
Show HN: Software to give insurance advice like an agent would - chrisplotz
Chris, Dan, and the team at Goodcover here. Goodcover is building a new home and renters insurance co that tries to fix the insurance incentives by returning any unclaimed premium back to customers, keeping a fee instead.  Goodcover was YC S17, but off the record due to discussions with the CA government.  And we’re still “pre-launch” - starting a new insurance co is hard as it turns out!<p>Part of the technical challenge we deal with is, how do we build software that can scale what an agent does?  Although we can’t offer a full insurance experience yet, we thought we’d roll out an advice app (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;app.goodcover.com&#x2F;advice" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;app.goodcover.com&#x2F;advice</a>) that makes a stab at giving advice like an agent might, but using software.  By analyzing your current insurance docs, we can:<p>- Benchmark the coverage you have against what is “normal”.<p>- Provide advice about some specific things that you can fix or at least consider fixing.<p>- Arm you with information on things you can push back on with your insurer.<p>Technically, the way it works is we’ve generalized some gotchas, manually looked over a bunch of Home&#x2F;Renters policies, and built a workflow for us to select where we think you are in the homeowners&#x2F;renters spectrum.  So it’s really just workflow automation, however, it requires obviously being able to translate insurance constructs to user things, but most of it is pretty simple from an automation standpoint.  Most of our time is generally spent on building out insurance functions, but it’s been a great experiment in information hierarchy to try and reduce complex concepts and insurance-speak down to actionable pieces of information for customers.<p>No obligation, and feel free to take our advice back to your current provider and get stuff fixed. Goodcover Insurance Solutions LLC is licensed in California (0M20813) so if you are not in CA we can still have a look, but you should definitely review our advice with a pro in your state.
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phonon
Your T&C are poor.

"[add if applicable];"

"You are granted a limited, non-exclusive right to create a text hyperlink to
the Site for noncommercial purposes, provided such link does not portray
Goodcover or any of its products and services in a false, misleading,
derogatory or otherwise defamatory manner...This limited right may be revoked
at any time."

"You acknowledge and agree that any materials, including but not limited to
questions, comments, suggestions, ideas, plans, notes, drawings, original or
creative materials or other information, regarding the Site, Goodcover or
Goodcover's products or services that are provided by you in the form of email
or other submissions to Goodcover, or any postings on the Site, are non-
confidential and shall become the sole property of Goodcover. Goodcover shall
own exclusive rights, including all intellectual property rights, and shall be
entitled to the unrestricted use and dissemination of these materials for any
purpose, commercial or otherwise, without acknowledgment or compensation to
you."

"If you post User Content to the Site, unless we indicate otherwise, you grant
Goodcover and its affiliates a nonexclusive, royalty-free, perpetual,
irrevocable and fully sublicensable right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt,
publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and
display such User Content throughout the world in any media on or in
connection with the Site and the promotion thereof. You grant Goodcover and
its affiliates and sublicensees the right to use the name that you submit in
connection with such content, if we choose."

"IN A WRITING"

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chrisplotz
Thanks for the feedback, happy to consider. Could you be more specific about
what you would expect? That would help us make adjustments.

~~~
phonon
The first and last quoted sections are sloppy/bad drafting.

The second is egregious, and embarrassing to be found in a YC company. You
should not be asserting rights to how people "link" to you.

Third and fourth basically say any user provided "content" (whatever that may
mean) is now "non-confidential" the "sole property of Goodcover", "entitled to
the unrestricted use and dissemination of these materials for any purpose".

That sounds like you plan to use some relatively sensitive user provided
materials in any way you see fit to advance your company.

But wait! you say...we have a privacy policy! Great, except the privacy policy
has an exception...

"We may share information about you as follows or as otherwise described in
this Privacy Policy: ... With your consent or at your direction, including if
we notify you through our Service that the information you provide will be
shared in a particular manner and you provide such information."

which arguably means that since the user accepted the T&C, they've approved
your usage of their materials.

I don't feel you did this maliciously, you probably copied this from some
template. Doesn't mean you shouldn't be thinking about this much more
carefully though.

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lucasjans
If you focus on the risk management side of personal lines I think you're
going to have a hard time to scale. The problem is most consumers don't care
enough about coverage to shop for it. What attracts new clients is price,
price, price. Clients unfortunately won't worry coverage until they really
need it. The problem with focusing on price is you'll attract clients who
won't renew after 3-5 years, messing up the retention numbers. Navigating the
balance between those two will be critical.

Now there is some space in the high-end personal lines for focus on
protection. But there you're competing against entrenched insurance agents.

Small commercial is also a very interesting space to explore. Protection is
much more important for these people and the sales process is easier to
automate (than med/large commercial.)

\---

I sold my startup in this space last year. We provided marketing automation
for agents. Feel free to reach out.

~~~
smarri
I couldn't agree more, I've been in personal lines (consumer) insurance for
more than 10 years - price is king for the vast majority consumers. The issue
this causes is insurers tend to discount new business premiums heavily and
make a loss in years 1 and 2 (at least). The follow on problem for an insurer
is the ease at which consumers can shop around, so retention rates are
dropping - especially as the insurer will attept to regain some of that lost
income at renewal by increasing the price. It's a buyers market. However cross
selling add on cover is a common way to regain income. In any case, it's great
to see innovation in insurance, and good luck for the future! (PS. are you
intending to be a broker or actually underwrite the insurance policies?)

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arikr
Suggestion: Show an example of the type of advice that it can automatically
give on the homepage. I clicked through to the homepage but didn't necessarily
believe that the automated advice could be great so I wasn't motivated enough
to dig up a policy of mine and upload. Would be great to see the sort of
advice/info it can give, presented as soon as you hit the advice page.

~~~
ddispaltro
Yeah that's a great idea. Thanks!

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DoreenMichele
I think it would be good to specify what kind of policy you are talking about.
You are apparently doing just renters and homeowners policies, but comments
even within this discussion are talking about medical insurance.

I don't know what a good, succinct term would be for both renters and
homeowners coverage. I know that various kinds of real estate related
magazines fall under the umbrella term of _shelter_ magazines. A lot of people
seem to not know that, which just highlights how hard it is to come up with a
good umbrella term for such diverse things. But I think you need to try to
clarify that somehow on your landing page.

And if your advice app is broader than the renters/homeowners insurance niche,
then specify that as well. I feel this is just not really clear at the moment.

Best of luck. Insurance R hard. ;)

~~~
PaulHoule
I don't know if it makes sense to get renter's coverage.

I had a friend who had his apartment burn, the first thing the cops asked him
was if he had insurance, and the they told him they were very relieved,
otherwise he would have been an arson suspect automatically.

Homeowners generally do have insurance, so they don't face this stigma, but
renter's coverage is rare enough that having it and using it makes you look
like a crook.

~~~
cosmie
I've moved about a dozen times over the last decade, and all but one rental
required me to have a renter's insurance policy as part of the lease terms -
most of whom also required me to list them as an interested party[1].

A renter's policy is ridiculously inexpensive for what you get. Because it
only covers liability and personal property, and not the full breadth of
coverage a homeowner's policy would have, it's easy to get a really
comprehensive policy for less than ~$15 a month. I've only had to use my
renter's policy once after a break in, and the payout for personal property
coverage was more than my entire decade worth of premiums[2]. Especially if
you're a techie, electronics/computing stuff[3] really starts to add up if you
take a look at all the little gadgets and computers and home office[4] style
stuff you have around.

[1] It basically sets it up so that your landlord gets notified of any policy
changes (non-renewal, cancelations, limit changes, etc) and can know for sure
that you're continually insured, and don't let the policy lapse after you've
shown your proof of insurance at lease signing.

[2] Paying a few extra bucks for "replacement cost" coverage vs. "market
value" coverage is well worth it. It's the difference between "here's $100 for
your 5 year old MacBook Pro" and "here's $1000 to cover the replacement cost
for another entry level MacBook Pro".

[3] If you have personal property replacement, you'll generally have per-
category limits. If you don't explicitly request a rider for it, your e.g.
$20k personal property replacement coverage may cap out electronics at $1k.

[4] If you have company-owned equipment at your house, your personal renter's
policy would likely not cover it. If you work for yourself from home, your
"for work" equipment is probably not technically covered under a standard
renter's insurance policy, so you may want to explicitly clarify if you need a
separate policy with your insurance company if you don't want to chance a
claim with it getting denied.

~~~
SOLAR_FIELDS
My wife used to be a leasing agent for an apartment complex. One day a tenant
from her complex started the dishwasher, something broke and it flooded the
entire apartment and the apartment below it. Had tenant paid the $13 or so a
month for renters insurance it would have been nothing or only a few hundred
out of pocket for a deductible. Instead, tenant was looking at over $20,000 in
repairs.

~~~
mgkimsal
Any reason the landlord wouldn't just build a $13/month policy premium in to
the rent and purchase the insurance themselves?

~~~
DoreenMichele
I'm not firsthand familiar with property insurance, but there are restrictions
on who can purchase insurance. You have to have fiduciary interest.

So, for example, you can't buy a life insurance policy on a random stranger.
That can go bad places and be an incentive to commit murder.

So it is possible the landlord cannot buy this specific insurance themselves
and the coverage they can legally purchase does not cover the instance in
question.

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nickphx
After uploading pdf from farmers I was told to click a link to verify my email
address. I clicked the link and was taken to a page that told me to check my
email and click the link. :D I refreshed the same page and the instructions
updated.

~~~
ddispaltro
It's eventually consistent :) I'll add it as a bug, thanks!

~~~
nickphx
Have you considered interfacing with the third party insurance customer sites
to retrieve the insurance documents to process?

~~~
ddispaltro
I would love any such integration. But coverage-wise I think it's easier to do
a simple upload at the moment.

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sonyakop
We started experimenting with building an automated insurance agent bot that
would help someone purchase various types of insurance from a particular
provider. This could easily be tweaked to provide different
information/comparisons of various insurance types from various other
providers/sources. You could also pull in public reviews/feedback to allow for
rating and recommendations.

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1xgMEkvEppM#](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1xgMEkvEppM#)

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chrisplotz
Chris Lotz, cofounder of Goodcover here. The team and I are around and happy
to answer any questions.

Would love to hear any feedback too! Particularly around the user flow, and
whether our instructions make sense.

Thanks!

~~~
sfbay
Hi Chris, This is a great service for almost 70% of the population who don't
know what events are not covered and the fine print gotchas from the insurance
companies.

This should be a really helpful service, kudos on the idea.

The only concern I have here is, privacy. Most of the home owners are not
comfortable to upload docs that includes their names or property details (easy
to know their net worth) from this. Also, how are you managing data security?

Do you have any plans to address these concerns?

~~~
dyim
Man, I bet it's even higher than 70%.

I was in the hospital in February, and I asked the nurse how much it would
cost to drain a subungual hematoma. Nobody knew!

Maybe it would've been free; maybe it would've cost $1,000 - it definitely
doesn't feel good to decline a procedure because you have no idea how much
it'll cost.

~~~
sethammons
While this post thread is fire and casualty insurance, when you look ad
medical insurance, it is just insane.

I had an appointment at a specialist and I am on a high deductible plan. I
called up and asked how much I would be spending. They refused to tell me. I
tried this again, and another person refused. "We can't know how much it will
cost."

So I went in and asked. Same line. "It matters what happens in the appointment
and if you have any treatments." "Sure, but what about the base cost assuming
nothing else happens?" "We can't say." "Look lady, I'm needing to know if I
can afford this. I don't need exacts. I need ballparks. $100? $500? $1000?
$5000?" "Oh, i can't imagine it will be that much?" "Which?" "I can't say."

I needed the appointment, so I went in blind. Came back out, and they
literally couldn't figure out what to charge me. "We don't see a
deductible..." Yeah, I am from an HSA and have a high deductible plan." "Um,
no change at this time. We will send you an invoice." Turned out to be $50.

With such price transparency, we will never fix things in the US.

While the problem is not as crazy on property insurance, it is still subject
to complexities. Different policies have different exclusions and different
riders. You can't just compare apples to apples. Heck, even auto insurance has
nuances. Some only pay out if you are driving your own car while others will
pay out for any car you happen to be driving.

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jedberg
Amusingly, the Farmer's Insurance website went down just as I was trying to
get my decs page. :)

I liked the flow, although I did have an issue where when I dragged the decs
page onto the box in Safari it just opened the page, but once I got it
uploaded it worked fine. Still waiting for my report now.

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slope12345
Have you seen this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETUVcm5rU_4&t=13s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETUVcm5rU_4&t=13s)

Might be a simple way for you to get it done.

