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Also, I should add, they’re growing fast because they will underwrite anyone for anything. They’re one “oops our AI underwriting has been taking on far too much risk” away from disaster. That they’re demanding 7 days a week from their employees while spending their time building a dataroom product instead of, I don’t know, improving their underwriting, is a bad sign.

Normally getting insurance from a startup like Corgi would be a very bad idea because what’s to say they’ll be able to pay out claims? I assume other YC startups are happy because a) they can’t get insurance anywhere with good underwriting b) they figure YC will bail Corgi out when it goes wrong because seemingly every YC startup depends on them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_retention_group

“Policyholders should be aware that certain Specialty Insurance Carriers may not be admitted insurers in the state in which the insured risk is located. Policies issued by non-admitted insurers, risk retention groups, captive insurers, and certain other Specialty Insurance Carriers may not be subject to all of the insurance laws and regulations of your state. State insurance insolvency guaranty funds may not be available for policies issued by non-admitted insurers, risk retention groups, captive insurance companies, offshore insurers, or other non-admitted Specialty Insurance Carriers. In the event of the insolvency of such a carrier, policyholders may not have access to state guaranty fund protection and may bear the risk of the carrier's inability to pay claims.”

https://www.corgi.insure/disclaimers

 help



> Normally getting insurance from a startup like Corgi would be a very bad idea because what’s to say they’ll be able to pay out claims?

Actually normally it’s fine because it’s rarely the startup selling insurance who’s doing the underwriting.

Corgi is more worrying because they’re (apparently) underwriting too.


My understanding is a normal insurance tech startup would be acting as a broker.

A rare but sensible insurance tech startup would use external underwriters and reinsurance and provide insolvency protection.

Corgi doesn’t have any external underwriters, doesn’t have any insolvency protection, doesn’t have any reinsurance.

I think they’re bad on all 3 points, not just the underwriting?


If this is the scenario, it's no wonder they're underwriting everyone & everything, and can do this competitively, because a broker would need to find either enough new clients and/or efficiencies to justify being the middleman between the customer and the actual insurer. That's typically been the strategy of every financial tech company; I don't see any secret sauce with Corgi beyond "'cause AI!". Move fast and break things is not what I'd want in my insurance company.



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