. There is a clear role for their participation in an A or B round, where they have some specific tasks they must preform in addition to money. At that point we would be selling them a profit opportunity, and giving them access to equity as a kicker.
Right now we need a person or small team, with some start up experience, some balls, and some bank roll. Who has the ability to fully grasp the goal, how we get there, and understand why the system is designed the way it is. We have been through many iterations, and itās still subject to changes.
Insurance experience may actually hold some folks back from understanding. But an understanding of the Industryās structure, and where the dividing lines are, would be helpful to understand how KarmaCoverage fits into the playing field, and for that matter, P2P in general.
@KarmaCoverage My experience is Corp VC follows the Strategic guys, not vice versa.
Are you focussed on Health Insurance? From what I have seen that is where F500 like to do Self Insurance. They may do it in other sectors, but I am not so familiar with those.
As long as the loss frequency is under 10%, KarmaCoverage as a service, can be applied to any risk market, P&C, health, even life.
The service enables users to network together to achieve coverage. The users can access an average of 10x, and a max of 25x the dollar amount which they put in each year.
The users are fully in control and must review 10 Coverage Requests per year.
Employers in the US insure nearly 150MM Americans, many through
self-insured plans. I recommend taking a look at the Kaiser Foundation
employer study, 2015, found at http://kff.org/report-section/ehbs-2015-summary-of-findings/ ā full of
useful stats some of which I will be referencing in a post later this week
on the opportunities for health insure-tech startups to contribute to
fixing the system.
