What does a $350-million capital investment, two acquisitions, 100 hires and a new office have in common?
They’re all signs of rapid growth, and milestones Hippo Insurance has hit in just over a year.
The insurance technology company — which reached unicorn status in 2020 — has been on an upward trajectory since its founding in 2015, Chief Growth Officer Daniel Blanaru said. And every growth move since has been driven by a singular focus: to be a customer-centric insurance provider.
But what does that look like in practice?
“The biggest thing that drives our push for growth is the fact that we’re a proactive home insurance company,” Blanaru said. “We strive to help our customers identify and resolve issues around their home before they become major headaches.”
The company is part of the rapidly digitizing industry expected to be worth $125 billion by 2024, according to market intelligence firm Mordor Intelligence. But Hippo claims to have a key differentiator: AI. By harnessing AI to streamline underwriting, help customers prevent claims and facilitate smart home integrations, Hippo leaders like Blanaru say they’re setting an example for what a modern home insurance company can be.
Hippo uses data, AI and machine learning to give homeowners quotes in less than a minute and claims to include 4x more coverage limits for home office equipment and electronics, even covering things like a homeowner’s service line connection to the city’s utilities (think: electrical and sewage pipe). It also offers customers spiffy tech tools like a complimentary smart home monitoring system and access to Hippo Home Care, a virtual home care platform that offers one-on-one support for home maintenance and connects customers with certified home repair professionals.
In 2021, Blanaru said Hippo plans to continue to grow its headcount, evolve its offerings and expand its national footprint. Blanaru, Chief Product Officer Aviad Pinkovezky and VP of People Anna Lenhardt take a look back, and forward, at Hippo’s growth philosophy, sharing their perceptions of how scale will impact both the product and the teams building it in 2021 and beyond.
How to Grow a Hippo
“The essence of Hippo from the very beginning was to create a new kind of home insurance company,” Aviad Pinkovezky, chief product officer, said. “We provide complimentary smart home devices, home care services including regular home maintenance, and layer in AI and underwriting to protect our customers’ properties, building the best possible home insurance experience.”
By ‘building,’ Pinkovezky means expanding Hippo’s coverage from 70 percent of the U.S. homeowners population across 32 states to 95 percent by the end of next year. Hippo’s growth will be bolstered by the recently-acquired national property and casualty insurer Spinnaker Insurance, as well as a tactical approach that involves running pilot programs and building dedicated teams around specific growth initiatives.
As we define and prove out certain initiatives through pilots, we often create in-home capabilities around them.”
“We set strategic initiatives based on our overall company strategy,” Blanaru said. “When we identify a new area or venture to explore, we define our growth around a specific goal. For example, we ask ourselves how we can leverage services to help our customers take better care of their homes and over time, help them reduce or mitigate losses, claims and other issues.”
Operational and product teams run proof-of-concept pilots on new initiatives. If the pilot delivers good results, a team is built around turning the test-run into reality.
“We may create a dedicated team around home services that would present the offering to our customers in a more compelling way. We may build an operational team that manages contractors as we implement new systems and structures. As we define and prove certain initiatives through pilots, we often create in-home capabilities around them,” Blanaru said.
The Satisfaction of Scale
Pinkovezky has been with the company since its founding year, so he’s seen Hippo grow from a lean startup to the $1 billion-valued company it is today. Throughout the years, the leader said he experienced different levels of gratification seeing the company earn various achievements as it matured. During his first year and a half, the first stage of satisfaction was building and delivering a product that created a differentiated experience for customers and seeing it well-received.
“The second area of fulfillment was during the following two years, which was mostly about scaling,” Pinkovezky said. “Then, building the product was almost like having a baby, watching it grow and start to crawl. It went to a handful of customers and before we knew it, it was national. As a product manager, that’s the biggest reward you can get.
“The third part — and biggest gratification — comes from where we are now in having the ability to build a team. We have a team of excellent product managers and designers that take the product to the next level, but we are still very lean.”
Pinkovezky said that in Hippo’s early days, he and one or two other PMs managed the product, wrote all the specs and worked with the engineers and the designers. That strategy is no longer feasible, as the product has grown more complex and the user base has expanded to become available to almost three-quarters of the homeowning population. Now, more laser-focused specialization is needed in different areas of the product and he welcomes the opportunity to grow his team.
“The only way to succeed and build on the accomplishments the company has seen in the last few years is to build a strong, dedicated team that can take chunks of the product and own them end to end,” Pinkovezky said. “I’m very proud of the team that we created here and there are ample opportunities to join us as the product grows more complex.”
The Power of AI and Data
AI is part of the bedrock that Hippo built its success on. As the insurance industry has grown increasingly digital in recent years, Hippo’s goal has remained to harness technology as a means to solve customer problems.
“We use AI across multiple touchpoints in the customer journey and I believe it’s one area with a lot of potential down the road,” Pinkovezky said. “We’re even using it to streamline handling claims to improve the experience our customers have when a problem occurs in their home. AI has a lot of insurance-specific use cases and the more data you accumulate as your book of business grows, the more opportunities there are to improve the customer experience even further.”
Our philosophy around technology is that it’s a means to an end in solving customer problems.”
Blanaru added that the team is enhancing its protective offerings — like Hippo Home Care, built on top of the home maintenance platform it acquired — to further align with the needs of modern homeowners.
“We’re bringing forth virtual assistance claims technology to remotely support homeowners,” Blanaru said. “In light of the circumstances right now, this is something that we’ve been at the forefront of testing and we’re excited to offer it to our customers as an alternative to physical appraisals.”
Supporting the Herd
As a company grows, so does its responsibility to ensure all team members feel supported personally and professionally. That’s why leadership launched an employee resource group for people of color and allies that ensures equitable pay and promotions across the business.
VP of People Anna Lenhardt also said the company is opening a new, larger office in downtown Austin that can house 300 employees. The company announced its plans to hire 100 team members before the end of 2021, so it will need plenty of space.
“The Austin office will house several key divisions of Hippo’s organization, like insurance operations, underwriting, customer support and our claims team,” Lenhardt said. “The new space will have a whole host of conference room spaces and amenities available to support our fast-growing team.”
Those new hires don’t necessarily need fintech or insurance experience to join.
“The vast majority of people on my team don’t come from this industry,” she said. “There is a huge amount of value in having people who are the best-of-breed for what they do and are able to provide a fresh perspective and best practices from outside the industry.”
We’ll continue to adapt and evolve the services we provide them to support our herd of healthy, happy Hippos.”
Hiring managers are coached to remove biases while screen applicants and third-party tools are used to source diverse candidates. When candidates accept their offers, they undergo Hippo’s newly revamped onboarding experience that provides new hires with mentors across the company.
“Leadership walks new hires through presentations around key departments of the business so they get a glimpse into what each team is working on,” Lenhardt said. “They’re also paired with existing employees in separate departments, which has been an especially helpful perk for those who have joined the team while we work remotely.”
Recently, Hippo started rolling out one-on-one HR coaching for our managers and leadership to encourage their growth and development, she added.
“As Hippo grows, we’ll continue to roll out new programs and initiatives that support the evolving needs and lifestyles of our employees. In the same way we supported their transition to temporary remote work, we’ll continue to adapt and evolve the services we provide them to support our herd of healthy, happy Hippos.”
