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Hi All! We are back after taking a hiatus last week. We hope everyone enjoyed a holiday weekend and stayed out of harm’s way with Ida, wildfires and other CATs. Over the last two weeks we have followed Ida losses, a new insurtech unicorn and Kin’s first quarterly earnings. Here are the three things we learned: |
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Ida Losses Becoming Clearer Ida appears to be 2021’s most major cat so far with a few months left in the tropical season. We hope all who were affected by this storm are on the path to recovery. The total losses in the US could reach $40B but it appears that changes made post-Katrina and post-Sandy helped in the Gulf region and Northeast respectively. Our friend Ian breaks down the estimation math in his usual clever way and puts into perspective with past events. |
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Marshmallow’s $1.25B Valuation Marshmallow, a UK motor insurer, raised $85M giving them a valuation greater than $1B. We suspect most of us in the US were not aware of them prior to this event. It’s hard to get a read on their fundamentals but they appear to have messaging similar to fellow unicorns about changing the way insurance works for the consumer and are experiencing rapid growth. The UK market is quite different than the US so it will be interesting to watch how they grow and what is next for them with this elevated valuation. |
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Kin Insurance’s First Public Earnings Newly-public SPAC home-insurer Kin, who we have been following, had their first public quarterly earnings announcement. They grew premiums by 287% but their operating expenses are growing as well so the operating loss has stayed consistent over the past 3 quarters. Their loss ratio dropped from 96% to 67% over the prior year period, they will need to continue this downward trend and level off expenses to squeeze out a profit while maintaining rapid growth. |
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