CHICAGO, IL – August 1, 2017 – Kin, the company that has built home insurance from scratch so that customers can get the best insurance entire online, in minutes, launched today in its first state, Florida. Since Kin is built on modern technology without paper and legacy IT systems, and does not rely on local brokers for distribution, Kin also provides a better value – more insurance for less money.
Kin was founded in 2016 by financial technology veterans Sean Harper, Lucas Ward, and Sebastian Villarreal, who have previously built and sold financial technology businesses to Groupon, Insight Venture Partners and Avant.
Along with the launch, Kin raised $4 million from top venture capitalists including Commerce Ventures, Omidyar Network, 500 Startups, Chicago Ventures, and Portag3 Ventures, as well as top angels including founders and alumni from other top tech companies such as Avant, Square, Capital One, LinkedIn and Facebook. “Insurance is a huge part of the economy that hasn’t seen much tech innovation. We are excited to back such an experienced team solving big problems in a giant industry,” said Dan Rosen, founder and managing director of Commerce Ventures.
Kin can provide a seamless and instant customer experience because it plugs into every available data source about each house. Historically, insurance companies have relied on the homeowner and the insurance agent to provide information about the house, which is inconvenient for the customer but also that data isn’t very reliable.
“Even if users liked filling out long questionnaires about their houses, most people don’t really know what condition their roof is in, or the replacement cost of their house. As techies with big data experience, we can quickly plug into new data sources and build models that really understand the home a lot better than the owner or an insurance agent” said Lucas Ward, CTO of Kin.
By starting from scratch and cutting out unnecessary costs, Kin can provide a better value to the consumer while still building a profitable business. “94% of homeowners insurance is still sold through local brokers and agents but only 24% of people under the age of 40 actually want to buy that way, and these are the people who are now buying the most houses. There are more insurance offices than fast food restaurants, which is unnecessary and adds a lot of expense and results in higher prices for the consumer,” said Sean Harper, CEO of Kin.
