Insurtech Lemonade Redesigns App After Expanding Services to Life, Pet, Car Insurance

Lemonade (NYSE:LMND), the insurance firm that’s powered by AI and behavioral economics, notes that the end of the year 2021 is a time for “sitting back, taking stock, and reflecting on the past twelve months.”

Although the Insurtech firm “doubtlessly” made a few mistakes along the way—they’re “only human, except when they’re bots—2021 brought plenty to celebrate,” the team at Lemonade wrote in a blog post.

Last year, Lemonade launched the Lemonade Car.

According to the Insurtech company, it’s “no easy feat to build an insurance product from scratch, and doing so often takes years.”

Lemonade further noted that they “got fast & furious and launched Lemonade Car in less than 12 months, bringing the experience to drivers in Illinois, with many more states to follow.”

As mentioned in the update, the goal is to “bring greater equity and transparency to the industry.”

“Car insurance rates can be at best inaccurate, and at worst unfair,” Lemonade cofounder Shai Wininger noted.

Lemonade Car aims to “change that with a tech-forward approach that rewards safe and low-mileage drivers,” the update explained.

Notably, Lemonade Car “tracks your mileage, and they’ll be planting trees to help clean up after your personal carbon emissions.”

The Insurtech firm further revealed that they “went to contract on [their] first M&A deal.”

In other words, this means that, “subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals, [Lemonade will] acquire Metromile, a simpatico brand in the car insurance sphere that has pioneered the use of pay-per-mile policies.”

CEO Daniel Schreiber remarked:

“Within minutes of meeting the Metromile team we knew we were among kindred spirits. Here were digital natives, insurance nerds, and data scientists, all committed to harnessing technology to deliver faster, fairer, and more affordable insurance to consumers. People after our own heart.”

The Lemonade community gave more than $2 million to charity, “with your help,” the firm revealed while noting that there are “plenty of things to love about Lemonade, including our Giveback program.”

According to the firm, their unique business model means that they “take a fixed percentage of premiums off the top, and use the rest of the money to pay claims; funds that don’t go toward claims are donated to amazing nonprofits that our customers tell us matter to them.”

Last year, that meant the Lemonade community was “able to donate $2,303,381 to nonprofits like the ACLU and American Red Cross,” the update noted while adding that if you are looking for a complete breakdown of “where the money went,” then you can take a deep dive into the 2021 Giveback.

Company Welcomed their New Chief Claims Officer

If you’re a Lemonade client, then you may have already “met” their previous Chief Claims Officer, Jim Hageman—his digital avatar, AI Jim, is “your first point of contact when filing a claim.”

Late last year, Jim decided to “pass the proverbial baton to industry veteran Sean Burgess, who joins Lemonade after a whopping 27 years at legacy insurer USAA.”

While sharing other updates, the company noted that they “commissioned 76 artists to create nearly 90 unique artworks for our Instagram account.”

The company also noted that “Insurance company” and “art” don’t usually appear in the same sentence together, but they “like to keep things weird at Lemonade.”

Their #ConnectedByLemonade initiative on Instagram has “brought wild, pink-inflected artwork and animations to the masses.”

With artists hailing from around the world—including Egypt, New Zealand, and Albania—this was “truly an international project, and a way to connect creative voices during a year when most everyone was stuck close to home,” the team at Lemonade wrote in their blog post.

Lemonade also shared:

“We pledged to divest from fossil fuels back in 2017—the first U.S. insurer to do so—and this year we made another promise. Lemonade signed on to Net Zero 2030, joining a coalition of companies that have pledged to achieve net zero emissions by 2030. One way we’ll help to accomplish that is via Lemonade Car’s inventive tree-planting initiative.”

The Insurtech firm further revealed that their talent team has “been very busy finding incredible people who want to help disrupt insurance.” In the month of September alone, they “welcomed 137 new employees around the world.”

The company also noted that their original app “provided a clean, intuitive user experience for the products we started with—namely, renters and homeowners insurance.”

They added:

“Now the Lemonade family also includes term life, pet, and car insurance… so we redesigned our app in order to give each product room to shine. This allows customers to easily toggle between various insurances, doing everything from filing claims to adjusting coverage limits.”

They also mentioned:

“Now, no matter where you live in the U.S., you can get covered with one of Lemonade’s products. In some states—like Illinois—you can become a true Lemonade MVP and sign up for four: homeowners, pet, term life, and car insurance.”