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Insurance for Online MarketplacesWritten by Esther Val

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Insurance for Online Marketplaces

Insurance is a complicated field, especially when it comes to online marketplaces where traditional concepts such as ownership and responsibility are less clear. This book aims to provide some guidance for marketplace entrepreneurs who are considering insurance for their marketplace.

If you’d like to read more about online marketplaces, check out the Marketplace Academy. We regularly publish articles about running a marketplace business, growth and marketing, as well as inspiring interviews with other marketplace entrepreneurs.

Thanks to Ville Saarinen, Juho Makkonen and Sjoerd Handgraaf for their help creating this book. Cover and layout by Janne Koivistoinen.

Want to share or write about this book? Awesome! Do remember to give Sharetribe appropriate credit along with a link (www.sharetribe.com). Please don’t use this book or any parts of it for your own gain.

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Table of contents

1 INTRODUCTION

2 INTRODUCING THE REVIEWED STARTUPS, MARKETPLACES, AND INSURERS

3 WHY SHOULD YOU CONSIDER INSURANCE FOR YOUR MARKETPLACE?

INSURANCE AS A CREATOR OF TRUST

INSURANCE AS ENABLER OF MARKET ENTRY AND COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

INSURANCE AS A WAY TO EXPAND THE MARKET

4 WHAT ARE THE INSURANCE OPTIONS AVAILABLE TO YOUR MARKETPLACE?

OPTION 1: FORGET ABOUT INSURANCE WHEN YOU ARE STARTING OFF

OPTION 2: SELF-INSURANCE

OPTION 3: FOCUS ON USERS’ PUBLIC LIABILITY AND A CORPORATE LIABILITY

POLICY

OPTION 4: USE A SPECIALIZED BROKER OR A LARGE INSURER FOR BESPOKE

INSURANCE

PLATFORM AS AN INTERMEDIARY OR DISTRIBUTION OUTLET

INSURANCE INCLUDED IN THE PLATFORM FEE

5 HOW TO OBTAIN INSURANCE FOR YOUR MARKETPLACE

LESSONS LEARNED FROM INSURANCE-HUNTING

CASE STUDY: SHAREGRID

6 THE INSURERS’ VIEW

WHEN TO ENGAGE WITH INSURANCE PROVIDERS

HOW TO GET INSURERS INTERESTED

DATA REQUIRED BY INSURERS

RECOMMENDATIONS FROM INSURERS

CASE STUDY: GUARDHOG

CASE STUDY: MAIF

CONCLUSION

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1

Introduction

This eBook aims to provide helpful guidance for marketplace entrepreneurs who are considering insurance for their marketplace and users and, if so, how to go about it. We introduce several insurance coverage scenarios and options as we go over the rationale for why (and why not) you would choose any of them. Building on the insights gathered through a survey conducted among a variety of platforms, insurers, brokers, and insurtech companies, we will walk you through our learnings and best practices as well as advice provided by the insurers themselves.

Insurance is a complicated and highly regulated field. Solutions vary widely depending on the platform’s country, vertical, and business model. We won’t be able to offer any step-by-step guidance—you will likely need to talk to several insurance providers to fully understand insurance and identify the most suitable options for you. However, this eBook provides a strong foundation to approach these discussions, including what data to bring along and what pitfalls to avoid when negotiating your insurance solution. At the end of the eBook, you’ll find a list of insurance providers with their contact details and industries they support to help you kick-start the process.

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Before we dive deeper into the reasons for offering insurance and how to design your solution, let’s define the key terminology that you will need to become familiar with to skilfully navigate your discussions on insurance and the sharing economy.

Insurance

Insurance is designed to help protect you and your assets. Rather than crossing our fingers and hoping that the worst will never happen, you contribute to a pot that promises to compensate you according to a binding contractual agreement if your most valuable possessions are lost or destroyed. House insurance is a great example as few of us could afford to rebuild our home if it burns to the ground.

Reinsurance

Reinsurance is insurance for insurers. This is the practice where insurers transfer portions of their risk portfolios to other parties. Insurers use it to reduce their net liability on individual risks and catastrophe protection from large or multiple losses. It also provides them with the capacity to increase their underwriting capabilities in terms of the number and size of risks.

Self-Insurance

When you self-insure, you save up enough money to cover yourself in case disaster happens. In other words, you pay for any accidents and related costs yourself. The self-insurer—a company or person—knows there is a risk but chooses to hold it on their own balance sheet. Self-insurance is often used when companies are young or can’t find insurance but want to express that they are willing to cover the loss for their client. In a self-insured arrangement,

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the platform will have no insurance policy and would need to divert its own money into a reserve fund to cover any expected claims.

Policyholder

Also referred to as the contractor or owner, the policyholder is the person who stipulates the insurance contract and signs the policy, assuming the obligations imposed by it (i.e. paying the premium). In most cases, the insured party owns the policy.

Beneficiary

The policy beneficiary or beneficiaries can be a person or entity designated to receive the policy proceeds or benefits.

Excess

The excess or deductible is the amount that must be paid out of pocket by the policyholder before an insurance provider will pay any expenses

Insured

A person of organisation covered by insurance.

Insurable Interest

Inventory that can be insured. For sharing platforms, lack of an “insurable interest” in the property, goods, or services that are offered can make obtaining insurance difficult.

Insurer/Insurance Carrier

The insurer is the entity that underwrites your risk and will pay out in the event of an insured event. Choosing a responsible and trustworthy insurer to

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back you is important. Like with any consumer products, you get what you pay for.

Guarantee

A guarantee is an agreement where one party assumes responsibility to perform, execute, or complete an “agreement” and usually offers cash as security. Guarantees, unless backed by insurance, don’t constitute insurance or offer the same levels of protection to customers as insurance. In the context of the sharing economy, it works at the discretion of the platform since the user is not the policyholder. We will equate guarantee with self-insurance for the purpose of this eBook.

Public Liability Insurance

This type of insurance covers the platform users for the potential costs (including legal expenses) associated with accidental injury to members of the public or damage to their property, typically with a sum insured in the millions of euros.

Commercial General Liability

This type of insurance covers the company’s own negligence and their legal liability for damage or injury to the users of the platform.

Insurance Intermediary/Broker

Brokers help entrepreneurs understand the insurance sector as well as connect them with suitable insurers. They operate as a middle man, serving both client and insurer interests. It is worth noting that brokers are usually remunerated by a commission from the insurer.

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Managing General Agent (Mga)

A specialised type of insurance agent that, unlike insurance brokers, is vested with coverage, underwriting, pricing, and settling claims. Typically, MGAs are involved with unique lines of coverage in which specialised expertise is required. They are able to create their own bespoke products for individual customers rather than having to ask others (insurers) to do it for them.

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2

Introducing the reviewed startups, marketplaces, and insurers

In order to draft this eBook, we approached several marketplace platforms at various levels of maturity in a number of sectors and locations to learn more about how they have handled their insurance needs. The quotes in this book are from responses to our questionnaires. We have also talked to a number of companies that insure marketplaces and the sharing economy. We will be referencing these case studies throughout the book as we discuss our findings and recommendations. Here’s a quick introduction to all the marketplaces studied for the purpose of this eBook:

Airbnb

Airbnb is one of the most successful global peer-to-peer marketplaces. It allows individual people to rent out their homes to strangers. In August 2017, Airbnb revealed it had 4 million listings in over 191 countries and over 200 million rentals since it was launched in 2008.

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BlaBlaCar

BlaBlaCar was set up in 2006 in France and is now the leading European carpooling startup, enabling passengers and drivers heading in the same direction to share the journey and associated costs through its platform. The company is active in 22 countries worldwide and has over 35 million registered users.

Bought by Many

Bought by Many was set up in 2012 in the UK. It enables people with niche interests—such as model railway enthusiasts or owners of exotic pets—to club together to get a discount on the insurance that they buy from established insurance companies. It now has over 250,000 customers and 300 live groups.

Citystasher

Citystasher is a London-based marketplace where people can find secure shops and hotels to store their luggage in cities. Customers pay to store their luggage and the commission is split with hosts. Hosts benefit from a new source of revenue, the footfall of tourists, and from the additional online exposure offered by the platform.

Drivy

Launched in 2010, Drivy is a leading French peer-to-peer carsharing marketplace offering car mobility. It is currently rapidly expanding across Europe.

Fatlama

Fatlama is a UK-based platform that lets users rent out their belongings to others nearby.

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Their mission is to develop a platform where all goods—from the everyday to the abstract—can be borrowed within minutes.

Getaround

Launched in 2011, Getaround is a US-based peer-to-peer carsharing service that allows drivers to rent cars from private car owners, and owners to rent out their cars.

KitSplit

KitSplit is a rental marketplace for cameras and related equipment that mainly serves the indie video industry. KitSplit is based in New York City and was founded in 2014.

Peerby

Peerby is an Amsterdam-based platform that lets people borrow or rent things from their neighbors. Peerby aims to “give instant access to everything, everywhere for everyone”. It started as friendly borrowing between neighbors in 2012 and has now evolved into a hyperlocal website with active communities in twenty cities across Europe. It has also launched pilot projects in 10 American cities.

Petbnb

Petbnb is the “Airbnb” for dogs based in Amsterdam. The platform enables dog owners to find and book trusted dog lovers in their area. Dog owners can book daycare for just a couple of hours up to extended stays during vacations. Petbnb takes a commission from the sitter’s fees that ranges from 5-15%.

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Share Our Style

London-based Share Our Style is the Airbnb for designer bags. The platform has no membership fees and offers an Authenticity Guarantee which proves that all designer bags on the site are 100% authentic.

ShareGrid

ShareGrid is a US peer-to-peer marketplace where filmmakers, photographers and creatives can rent gear and resources directly to and from other local creatives. Since launching in 2015, the ShareGrid community has grown to $200 million in listed inventory and tens of thousands of rentals.

Spinlister

Spinlister is a marketplace for bike, snow, and surf rentals. The platform has listings in 63 countries and users from 120 countries. It was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in Santa Monica, California.

Turo

Turo, formerly RelayRides, is a company that operates a peer-to-peer carsharing marketplace. It allows private car owners to rent out their vehicles via online and mobile interfaces. The company was founded in 2009 and is based in San Francisco.

Zilok

Zilok is a French platform founded in 2007 that allows stuff rental among people who live nearby. Zilok has 350 000 registered members in France. Owners receive the price they ask for, and renters pay a booking fee on the platform (20% of the rental price).

To learn more about the insurers/insurtechs/brokers we have spoken to, read our article that covers them.

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3

Why should you consider insurance for your marketplace?

Fueled by popular technology platforms like Airbnb, Uber, and BlaBlaCar, the sharing economy has become mainstream. These platforms connect demand with spare capacity. This new economy has grown enormously in the last five years: a 2016 report by PwC estimates that peer-to-peer platforms generated €4 billion of revenue and forecasts that global revenue could reach $335 billion by 2025. Insurance is a critical aspect online peer-to-peer marketplaces need to consider to benefit from these growth projections.

Trust is a fundamental pillar of the sharing economy, but it needs to be reinforced in order to win over risk-averse users. Indeed, in the opinion of many thought leaders, insurance represents the next frontier for the sharing economy. Nightmare scenarios aren’t unheard of in this new sector. There have already been high-profile cases of Airbnb landlords finding their homes trashed and Uber drivers being involved in cases of serious misconduct. Unsurprisingly, many potential customers maintain reservations and

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concerns about safety in the sharing economy. For smaller platforms, any major mishap and the associated trust breach may be difficult to recover from. Getting insurance right will therefore be critical for reaching a wider range of reluctant but potential users who still believe peer-to peer-sharing involves too many risks.

When the sharing economy first came into being, appropriate insurance did not exist. The platforms relied solely on trust between users. While trust remains critical, the sharing economy comes with a unique set of risks which drive demand for new, innovative insurance solutions. Insurance is an essential component of risk management for this new economy. The idea that a 1 million dollar/euro/pound limit is enough for an incident might breed trust but can be well short in the case of a catastrophic event.

Entrepreneurs need to be transparent with users about the risks of using their services. Making sure users know beforehand what the real risks are is a great way of building trust. To come up with the most appropriate solutions for their users and the platform, marketplace owners should also think about their own risks and responsibilities. A new ecosystem of traditional insurers and insurtech startups has emerged and is creating opportunities for the insurance industry and entrepreneurs alike. Being proactive in offering insurance products may be critical in safeguarding your reputation, gaining a competitive advantage, and generating new revenue streams.

Insurance as a creator of trust

For years, insurance has enabled trade and products to be built and used in a safe and trusted way. Since the insurance industry is loss-averse, markets which could not operate without insurance have, over time, developed standards in order to make sure its products meet quality criteria. These markets have become, in a way, self-regulated, holding companies to account. Trust is built

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into the process via insurance—without it many events and businesses could not exist over the long term.

Claims payments are a factor for the sharing economy—many of the claims are small and high volume compared with other traditional insurance products which are infrequent and high value. Technology and people in the claims process are essential to ensure that claims are paid and fraud is rooted out.

For many platforms, questions like “What happens if my stuff gets broken or goes missing?” are still the most asked questions when new members join. Improving the perception of trust, offering reassurance, and promoting the platform’s reputation for reliability are all important reasons for providing insurance. Citystasher says: “It definitely adds value to the service for people to know they are covered against things going wrong. Insurance reassures them that if something goes wrong, we have them covered.”

Many platforms have made a point of including insurance for users upon launch since it is such an important part of their value proposition.Zilok has provided users with insurance for their rentals since it was launched in 2007:

“This is because in peer to peer businesses, the safety concern is what makes users take the final decision of whether they are going to rent their items or not. In addition, as they share their belongings, safety becomes an even bigger consideration when deciding whether or not to lend items to strangers.”

Other platforms like BlaBlaCar have introduced insurance at a later stage as another brick that enhances trust on the platform.

According to French insurer MAIF, the main value of insurance on your platform is to send a message to your users that if something goes wrong, a trusted insurer is behind them.

“What we do is that we create trust a priori. In order to create the most relevant product, you need to gather the main preoccupations of your users

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when it comes to using your service. We will then translate these needs into guarantees.”

Other platforms like Fatlama seek to build trust into the platform and the whole process. To this end, the startup is looking into logistics integrations while maintaining the face-to-face interaction/handover between lender and borrower in order to establish personal trust on the platform. As they state, studies have shown that the removal of this face-time can increase the amount of insurance claims made on P2P platforms.

Insurance as enabler of market entry and competitive advantage

Some platforms have conducted user surveys to validate their initial hypothesis that most people would only trust their—at times expensive—property and belongings to a platform if proper insurance covers it. In addition, some have conducted market research only to find out that its main competitors do not offer insurance, which in turn provides a competitive advantage and a unique selling point to a platform which does offer insurance. This has been the case for Share Our Style.

For platforms where high value items are exchanged, insurance is a must. Fatlama knew that if users were encouraged to lend high end items—often tools of their professional trade—they would need to be assured that they weren’t risking their livelihoods. Likewise, KitSplit knew before they launched that insurance would be key to accessing the market. For some users, the gear they rent out on KitSplit represents some of their most valuable possessions, worth up to $100,000.

In some cases, insurance may be a prerequisite in order to simply enter a market. In the carsharing sector, platforms like Turo would not be able to operate as all US state regulators require liability insurance to be in place before a TNC (Transportation Network Company) can begin operations. When

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Shelby Clark founded the company in 2009, he created an insurance policy to make sure that all Turo members would be covered while renting or renting out cars. He was fully aware that the marketplace couldn’t grow without a strong insurance policy.

Insurance as a way to expand the market

Although it is difficult to break down the effects of insurance versus other factors such as seasonality, our survey shows that insurance has been a key factor for user growth and geographical expansion for many platforms. Having an insurance solution that covers your target regions will help you expand quickly, avoiding the need to negotiate with a new national insurer every time.

As Citystasher explains: “All of our early-adopters felt comfortable enough with our service when

we just had a £250 guarantee in place to use it—and we logged over 5,000 days of storage then. But there are different customer segments in every market. To reach beyond the early-adopters and capture the bigger market segment, we knew we needed to offer insurance to promote trust and our professional image. Once we launched our insurance product we saw a really impressive impact—sales more than doubled and that rate of growth has continued!”

KitSplit also states that they noticed an uptick in rentals of higher-value items after they launched a fuller insurance program that included short-term insurance for higher-end rentals. Likewise, Zilok believes that insurance has been critical in order to target a wider range of the French population:

“Our most clear evidence for this being the fact that some actors of the industry, not having any, struggle to reach critical mass”.

For BlaBlaCar, insurance has also been instrumental in facilitating its expansion into 22 countries as well as the “logical next step for BlaBlaCar’s vision of simplifying users’ experience and costs around travelling”.

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4

What are the insurance options available to your marketplace?

Let’s get the bad news out of the way. No platform, not even Airbnb, has managed to design the perfect insurance solution. Together with regulators and legislators, the insurance industry is used to thinking in terms of a binary distinction between businesses which provide services, and consumers who use those services. Sharing economy models blur this distinction, meaning insurance products which have been built for that paradigm don’t necessarily make sense in sharing economy marketplaces. Insurance traditionally likes annual premiums, large excesses paid upfront, etc. For many in the sharing economy, this can be the opposite of their model.

With an industry that has been very slow to offer specialist coverage, the only real option for some startups has been to just launch and hope for the best, with the expectation that once enough data is collected, suitable insurance solutions would be available to them. Luckily, some forward-thinking insurers are getting their act together and increasingly designing innovative solutions that are already reaching the market.

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Some sharing economy entrepreneurs may have even thought of bypassing the insurance industry by providing their own insurance solutions directly to their users. This option will very likely be ruled out from the outset. To sell insurance in the EU, one needs to be an authorised agent, intermediary, or insurance company in all markets. The requirements for such authorisation vary by market, but are usually significant and overseen by the financial services regulator. Likewise, the US operates a state-based insurance regulation system where each state operates independently to regulate their own insurance markets, typically through a state department of insurance or division of insurance. Practically speaking, it is not cost-effective for a non-insurance business to obtain such authorisation. Telling users you have insurance and then covering the costs yourself would be illegal, whereas not telling people you have insurance and covering the costs yourself would be “self-insurance”.

In the end, entrepreneurs should think about how insurance can build trust among platform users as well as how insurance can protect them from bankruptcy in case of a major accident or catastrophe. If you are launching or already running a sharing economy startup, what can you do about insurance?

The options listed below can be taken as sequential steps as your company grows bigger. A good solution for some startups may even be to combine some of them. We provide examples to illustrate the evolution of some of these startups and what they’ve learned along the way. Indeed, insurance solutions are unlikely to be static and will need to be iterated as the insurance market for the sharing economy grows and becomes more mature.

Be aware that the options introduced below are for reference only. Each platform, sector, and market is different. What works for a seemingly similar platform may not work in another country with a different set of regulations or insurance offering.

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Option 1: Forget about insurance when you are starting off

While you are still small, offering insurance may not be critical for your platform’s survival and growth. Airbnb went several years (since launching in 2008 until 2011’s Ransackgate1) without any insurance coverage. In fact, even though they now offer the Host Guarantee and the Host Insurance programs, their position is still that they are a technology platform and that it’s down to the users of the platform to arrange whatever insurance they think is necessary. Uber takes the same view: their Terms & Conditions (T&C) require Uber drivers to arrange appropriate insurance, but they have been repeatedly criticised for not doing enough to check that each driver’s insurance is valid.

So, if you’re running a sharing economy startup, it’s completely feasible to take the same approach. Provided your T&C make clear that responsibility for insurance rests with your users, you might not need to worry about it until you’re big enough for it to become a reputational risk—something that may sink your business.

Another good option is to recommend one or several reputable insurance carriers to your users by saying something like “if you need to sort out insurance, go and speak to XYZ”. This way, the platform has no formal relationship with insurers, placing the entire insurance burden on their users.

Option 2: Self-insurance

With self-insurance, the platform has no insurance policy and would need to divert its own money into a reserve fund to cover any expected claims. Self-insuring is a perfectly sensible approach as long as you can cover your biggest potential loss and made sure you aren’t inadvertently acting as an insurer—

1 A 2011 landmark incident—referred to as ‘Ransackgate’—involved a woman renting out her apartment in San Francisco on Airb-nb. The guests vandalized the property, burning many of her possessions and stealing birth certificates, social security numbers and credit cards that were kept in a safe. This event prompted Airbnb to create its $50k (now $1M) Host Guarantee and offer it, free of charge, in a number of countries.

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something that can be considered a criminal activity in some countries without the proper license. When we talk about things like buildings and public liability (people having accidents), self-insuring becomes a huge decision as not many can deal with the consequences by themselves. This option is therefore generally not suitable for platforms dealing with high-value items or property like vehicles or apartments.

As a marketplace business grows, if the items exchanged are low-value and the ratio of incidents is low, it may become more economically efficient to self-insure through the introduction of a rental fee than to pay an insurer. Again, you need to be very careful of not acting as an insurer. In case of doubt, take legal advice before making any decision.

In other cases, when both low and high-value items are exchanged, putting a policy in place with a high excess may be a better option than self-insuring (or not insuring). In this scenario, you will need to self-insure up to the excess amount but the policy will cover you in the event of an utter catastrophe. This approach will keep premiums reasonably low.

Platforms using self-insurance

Many platforms surveyed considered self-insurance when launching due to the challenges in securing proper insurance. Share Our Style is a case in point: they offer a guarantee which is effectively self-insurance since their current insurance policy has a minimum claims limit of £250. They wanted to offer users peace of mind.

Citystasher started off offering a £250 guarantee before moving on to a proper insurance package with an insurance coverage of up to £750 per item against loss, theft and accidental damage. Likewise, Spinlister self-insures for theft and damage: the value of items can vary from $10 to $5,000, but on average, items are about $100, making self-insurance sustainable.

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In the same vein, Petbnb is planning to set up a self-insurance scheme to cover emergency veterinary costs that arise during the sitting and intends to limit the payout to €500 or €1000.

Airbnb’s example of utilizing self-insurance is probably the most well-known. Their former Director of product, Jonathan Goulden, details how Airbnb was forced to create a self-insurance policy after a host’s home was trashed. Goulden writes:

“Brian [Chesky, the Airbnb CEO] came to me with a crazy challenge: find insurance for our hosts or else we might not survive the next week! We were in a freefall; bookings started to materially decline. I talked to over 20 underwriters and was introduced to board members of the largest insurance companies in the world. No one was willing to go out on a limb for a new type of business and underwrite our risk.”

Airbnb decided to offer a $50k guarantee for hosts. The team was scared they would get tons of fraudulent claims that would take down their business. Luckily, this risk never materialized. A few months later, they finally found an underwriter to work with, and with this partner were able to increase the host guarantee to $1 million.

A platform might even start by working with an insurance company, only to revert to self-insurance afterwards. Peerby initially partnered with an insurance company and set up a scheme that allowed lenders to ask borrowers to pay extra to insure the product for damage, theft, or loss. However, purchasing insurance did not prove to be popular among borrowers, who consistently chose items that didn’t require insurance. Peerby’s CEO Daan Weddepohl says:

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“Looking back, we would not have bothered with insurance. You only need to insure risk if you cannot afford the risk. Insurance gets complicated very easily.”

Platforms that considered self-insurance but didn’t find it viable

Citystasher initially used self-insurance for loss, theft, and accidental damage to bags, but this was not an option for disaster risk. The key challenge was insuring against risks in the event of a fire or flood that damages many bags and “the credibility that comes with having an external insurance provider”.

The risk of self-insuring when dealing with very high-end equipment was not an option for Fatlama. The value of items rented on the platform ranges from about £15 to £15,000. In many cases, the items being lent out are the livelihoods of their owners. The startup wasn’t willing to compromise the safety of items being rented on the platform.

Petbnb is considering covering for damages to a third party caused by the dog during sitting. The potential liability is rare, but can be very high and therefore it would not be practical to set up self-insurance for this.

Self-insurance has always been an option for BlaBlaCar, but it decided to focus on its expertise and offer its members a top insurers service instead. Similarly, Zilok chose to contract insurance with a professional insurance company as it gives additional reassurance to users:

“We could indeed replace the items ourselves, but as it is not our core area of expertise, we feel more comfortable letting a professional outfit assess the situation.”

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Option 3: Focus on users’ public liability and a corporate liability policy

Not providing any insurance may be a barrier to users adopting your product or service. If this is the situation you’re in, one option would be to focus on providing only Public Liability Insurance for your users. This type of insurance covers accidental injury to members of the public or damage to their property, typically with a sum insured in the millions of euros. Public Liability is a relatively straightforward off-the-shelf product, and brokers and insurers will find it easier to get their heads around than a bespoke policy that covers multiple aspects of your service for users. An example of this is the Taskrabbit Happiness Pledge, which covers up to $1 million in property damage, bodily injury, and theft. Having a simple Public Liability offering in place might be enough to overcome user objections to using your platform.

The next level of coverage is a corporate liability policy. This type of policy will protect the company itself, not the individual vehicle or property owners. The policy would be a Commercial General Liability policy that covers the company’s own negligence and their legal liability for damage or injury to the users of the platform, and would most likely be provided by a large international commercial insurer. Due to how insurance is regulated, a different arrangement needs to be made in each legal jurisdiction that the company operates in, which again makes it more likely a large international insurer would be involved.

Option 4: Use a specialized broker or a large insurer for bespoke insurance

If you really need insurance that is specifically tailored to the distinctive features of your service, you will have to arrange it through a generalist insurer, a specialist broker, or a Managing General Agent (MGA). Finding the right

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insurer or broker can be a time-consuming and labour-intensive process. As we have discussed in our article series, many large insurers don’t understand the sharing economy or are reluctant to work with budding entrepreneurs with no historical data or traction.

Large insurers are licensed in many locations, making your international expansion easier. However, they tend to want to work with more mature platforms as they need data to amalgamate risks and offer competitive rates. A specialized broker or a MGA may therefore be a better solution for small marketplaces to start with.

Typically, once you have found a broker or MGA, the process is as follows:

1. Find an insurance carrier. 2. Set up new insurance vehicles when the insurance market cannot cope

with the “new risk”. 3. Develop the brand, build the bespoke claim systems (using e.g.

blockchain), and ensure traction is gained in the marketplace.

Brokers and MGAs help entrepreneurs better understand the insurance sector, paying special attention to regulations. Falling foul of applicable regulations is fatal for a business. Likewise, brokers help insurers and insurance carriers overcome their main concern: insurable interest (i.e. does the insured group have a financial interest in a loss?). For sharing platforms, lack of an insurable interest in the property, goods, or services that they advertise makes obtaining insurance difficult. Depending on the market, there can be restrictions around the insurable interest. When this is the case, insurance may need to be provided to the platform users, not the platform.

For examples of bespoke insurance solutions designed for various platforms in different sectors and markets, check out this complete overview.

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Platforms and insurers can design different types of insurance distribution based on the particular characteristics of the platform and its business model. There are two main approaches: platform as an intermediary/distribution outlet and insurance included in platform fee.

Platform as an intermediary or distribution outlet

As a distribution outlet, the platform will refer or direct users to an authorised insurer or agent when users choose to purchase optional insurance, getting a commission in the process. The contract would then be between the user and the insurance company, not the platform. Importantly, this is a source of new revenue stream for platforms.

Examples of this approach include GuestToGuest, 121locations, and Hostmaker.

Benefits

• Users pay for the insurance themselves. The platform’s fees are not affected.

• The insurance partner can explain the insurance to users, saving your time and resources.

Disadvantages

• Users need to independently sign up on the insurance partner’s site.

Insurance included in the platform fee

With this approach, all users are covered by insurance when paying for the good or service. The entity insured is the platform, so the marketplace pays for cover. Of course, the cost needs to be built into the platform’s business model.

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Examples of this approach include Koolikar, Share Our Style, Fatlama, and IvyLettings.

Benefits

• All users are automatically covered, which can mitigate a PR disaster.• Users are only covered when they are using your platform.• A better user experience—users don’t need to sign up for insurance

themselves.

Disadvantages

• Insurance cannot be listed as an individual “cost”. It needs to be included in the transaction fee.

• All members must be covered.

Key Takeaways

• Provided your T&C clarify that responsibility for insurance rests with your users, you might not need to worry about insurance until you’re big enough.

• Think carefully about your risk exposure. Decide whether you need insurance for the platform only or the platform and users, (suppliers or renters or both).

• When your company gets traction, it may be more economically efficient to self-insure provided the items exchanged are low-value and you don’t act as an insurer.

• Having a simple Public Liability Policy and a Commercial General Liability Policy in place might be enough to overcome most user objections.

• A specialized broker or MGA may be a better solution for small marketplaces to start with unless you are a big player looking to expand

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internationally. In the latter case, you might want to speak directly to a larger insurer.

• Generally, make sure you seek legal advice and that all relevant regulatory and legal considerations are taken into account. The consequences of getting these wrong can be disastrous.

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5

How to obtain insurance for your marketplace

All these options may look daunting to start with. Getting insurance can be a complicated process that may take quite a while to come to fruition. In this chapter, we’ll take you through case studies of several different marketplace businesses and the lessons they learned on their insurance-hunting journey. This should help you get on your way by learn from your peers about what works and what doesn’t. We’ll start with four general learnings, and after that continue with a longer case study that illustrates these issues.

Lessons learned from insurance-hunting

Lesson 1: Insurers are generally conservative and unfamiliar with the sharing

economy. Be prepared for a long and bumpy process.

Insurance can soak up a lot of time to get nowhere. Oftentimes, complications arise from both sides not understanding each other, so make sure to find an insurer or intermediary that understands the sharing economy and technology. Insurance companies love data, which is why it is critical to

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keep and collect data about your service and any claims or issues you have. This will help you quickly get a policy in place when the time is right.

Shelby Clark recounts his frustrating experience in launching Turo (then Relayrides):

“When we were trying to launch RelayRides, [one insurance carrier] strung us along for six months and then they said, ‘We really want to write this policy but we just need some data so why don’t you come back after six months of operations and we’d be happy to take a look at this.’ For us, that was really not helpful at all and they should have told us this six months ago. How are we supposed to get the data if we can’t operate without insurance?”

Sam Zaid of Getaround also details the difficulties he faced securing an insurance arrangement before being able to launch his company’s carsharing business:

“We talked to agents and brokers. Many of them told us they could help but all they offered us were off-the-shelf products. We resorted to calling VPs from different insurance companies directly. We probably reached out to between 50 and 100 different contacts, either through warm introductions or cold calls. One or two insurers came to the table but, still, we did not get a deal done. That process was probably about 12 months.”

Bought by Many CEO Steven Mendel explains how they had to start from scratch after their insurer backed off at the last minute.

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“Since 2012, we’ve had a number of conversations on this topic with both large-scale and specialist insurers in the UK. These have been typified by initial excitement, both at the potential size of the market and at the intellectual challenge of underwriting for disruptive business models. But then, alas, insurance industry inertia has set in. An internal restructure led to one contact being reassigned to other projects. An enthusiastic specialist insurer was acquired by a larger competitor and told to focus on its core business. A major global player cut all investment in new product development to help deliver its quarterly EBIT target... You get the picture”.

For ShareGrid, the key lesson was to plan the process to take longer than expected and have the confidence to follow through no matter the roadblocks in the way. Finding a partner is a long journey, as is getting all the paperwork and technology pieces in place to be able to offer it to your members. As ShareGrid found out, most insurance companies are allergic to the sharing economy concept, so it was very hard for them to convince insurers to insure the company. They started the process after an initial proof of concept but before building the actual product. After talking to 20+ companies and a lot of “no’s”, they finally found a company that realized the potential in taking a risk and trying a new rental model.

In the same vein, Share Our Style used the BIBA website to find insurance brokers in the UK but found that most insurance specialists did not understand the sharing economy. some said “if you are not the owner of the bags, we cannot insure you”. Many insurers said “if there is no deposit, we cannot offer any insurance”. The company spent months talking to insurance brokers who asked for forecasts, but the lack of a deposit feature was an obstacle in taking the discussions further.

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Citystasher says that “most insurance providers we spoke to took over a week to get back to us, and some never got back to us at all! It might take a long time and a lot of “nos”, but there are many awesome brokers and insurance companies out there that will work with you!”

Lesson 2: Speak to insurers who are prepared to innovate, or to insurtechs

or brokers with connections.

You have to find a carrier willing to innovate who will also match your ambitions: Going global? Need to move quickly? Are you tech-driven? Not many carriers are willing to do that. The industry needs to trust the people they are talking to, so having a broker who understands your business and has great contacts in the industry is very important. Getaround explains they needed usage-based insurance for their model as they can’t control when an owner makes their car available for rent. They also required a group policy format so that one policy could cover two different sets of parties: drivers and owners.

“It’s kind of a hybrid commercial/personal model that only a carrier prepared to innovate can deliver.”

There are benefits to be found within the up-and-coming community of insurance technology (“insurtech”) companies. They have connections with underwriters and ways of making your proposal more attractive. Fatlama’s insurtech found that by bundling them up with 50 other startups across all different areas, the underwriter’s ears suddenly pricked. Before they knew it, they had exclusivity on a policy that had never been done before.

KitSplit co-founder Kristina Budelis explains the difficulties in finding an insurer to help them craft the bespoke insurance product they needed:

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“We had a vision of the kind of insurance we wanted: a program that would cover all types of camera gear and insurance that could be purchased instantly on our site during the checkout process. Since our mission is making rentals easier, something that was quick and easy to purchase felt really essential. However, this was definitely more difficult to create than we originally anticipated! We talked to dozens of brokers and insurance providers who didn’t want to work with us—they said this kind of insurance could not be done (both because of the unusual marketplace structure, and the speed we were asking for). However, ultimately we were able to create a great plan that we’re very proud of!”

Citystasher founder Jacob Wedderburn tells of their experience working with an innovation-driven insurer:

“We began approaching insurers as soon as we finalised our investment round. We reached out to a range of brokers, spoke to our network and used their contacts to get in touch with the insurers we are all currently speaking with. They asked for all the information you would expect. Our current insurance product was created by GUARDHOG, which is not only the most responsive insurance provider we spoke to, they have been one of the most responsive companies we have ever dealt with since running our startup! They were patient in dealing with the variety of requests we threw their way and they ultimately helped us pull together an unbelievable product that has already made a huge difference to our platform.”

Petbnb found that “if you want to have a sustainable insurance policy, prepare for some searching and back and forth with the insurer. This is especially true if you have a somewhat exotic transaction to insure.” The startup

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advises others to look at the insurers that are the frontrunners when it comes to innovation and not waste your time with talking to the more traditional insurers.

Lesson 3: You need to understand your specific needs really well and com-

municate them clearly.

According to Citystasher, one big challenge with insurance is being clear about what you want in the way of cover and communicating to the insurer. As a startup with a short history, it’s very difficult to negotiate the premium and price the risk. Mitigating against this and clarifying to insurers why you think a risk is minimal can be a challenge.

Getaround found that because they were creating this novel insurance policy that is also priced in a different way, folks had to get their heads around many new things. Having the right senior people at the table was very important. You need to rate things differently and think about risks in a new way. According to the company, “once you’ve made the initial investment to figure [the risk] out, it’s not so bad. You’ve got that foundation and you can start to really explore new things.”

In order to establish their insurance strategy, BlaBlaCar followed the logical process of internal alignment on their vision, benchmarking of potential partners, alignment on the vision with their partner, and finally project planning and launching.

Lesson 4: Starting with a small insurance provider helps you get the scale

required to talk to larger providers.

Start small, scale up, and gather good data. This is a solid strategy to help expand your program. You should always be maintaining good records of the events that you want covered.

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Drivy CEO Paulin Dementhon tells how they switched to a large provider to scale:

“Insurance coverage is a key-service on our marketplace. The initial challenge was finding an insurance company. I started four years ago and it took me one full year to go and see all the insurance companies that I knew. I was rejected by 20 insurance companies during the first year. They did not want to work with Drivy because they thought that it was too risky and too complex. Finally, we found one which was a national French insurer. Until the very last month before our launch, I had no insurance company. After two years, we already had plans to expand to Germany and we were able to convince Allianz to experiment with us. That’s why we picked an international brand for our insurance needs.”

More and more carriers, agencies, and brokers are warming up to the sharing economy space. There may be more opportunities out there for persistent entrepreneurs. Drivy’s story is a good case in point. As their CEO says:

“It is very interesting because we were seen as awful. Four years ago, no one wanted to insure this thing. Then, progressively, it went mainstream and now all the insurance companies, at least in France—where the market is a bit bigger—are fighting to get in. The relationship with them totally reverted. They understood that this trend to go from ownership of cars to just usage of cars was here to stay. So they wanted to be part of this experiment. By now, we have a very strong relationship with the Allianz.”

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Case study: ShareGrid

ShareGrid is a US peer-to-peer marketplace where filmmakers, photographers and creatives can rent gear and resources directly to and from other local creatives. Since their launch in 2015, the ShareGrid community has grown to $200 million in listed inventory and tens of thousands of rentals. Owners typically make a return on their gear investment by renting it out, and renters save over 20% compared to traditional rental options. ShareGrid charges a 15% fee to owners when a rental completes, and a 5% community fee to renters to cover operational costs and improving the platform.

ShareGrid founders knew from the beginning they needed insurance to make their concept work. CEO and co-founder Arash Shiva explains:

“The average value of each listing is around $5000. ‘Do you have insurance?’ is still the number one question when new members join. We can confidently say ‘yes’.”

Like many other companies, ShareGrid struggled with finding the right insurance provider in the beginning.

“No insurance company really understood our space or was willing to work with us. After a long and exhausting search, we found Athos Insurance which understood the opportunity of ShareGrid.”

ShareGrid proceeded to form an exclusive partnership with Athos.

“It took us 6 months to build the first ever instant online production insurance system for creative rentals. We can now insure up to $750k of gear instantly, without the need for a broker, and it’s available 24/7—something no other creative rental site has been able to reproduce.”

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ShareGrid offers in-house coverage options to members: for items under $20,000, it offers “Damage Waiver” and “Damage Waiver + Theft” coverage at reasonable rates. This covers most of the items in the marketplace. It also offers instant traditional production insurance, where users can upload their own insurance and ShareGrid manually verifies it.

“It’s a long road to finding a partner, and then getting all the paperwork and technology pieces in place to be able to offer it to your members. For our industry, where each policy is customized per member, it was tougher than other industries (such as house rentals or vehicle rentals) where you can have an umbrella liability policy. However, that experience paid off when we were able to design our own coverage products based on what we learned integrating traditional insurance.”

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The insurers’ view

So far, we’ve looked at things purely from the viewpoint of the entrepreneurs insuring their marketplaces. Next, it’s time to take another perspective and listen to the companies insuring the sharing economy. Again, we start with more general lessons and finish with two case studies: a collaborative economy focused MGA and a traditional insurer who is investing heavily in the sharing economy.

When to engage with insurance providers

1. Some insurers prefer to speak to founders as early as possible

MAIF works with platforms even before they launch as insurance is often part of the platforms’ global value proposition. They are used to iterating on guarantees and pricing as the activity grows.

Some brokers and MGAs like Cobine Carmelson, GUARDHOG, Skyinsurance, Ribe Salat, and Microinsurance are happy to discuss at any stage—although the earlier the better. Knowing the platform and their business model—which often changes over time—is essential. Understanding

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this helps brokers present a strong case to the insurance markets when they place coverage.

Likewise, some big carriers like Zurich are happy to talk at any stage. In this vein, Allianz says:

“We would like to cooperate with founders in the earliest project stage, but we usually start conversations when the project is already launched. In these kinds of projects, insurance—which is sometimes forgotten—is a key factor to provide reassurance to platform users and help them feel free to operate in an assured environment.”

2. Other insurers prefer to meet founders when they have some traction and

data

Founders should be prepared to discuss the risk management procedures, rating system, technology, and screening processes they plan to implement on their platform. INTACT says “we prefer to see some data so we can accurately price the risk, but we will also speak to founders in early stages if they can demonstrate they have a good business model, adequate capital, and strong marketing plans”.

According to Yrisk, platforms need to reach some traction and have a firm commitment to buy insurance that fits their business model. This insurtech would like to talk with platforms after they have raised a Seed or Series A round of venture capital.

Microinsurance explains:

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“Having data makes life easy—if they have data, have funding, etc. then the model is more set and the pricing can be more in tune. However, all the companies are ’new’ and this is what the industry needs to understand—the model is not mature. What works in London may not work in New York or certainly not in Delhi. The pressure to start a program is one thing, rolling out globally or internationally is another.”

3. Speak with brokers about the concept early but with insurers only once

you have a business model and data

Ribesalat advises platforms that if they want an insurance partner model, they should contact insurers in the early stages of the project. If they are only seeking supplier insurance, they should have a clear business insurance model in place before making the approach.

Sjlinsse says preliminary conversations are fine at the concept stage in order to give the founders a good grasp of the available covers and an understanding of the concept to insurers. However, once negotiations with insurers start, founders will need to have solid statistics and projections.

Likewise, Trov is happy to talk to founders at an early stage as there might be some distribution/co-marketing opportunities worth exploring. If companies are looking for tech integrations into their marketplace, they will need to see some traction before Trov engages:

“Prioritisation of projects is one of our biggest challenges. We need to be able to justify any development efforts.”

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How to get insurers interested

1. Potential for growth and the ability to learn from and test the market

According to Skyinsurance, some of the most successful models start off small—the concept needs to be right, afterwards everything else will follow.

MAIF does not analyze the market according to monthly income:

“As we are still in an unstructured environment, every partner is considered for his potential and not his actual income, as well as for the opportunity to learn about a new sector.”

Likewise, Cobine Carmelson argues that monthly income is not what makes startups attractive:

“We are more interested in their idea and how it benefits the wider world. Some never get traction because they are ‘too soon’ for the market.”

As the largest carrier in Canada, Intact prefers to partner with bigger players, but they may consider startups with a compelling business model where they see great potential for growth, a strategic play, or an investment opportunity for the company.

According to Zurich, potential interest depends on the market and future earnings potential:

“There needs to be some volume and growth prospects but Zurich is looking for partnerships to test the market.”

Likewise, Allianz believes that a customer can have a really low income today and, thanks to a brilliant idea, be worth millions a month or two later:

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”We have agreements in different countries with global and local sharing economy platforms. The sharing economy is a new market and all its stakeholders are still in the process of learning. We accompany our customers in facing this new challenge.”

Microinsurance says:

“We like to see a strong model and one that is articulated well by the founders. Insurance can be fundamental for the business to grow and we are here to support these companies. Insurance is a dry subject but one that can invigorate a new business model if handled correctly.”

2. Userbase / Monthly Income

Some insurtechs like Trov think in terms of distribution or number of customers since they make their revenue from insurance premiums. What makes a partner interesting to them is a sizable user base that they can together tap into to distribute an insurance product:

“As a rule of thumb, we would be looking for partners with user bases in the hundreds of thousands, if not bigger.”

Likewise, Yrisk would be looking at $15,000 minimum premium per annum before speaking to any founder.

According to Microinsurance:

“Income is important and so is growth. $15,000 per year and not rising is not very interesting but you also need to look at where the company sees the growth—how is it acquiring business, etc. Growth is more important than annual sales to us.”

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Data required by insurers

Most sharing economy platforms and marketplaces have a limited amount of operating history on which to base policy rates. Some specialist brokers, like Yrisk, have developed actuary tools and pricing methodologies to overcome this lack of data. Nevertheless, most insurers and brokers will expect you to do some legwork so that underwriters can have a realistic picture of how the platform is likely to perform, both with regards to income and claims. They will then translate all this information into an appropriate insurance product. This is type of data you should be able to provide:

1. Product and processes2. Sector where marketplace operates and user demographics 3. Current user base, volume of transactions, growth estimates4. Gross revenue estimates5. Expansion roadmap: Where are you registered and where are your

current and potential future users based?6. Are you looking for insurance as value-add or new revenue stream?7. Customer service data (i.e. complaints, cancellations, payments to clients

for damage etc) (Source: Zurich/Ribesalat/Microinsurance)

Recommendations from insurers

1. Think very carefully about your risk exposure. It needs to be translated

into a sustainable insurance product.

Cobine Carmelson recommends entrepreneurs to think about what it is that will hurt their startup most:

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“People mention data because it is topical but news about people getting hurt reaches the front pages quicker.”

Skyinsurance reminds entrepreneurs that insurer partners need to run the product in a profitable underwriting manner:

“Although you may feel this is a small part of the circle, please accept that your hard work can easily come to an end with unfortunate insurance performance.”

Microinsurance says:

“We work with the companies on a day-to-day basis and manage the program so that we can all learn from the data—there’s is no point making a ‘guarantee’ a central part of your marketing only for the insurer to pull out at the renewal!”

2. Integrate the cost of insurance in the business model from the outset.

Intact recommends entrepreneurs to build the cost of insurance into their business models from day one:

“Many entrepreneurs underestimate the cost of insurance and are surprised further down the road. Insurance should be a significant portion of the operating cost, as it is integral to building trust and credibility for an entrepreneur’s platform and brand. If insurance is priced right in the beginning, it can be long-term and sustainable for the entrepreneurs, owners, and risk capital and management providers.”

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According to Microinsurance:

“We work with the platform to make sure that they are able to sustain the programme long term. One example is that we have cover for as little as 20p and this is built into a plan that costs around £30—this is well matched with the platform and is very sustainable.”

3. A large insurer brand may boost trust in your brand.

According to Zurich:

“Insurance is essential to ensure [the platforms] and their customers are protected. Insurance from a major insurer will increase the trustworthiness of their brand.”

Case study: GUARDHOG

GUARDHOG is an insurtech innovator, inventing and re-imagining insurance for the sharing economy. It creates 24/7 on-demand insurance solutions for both the users and providers of peer-to-peer sharing economy marketplaces.

Working with GUARDHOG, most marketplaces will build their own insurance by starting with one of the following insurance models and then having it tailored to their needs:

1. Crowd Policy

A crowd policy will automatically cover a platform’s users (all of them or as defined by the platform) as a free membership benefit. The marketplace pays for cover, although the cost is built into the platform’s business model.

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This provides proper insurance, rather than a guarantee, and is independent from the platform. In other words, the users are the direct beneficiaries of the policy and they are able to go directly to GUARDHOG in the event of a claim. This means conflicts of interest caused by solutions where the platform makes claims on behalf of users or acts as an insurer simply don’t exist. This route also allows for a bespoke pricing plan that reflects the level of risk of the specific platform, and can also be scaled in line with the platform’s growth.

There are no upfront costs, deposits, or minimum premiums if you are starting in the UK. This will be expanded to include Europe, too. GUARDHOG can also provide a global policy to provide truly worldwide cover, although minimum premiums apply to this model. Policies can be put in place in a matter of days. The only requirement is to have a company based in the UK or Ireland as the “buyer” of the policy.

2. Partnered

GUARDHOG works with the platform to make sure that all users who wish to have insurance are able to get it easily and efficiently. Platforms can introduce and talk about insurance, making sure their users are fully aware of the risks of participating in their peer-to-peer marketplace, all the while providing a zero-cost solution (for the platform) to the insurance problem.

When users are introduced to GUARDHOG, they may sign up and ask GUARDHOG to manage their sharing economy insurance for them. GUARDHOG can then work directly with the users to ensure that they are being automatically covered whenever they are using the platform. As part of the partnership, GUARDHOG will take responsibility for insurance compliance-related issues when it comes to introducing insurance products to your members. This significantly “de-risks” getting involved in insurance.

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3. Signposting

This model allows platforms to get involved in the insurance discussion with only the lightest of touches. The marketplace simply plants a virtual signpost in the ground saying: “If you need to sort out insurance, go speak to GUARDHOG.” No formal relationship exists between the platform and the insurer. It allows platforms to solve the insurance problem by placing the entire burden on their users.

Case study: MAIF

MAIF is a French mutualist insurer born in 1934. It was founded by teachers that felt that insurers were not providing them with fair prices and that they could be better insured doing it by themselves. In 2010, the rise of the sharing economy felt like a far-reaching social change and at the same time echoed with their DNA. The insurer decided that it would be a powerful driver for their strategic plan all the way until 2018.

Currently, MAIF insures more than 200 French startups in all kind of sectors of the sharing economy, ranging from home exchange to P2P delivery and foodtech. In this initial phase, they are keen on building tailor-made products with each and every startup, and to use it as an opportunity for the team to experiment. Insurance is the new frontier so, together with platforms and users, MAIF is defining the business models that will make their solutions a valued and profitable proposition for everyone.

MAIF works on several types of insurance according to what suits the company’s model best, sometimes insuring the platform, the assets’ owners, or lenders—it really depends on the type of business that the platform is dealing with. Including the cost of insurance in the final price (in carsharing, for example) sometimes makes more sense and is a more fluid experience for the customer. In this scenario, the entity insured is the platform. In other

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cases (free home exchange, for example), it makes more sense to let the owner decide whether insurance is optional or not for people who will be staying at their place. MAIF is keen on exploring new ways of distributing insurance, both in terms of customer experience and business models.

Besides the innovation in the insurance product itself, the stories MAIF particularly likes are the ones involving the creation of a new business model or of a new service.

As an example, in 2013, MAIF designed an insurance product with GuestToGuest, a home exchange platform, that creates trust in the transaction while also creating value for the platform—one that deals with free exchange and thus no commission. The challenge MAIF faced involved designing insurance services based on an in-depth understanding of GuestToGuest’s customer experience. It finally came down to identifying the pain points in the user experience journey and designing insurance solutions from this vantage point rather than from what they knew about traditional home insurance. They learned that you have to provide coverage for the end user, even if he’s not directly involved in the event. For example, if the owner has to cancel the exchange because of illness, the end user will be entitled to a refund on engaged costs like tickets for the theater or a concert on top of the classical insurance services.

MAIF states:

“That is how we work with startups and emerging practices: we aim to create tailor-made products which are truly shaped by the user experience journey.”

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Conclusion

As stated from the outset, insurance is a highly complex area that is jurisdiction and business vertical dependent. It is impossible to provide an all-encompassing, step-by-step guide that caters to the whole spectrum of platforms and their varying circumstances. However, we hope this eBook has provided a helpful roadmap with actionable insights and recommendations to help you kick off the daunting insurance-hunting process. We want to equip budding entrepreneurs with the tools and key information to begin their in-house analysis of introducing insurance into their business model, and to hold their own in the initial talks with a range of insurers and brokers.

Below is a list of the insurers we have talked to when putting together this eBook. We encourage you to contact the insurers or brokers in your jurisdiction. The list is, of course, not exhaustive and there may be others you will want to speak to. Indeed, insurance is a buoyant and rapidly developing sector as insurers see new revenue potential in the sharing economy. More opportunities are likely to emerge for persistent entrepreneurs. We wish you a very productive insurance-hunting process and look forward to hearing your stories and learnings from along the way.

We are very grateful to all the companies that responded to our survey for their time and generosity in sharing their experience. We would particularly like to thank GUARDHOG, MAIF, and Ribesalat for their support in reviewing and providing comments to the content of this eBook.

For more information on how to run an online marketplace, visit www.sharetribe.com/academy

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Contact details of insurance companies that cooperated in the creation of this book

Insurtech

Slice, operates in United States. Contact person: Ernest Hursh, ernest@slice.is

Trov, operates in United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. Contact person: Jeff Berezny, jeff@trov.com

Yrisk, operates in United States. Contact person: Thad Hall, thad@yrisk.net

Insurers

Allianz, operates globally, HQ in Germany. Contact person: Petra Kruell, petra.kruell@allianz.com

AXA, operates globally, HQ in France. Contact person: Oscar Paz, oscar.paz@axa.es

Intact Financial Corporation, operates in Canada. Contact person: Chris Reid, chris.reid@intact.net

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MAIF, operates in France. Contact person: Noemie Aubron, noemie.aubron@maif.fr

Munich re, operates globally, HQ in Germany. Contact person: Jennyfer Yeung-Williams, jyeung-williams@munichre.com

Zurich, operates globally, HQ in Switzerland. Contact person: Karl Gray, karl.gray@zurich.com

Brokers

Cobine Carmelson, operates in the United Kingdom. Contact person: Jason Cobine, jason@cobinecarmelson.com

Ribe Salat, operates in Spain. Contact person: Sergi Marti, smarti@ribesalat.com

SJL, operates in the United Kingdom. Contact person: Karl Evans, k.evans@sjlins.co.uk

Sky Insurance, operates in the United Kingdom. Contact person: Scott Forrester, scottforrester@skyinsurance.co.uk

Microinsurance, operates in the United Kingdom and United States. Contact person: Harry Croydon, harry.croydon@microinsurance.com

MGA

Guardhog, operates in the United Kingdom. Contact person: Humphrey Bowles, info@guardhog.com

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Also, the British Insurance Brokers’ Association (BIBA) keeps a list of insurance brokers that are able to place risks from the Sharing Economy: https://www.biba.org.uk/sharing-society-biba-members-who-are-able-to-assist/

Thank you for reading.

Find more on www.sharetribe.com/academy