附近上门

Small business digital insurance provider Next Insurance has raised $83 million in a Series B round led by . Other participants include previous investors and , along with , , , and .

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Next Insurance previously raised a round in March 2016 followed by a in May 2017. Its latest capital infusion brings its total known funding to $131 million.

Founded in 2016, Next Insurance aims to provide small business owners with affordable, high-coverage insurance.

鈥淏rokers are not always experts in the exact type of business that they are talking to,鈥� Next Insurance COO Sofya Pogreb told 附近上门 News in an interview. 鈥淎s a result, most of the time they are not necessarily tailoring the product for the customer.鈥� Pogreb noted that many of the customers that come to Next Insurance have been sold insurance that doesn鈥檛 cover all of their needs or are paying for packages that include unnecessary coverage.

Next Insurance started off as a distribution platform and, like many of its competitors, worked with traditional carriers to sell insurance products online. A year later, however, the company began selling its own insurance packages. Pogreb told 附近上门 News that the pivot was a result of critical challenges that arose when working with traditional partners.

鈥淲e found that these traditional carriers most often operate on legacy platforms. These are very inflexible systems, they take months to integrate with, they take a lot of maintenance,鈥� Pogreb explained. 聽Due to these hindrances, sales were lost. Furthermore, a need for more control over the pricing and fees pushed the company to branch off.

鈥淲e鈥檝e done away fees completely, and we鈥檙e able to do that because of our leaner expense structure,鈥� Pogreb said. 鈥淗aving our own product gave us control over pricing [and] coverage. We made sure that we鈥檙e more comfortable and proud of the product that we are selling.鈥�

Small business owners can now go on to Next Insurance鈥檚 website, choose their industry, and select a Basic, Pro, or Pro Plus package depending on their need. Customers can submit a request for quote and purchase a package within minutes. According to its website, general liability and personal injury insurance is included with all insurance packages.

In selling their own product, with past experience in the industry, the company鈥檚 first product was geared toward the construction vertical, and it now sells products for professional services.

鈥淥ne of the challenges we鈥檝e spent a lot of time discussing is how do we become an expert in each and every vertical that we serve,鈥� Pogreb expressed. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 part of our challenge as we scale.鈥� Pogreb explained that the company is focused on fine-tuning its products in those verticals.

The company will also use the new funding to expand into new verticals, most likely retail, as well as offer more products within existing verticals. Next Insurance also plans to increase headcount and invest in its back-end technology.

鈥淲e鈥檙e looking to increase the sophistication and usage of machine learning technology and AI in how we make customer underwriting and pricing decisions,鈥� Pogreb said. With that investment in AI, Pogreb said Next Insurance aims to be able to improve its potential customer validation process, further incorporate product reviews through its online funnel, and leverage business鈥檚 online footprint to improve the underwriting and pricing processes.

Next Insurance is one of many insurtech companies, like and , that have gained traction from investors looking to influence the user-led future of policy purchases.

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