1/ Why doesn't insurance just "come with" everything? Rental w. apartment lease, cyber w. domain name, pet w. dog etc. Instead, we buy the valuable thing, then go somewhere *else* to get insurance. New post w. @seema_amble on opportunities for startups bit.ly/3axjasM
2/ More companies are realizing that by offering financial services, they can better retain their customers and increase revenue. Insurance is a big untapped opportunity. Why don't more platforms offer? Insurance is hard to build and hard to partner with. How could this change?
3/ Pick a category and create a modern, easily integratable product: newer insurtechs like @hippo_insurance & @clearcover have short intake flows where most data is gathered without needing user input. Stage 2 would be to incorporate data from the platform
4/ Build an API layer to make it easier for sellers to partner w several insurance cos: e.g., map the application and data requirements for 10 best carriers in a category to a single form, pre-populating fields with the potential buyer’s info. Allow for easy switching.
5/ Develop infrastructure building blocks: InsurTechs & incumbents could build faster & platforms could launch bespoke products. A fresh take at each layer of the stack could eventually reach a point where adding insurance is as modular as adding bank products.
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1) A strong finance team is critical, now more than ever. Companies of all sizes are dynamically planning for uncertain times ahead. New post w. @seema_amble:fintech & enterprise entrepreneurs are teaming up to modernize SW for the finance suite (finally!) a16z.com/2020/04/15/new…
2) Finance teams spend the majority of their time gathering, scrubbing, synthesizing data from multiple systems (which is still often not available in real-time) - and only then can they provide strategic business advice
3] Finance teams are also required to be systems architects and piece together many software suites that most often don't even talk to each other
1) My presentation @ our annual @a16z Summit this year bit.ly/a16zFintech The "Amazon Web Services" era has arrived for financial services. Who benefits most? Consumers! -> more choice, better & more affordable products, regardless of geography or socioeconomic demographic
2) Similar to what AWS did for compute and storage, new infrastructure companies are rebuilding each layer of the banking stack and providing modern software “as a service.” Thus, the cost and complexity of building or adding financial services is coming down.
3) It will become easier to launch a FinTech company and easier for existing institutions to improve (finally!). Most significantly -- In the not-too-distant future, I believe nearly every company will derive a significant portion of their revenue from financial services.
1) People hating banks is old news. It’s more interesting to look at root causes for the inertia. And more importantly, why is the centuries-old banking industry changing so suddenly? New post: Why our most hated institutions will become our most beloved bit.ly/37AGvpU
2) What's unique about this disruption is that, rather than a single winner and many losers, all players stand to benefit. Incumbents will improve, it'll become faster to launch startups, and new brands that have nothing to do with financial services could become your bank!
3) This rapid change is being powered by new infrastructure companies. In stark contrast to the traditionally cumbersome, years-long process of partnering with legacy tech, these new fintech companies provide modern APIs as financial services building blocks.
1) The lack of a universally adopted real time payments system in the US is one of our largest regressive taxes. @sm90 and I discuss in the latest episode of @a16z 16minutes pod: a16z.com/2019/08/11/16m…
2) Most employees live paycheck to paycheck and come dangerously close to 0 balance. With impossible to predict delays (in paychecks, $ from checks being available or cashed) - every mistake results in a $30 overdraft fee...adding to $34B in overdraft fees last year.
3) It's the people who need their cash the most who suffer the most from these payment delays. Why pay 1-5% of your check to cash it immediately when banks do it for free? Because you can't afford to wait the 2-7 days for the bank to clear it.