Boost Receives New York Approval for First Comprehensive Startup Management Liability Product

By The Boost Team on Aug 26, 2021

4 min read

Our insurtech and embedded distribution partners can now offer fair and affordable D&O, Fiduciary, and EPL coverage to the burgeoning NY startup market on an admitted basis.

Big News for Big Apple Startups

Last year, we announced the launch of Boost’s Startup Management Liability Insurance Product after several months of R&D and close engagement with the state insurance regulators. Today, we’re thrilled to announce that this innovative product recently received approval from New York authorities to officially make our product the first comprehensive startup-focused management liability offering available in the state’s admitted market. With New York’s approval, the product is now available to all startups and privately owned small businesses in one of the country’s leading innovation hubs - and Boost’s own home state!

Boost’s Startup Management Liability Product is live in 20 states, which collectively represent about 90%[1] of venture capital deal volume and with New York’s recent approval, can be offered in almost every startup hotspot in the U.S. including California, New York, Texas, Illinois, Washington, and many more.

As always, we are calling on all tech-enabled MGAs, brokers, agents, and embedded distribution platforms that are interested in partnering with Boost Insurance to offer this game-changing product to their startup and small business customers.

Massive Product Opportunity for Insurtech and Embedded Distribution

According to the National Venture Capital Association, over 10,000 U.S.-based startups received venture capital funding in 2020 alone - with total investment in the segment surpassing $160 billion for the year.[2] This fast-growing startup ecosystem now employs an estimated 2.5 million people across the United States and these trends are not slowing down. The startups of today will represent a meaningful portion of the commercial insurance market of tomorrow - and sooner than you may think.

All startups need fair and affordable management liability insurance in their early days - it’s typically even required by investors in order for a startup to raise capital. However, the vast majority don't have access to the coverage they need and the startup segment as a whole remains considerably underserved by traditional insurers and their one-size-fits-all insurance products. Startups are traditionally deemed ineligible and denied coverage outright under legacy underwriting guidelines for commercial lines insurance products - largely due to their lack of financial and/or operating history. Even the startups that are deemed eligible for coverage are forced to pay exorbitant premiums because insurers unfairly generalize the segment as a high-risk class of business relative to larger policyholders.

“The New York City startup scene represents approximately 15%[1] of venture capital deal volume in the U.S., so Boost receiving approval to offer the only comprehensive startup management liability insurance product in that market opens up a huge opportunity for a wide range of companies that cater to startups. Those companies can now offer Boost's embedded insurance product and expand the value they already drive to their startup clientele - and be 100% sure that they’re receiving the best coverage at the fairest prices.”

-- Alex Maffeo, CEO and Founder of Boost

Ironically, Boost encountered this problem ourselves in the early days of our operations, so we know the pain. We were barely even able to get a quote for basic Directors & Officers coverage from traditional insurers when we were closing our seed round of financing, despite helping innovators offer better insurance products being a core part of our company’s mission!

Nobody is immune to this problem, so we did what any good startup would do – we built a better product ourselves.

Even Bigger Advantages of Partnering with Boost

Our product empowers any company that has startups or small businesses in its customer base to offer the most comprehensive and affordable management liability protection - all through a simple and fully white-labeled digital insurance experience that is embedded directly into their existing workflows and interfaces.

Whether you’re an insurtech, an established broker/agent, a venture capital firm, fintech, bank, or technology company that serves startups - you can now provide a differentiated and valuable line of insurance protection to your customers. Boost’s product can easily be integrated as part of your core business or offered as a value-added product and service to enhance the relationship with your customers.

Boost’s Startup Management Liability Product is built for privately owned companies with between $0 and $150 million in venture capital or other forms of equity financing and offers:

Simple Yet Comprehensive Coverage. We researched the entire management liability insurance market and built our product from the ground up so that it offers startups the coverage that they need, including Directors & Officers, Employment Practices Liability, and Fiduciary coverage.
Fair and Reliable Risk Selection Rates. Boost built a proprietary algorithm that leverages alternative data sets to analyze a startup’s business plan, financial projections, and compliance infrastructure to provide a more intelligent risk assessment.
The Most Affordable Rates on the Market. Our partners have found that Boost’s algorithm and superior risk selection model allow them to quote their customers up to 40% more affordable rates than both traditional insurance companies and other startup-focused products that are on the market.
A Fully-Embedded and 100% Digital Customer Experience. Seamlessly integrated into your existing workflows and interfaces, Boost’s leading API platform enables you to instantly issue policies and deliver them digitally to your customers.

Get Started on the Boost Platform

Learn more about Boost’s Startup Management Liability product.

Interested in offering this product or any others to your customers? Contact us to become a Boost partner today.

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Boost Joins The InsurTech Coalition As A Founding Member

Nov 29, 2023

We’re in a period of profound change in the insurance industry: rapidly advancing technology has given us new ways to evaluate risk, as well as new ways for customers to research, buy, and interact with insurance. This means a lot of exciting new opportunities for insurance players - and also a lot of uncertainty. Everything from how products are designed to the regulatory frameworks that guide the industry will need to evolve to meet changing technology and business realities. We believe the best way to get there is by working together. Boost has joined with five other insurtech leaders to found the InsurTech Coalition, a first-ever group of next-generation insurance companies intent on shaping the future of insurance. Our coalition aims to foster responsible innovation while furthering the collective efforts to provide the best possible insurance experiences to our customers. We’re committed to helping the industry: The future of insurance is too important to go it alone. That’s why we’re inviting all like-minded insurtech advocates to join us in the InsurTech Coalition (for more information, please visit the Coalition’s website: https://insurtechcoalition.com/). Together, we can empower customers, advocate for innovative ways of doing business, and advance positive changes in the insurance environment. Exciting times are ahead, for the insurance industry and every business in its ecosystem. We look forward to helping shape the next chapter.

Our Top 3 Takeaways from ITC 2023

Nov 13, 2023

We’re back from another great year at ITC Vegas! ITC is one of our favorite events here at Boost - there’s always a lot of interesting discussions, and this year is no exception. Here’s three big trends we saw this year, and our takeaways. No surprise here - AI is everywhere this year, and insurance is no exception. AI-based innovations and services were heavily represented in the exhibit hall, with many providers aiming to enable smoother, faster processes. The trend wasn’t limited to a single segment - we saw options for full or partial automation across a broad range of insurance functions, including claims workflows, underwriting processes, support, policy issuance, risk management, contract interpretation, and more. At the same time, most of the conversations weren’t focused on how AI could replace existing workflows, but on how it might streamline or augment them. The general sense was that the new era of AI is here, and it’s crucial to figure out how insurance can best leverage these new capabilities to not just do more, but do it faster and better. It’s still early in the AI boom, and it remains to be seen how much of the hype translates into actual impact for the insurance industry. It’s clear from this year’s conference, however, that a lot of insurance-focused companies are betting big that the impact will be significant. Obviously, access to accurate and relevant data is always important. But with current market conditions reducing the margin for error, it’s critical for insurance businesses to be able to make decisions based on the most complete, up-to-date information available. It’s unsurprising, then, that data and business insights were a major theme at this year’s conference. We saw multiple panels - and multiple product offerings - centered around helping insurers more effectively gather and utilize data. That includes Boost; visitors to our booth could explore a live demo of our new Portfolio Insights product, which gives our (re)insurance partners anytime access to real-time performance data for any Boost programs that they support. Getting access to the right data is only half the battle, however. The other half is using that data effectively. We also saw a lot of discussion around how insurers could get the most value out of the information available to them, including everything from how to best price products to how to evaluate risk by analyzing new data sources. The insurance industry has a reputation for being slow to respond to change, but you wouldn’t guess it from the conversations at ITC. Adaptation was a major theme of this year’s conference around a number of new developments, including: A lot of change is in the air, and we can’t wait to see what develops from it by the time ITC 2024 rolls around. Our thanks to everyone who stopped by the Boost booth to say hi, and we’re looking forward to seeing you all again next year! Missed seeing Boost at ITC 2023? It’s never too late to connect with us online.

Introducing Portfolio Insights: The First Real-Time Analytics Platform for (Re)insurance Partners

Oct 30, 2023

Today, we’re excited to introduce a powerful new extension to Boost’s technology platform: Portfolio Insights. Portfolio Insights is a proprietary analytics tool that gives (re)insurers anytime access to real-time performance data for any Boost programs that they support - all through a simple and secure online portal. On the heels of last week’s announcement of Boost Re, Portfolio Insights is the latest component of our platform for the risk capital side of the (re)insurance value chain. Getting timely access to performance data is an ongoing challenge across the insurance and reinsurance industry. Traditionally, (re)insurers are forced to wait to receive monthly or quarterly reports, sometimes as long as two months after the close of any given period, which gives them little to no time to respond to an increasingly dynamic market. Once they finally receive their data, it usually comes in the form of an Excel spreadsheet delivered via email attachment, requiring time-consuming and manual work to enter into their business intelligence systems. At Boost, we think our partners should know what’s going on with their business right now, not what happened last quarter. Portfolio Insights empowers our (re)insurance partners to: Real-time access to performance data is an industry first in the (re)insurance space, and it’s only possible because of Boost’s fully vertically integrated technology platform. All of our workflows are configured for end-to-end automation in our policy administration system, which has been built specifically for the MGA and program business where data latency issues are particularly pronounced. All of Boost’s insurtech, MGA, and embedded insurance partners are technology-enabled in their own right and directly integrated with Boost’s API. That means our platform serves as the system of record on every policy and claims transaction on Boost-powered programs. Any event that impacts income, loss, or exposure is reflected in Portfolio Insights’ intuitive dashboards within one hour. Portfolio Insights gives our risk capital partners unparalleled data access and transparency along with the ability to utilize that data whenever and however they need to. We’re excited to release this new tool, and we look forward to not only seeing its impact on underwriting performance and profitability, but to continuing to build out even more valuable functionality with our stakeholders. To learn more about partnering with Boost as a risk capital provider, please contact us at [email protected]