Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Launch HN: Tint (YC W21) – Embed insurance into any product

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 50 posts

Re: Launch HN: Tint (YC W21) – Embed insurance into any product

#31

Post by phonon »

Looking at some of the information you put on Product Hunt, I have significant concerns on your "A/B testing" methods, seen here. [0].

Randomly adjusting pricing to consumers to test for price sensitivity is not a "thing" for a filed insurance product in the US (which I would assume this is/would have to be.) If deviations are allowed in a filing, they are supposed to be risk based. I don't see how this will accomplish anything except getting you shut down.

[0] https://ph-files.imgix.net/e833bdbf-0702-4f3e-99b6-e5312eb96...

Re: Launch HN: Tint (YC W21) – Embed insurance into any product

#32

Post by mriolfi »

phonon wrote: post #31

Looking at some of the information you put on Product Hunt, I have significant concerns on your "A/B testing" methods, seen here. [0]. Randomly adjusting pricing to consumers to test for price sensitivity is not a "thing" for a filed insurance product in the US (which I would assume this is/would have to be.) If deviations are allowed in a filing, they are supposed to be risk based. I don't see how this will accompli…

phonon you are absolutely right. It's not possible to use A/B tests for admitted insurance use cases in the US, and we don't let our clients do so. This tool was designed with non-admitted use cases or non-insurance products, such as waivers, in mind.

Also, the names on the screenshot are illustrative as the client could vary other factors that are not price in the A/B test, like user verification workflows, deductibles offered, etc. The goal is to find the optimal solution that creates value for the company while matching the risk preferences of the users.

Re: Launch HN: Tint (YC W21) – Embed insurance into any product

#33

Post by p2hari »

In a rising circular economy this comes as a much needed product. Some questions or suggestions to add 1. Which countries is it operational 2. Does this mean as a developer I need to collect more information from end user ( KYC requirements) 3. Are claims going to be handled through us or the insurance? 4. Some links to docs because it is developer focussed :)

Re: Launch HN: Tint (YC W21) – Embed insurance into any product

#34

Post by grizzles »

I just flicked an email to the ceo of a company I'm an investor that could become a huge customer.

The thing their customers will want to insure against is fairly bespoke, so they will care about strong terms around non-competition and what happens if they fall afoul of your policies for any reason - eg. good >6 month offboarding terms to figure out what to do if you terminate the relationship for some reason.

Re: Launch HN: Tint (YC W21) – Embed insurance into any product

#35

Post by jeromesls »

dopeboy wrote: post #18

My first startup was in the equipment sharing space (specifically camera equipment). Back then (in 2013), getting insurance was either going through brokers and spending $ to get them to craft a policy for you. I would have loved something like this that's instant for the end user & plug & play on the business side. Fantastic idea, good luck.

Thanks! Would be awesome to hear more about your experience back then. Feel free to reach out to us through the website if you don't mind.

Re: Launch HN: Tint (YC W21) – Embed insurance into any product

#36

Post by jeromesls »

grizzles wrote: post #34

I just flicked an email to the ceo of a company I'm an investor that could become a huge customer. The thing their customers will want to insure against is fairly bespoke, so they will care about strong terms around non-competition and what happens if they fall afoul of your policies for any reason - eg. good >6 month offboarding terms to figure out what to do if you terminate the relationship for some reason.

Thanks! we'd love to learn more about the use case and provide a more detailed overview of the solutions we can bring here. Feel free to ping us on the website and we can take it from there.

Re: Launch HN: Tint (YC W21) – Embed insurance into any product

#37

Post by jeromesls »

p2hari wrote: post #33

In a rising circular economy this comes as a much needed product. Some questions or suggestions to add 1. Which countries is it operational 2. Does this mean as a developer I need to collect more information from end user ( KYC requirements) 3. Are claims going to be handled through us or the insurance? 4. Some links to docs because it is developer focussed :)

Great questions! 1. we are operational worldwide and our team team has launched insurance products across multiple countries. In the US, we are a licensed broker and work with partners in other countries. 2. yes, there might be additional information to be collected for underwriting purposes. But the good news is that our platform has pre-built integrations with the main datasources for KYC so this process happens behind the scenes for you and we do the heavy-duty work of maintaining these integrations on your behalf. 3. it depends on the insurance product, we can support both. a lot of our customers handle claims in house as they care about controlling the end to end experience when it comes to their users. 4. For sure, https://docs.tint.ai - feedback welcome!

Re: Launch HN: Tint (YC W21) – Embed insurance into any product

#38

Post by phonon »

mriolfi wrote: post #32
phonon wrote: post #31

Looking at some of the information you put on Product Hunt, I have significant concerns on your "A/B testing" methods, seen here. [0]. Randomly adjusting pricing to consumers to test for price sensitivity is not a "thing" for a filed insurance product in the US (which I would assume this is/would have to be.) If deviations are allowed in a filing, they are supposed to be risk based. I don't see how this will accompli…

phonon you are absolutely right. It's not possible to use A/B tests for admitted insurance use cases in the US, and we don't let our clients do so. This tool was designed with non-admitted use cases or non-insurance products, such as waivers, in mind. Also, the names on the screenshot are illustrative as the client could vary other factors that are not price in the A/B test, like user verification workflows, deductib…

Thank you for relaying that so clearly. So here's the problem.

On Product Hunt[0], 2/8 screenshots clearly show that type of illegal use case ("+10% pricing"), and your own (US based) customer thanks you for "AB test pricing"[1]. You also can't get a product type that is more the personification of highly regulated filed personal lines as "auto insurance".

Literally in a comment from a few hours ago, you tout your ability in "running A/B tests with different pricing logics to optimize profitability."[2] and "your business users can launch and make changes (e.g., increase the price to certain categories of policies"[3].

If you thought what happened with Zenefits was bad, this type of thinking is 10x worse. As in, carrier/you gets fined and has to send rebates to all customers that might have been affected, program shuts down, and you lose your license.

If you're acting as the Broker (MGA?) you have to be extremely careful in whatever type of control you give to an unlicensed entity you are distributing through. What someone from outside of insurance thinks is a routine pricing optimization, "(What if we charge 5% more before a busy weekend?)", can cause untold compliance grief. Plus, if you give the unlicensed entity enough control in how the insurance is presented and sold, they themselves might now need to become licensed producers.

I'm also skeptical you are doing much in the non-admitted space, as marketing restrictions, three declinations, surplus lines stamping etc. is not something you can automate for a consumer (small personal lines) product.

I have no opinion on "non-insurance" products (whatever that is) except that must be a very small percentage of what you are trying to do, as you call yourself "An Insurance Platform".

[0]https://www.producthunt.com/posts/tint-insurance-platform

[1]https://cards.producthunt.com/cards/comments/1231720?v=1

[2]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26026901

[3]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26028605

Re: Launch HN: Tint (YC W21) – Embed insurance into any product

#40

Post by jeromesls »

tixocloud wrote: post #39

Congrats on the launch. Interesting offering and maybe a fit for my startup. What kind of insurance products could you underwrite? Would it be possible to underwrite credit/loan related insurances?

Thanks for your message. We are pretty much insurance product agnostic, we'd be happy to get more details about your use case. Please ping us via the website https://www.tint.ai
Post reply on HN