If you have ever tried to buy life insurance in the past, you were probably met with a process that seemed so archaic, it made you question the purchase in the first place. In a traditional life insurance transaction, medical underwriting would require you to pee in a cup, give blood and spend about 45 minutes answering very specific medical questions to a complete stranger. After that, the insurance company would spend months trying to obtain medical records from the doctors you listed on the 45-minute exam. Yes, lots of fun. This process has been the same for over 50 years, so one would hope with the advent of driverless cars, AI and drone delivered pizza, we would be able to make modest changes to the life insurance underwriting process.

Good news. Albeit slow, there are signs of change. Today life insurance companies are looking at more data online to help ease the pain; i.e. Big Data. Things like credit scores, prescription databases, purchasing behavior, criminal background checks and even selfies are helping life insurance companies come up with less invasive ways of evaluating risks. Much of this technology is still being tested with various platforms and some is more esoteric than others, but carriers are clearly moving to a less intrusive underwriting methodology. Why? Mainly because people want their buying experience to be easy and quick. Insurance companies also see this as a cost save by not having to order all of the medical records and tests, hopefully resulting in lower premiums for their customers.

For those of you that long to go through the months long process of buying life insurance the old way, don’t fret, this industry has traditionally evolved at either a glacial pace or not at all. Simply said, you’ll have some time. But don’t wait too long, otherwise you may just have to buy it online without getting the chance to hold a cup of your own urine.

There are lots of aspects of life insurance that are antiquated and flat out confusing. Underwriting, products and the companies themselves are a few examples that require some navigating for those of us looking to buy life insurance. A financial advisor or some other life insurance professional typically handles these functions. That begs the question, “how does the person who is helping me get paid?” Well, just like selling a house, that person receives a commission. The difference is that the life insurance commission can by more than 20x that of a real estate commission!

To say there is too many layers in the life insurance distribution “onion”, would be an understatement. On average, there are typically 4 entities getting paid when you buy an insurance policy because most companies don’t allow consumers to buy directly from them. Those entities include Marketing Organizations, Brokerages, Agencies and Agents. Each one of these groups slice off a percentage of the commission paid out by the company. Here’s how it works:

• You buy a life insurance policy and pay a $100 premium
• The Insurance Company pays $120 to the Marketing Organization
• The Marketing Organization pays $110 to the Brokerage
• The Brokerage pays $90 to the Agency
• o The Agency Pays $75 to the Agent on your policy (the guy or gal who helped you buy the policy)

This means that the agent that sold you that life insurance policy received roughly 75% of your first year premium in commission. Obviously, this is an example and sometimes that amount is less, sometimes it is more. Here’s the point; everyone is getting a piece of the pie, which is great for them, but not so great for the consumer, you. The insurance company is paying so much money in commissions off the bat, the product that you are getting is costing much more than it really should. There are too many hands in the cookie jar and the consumer is paying for it. Fortunately, technology is allowing us to remove many of these layers and chop off those greedy hands.

Cover’d Life is removing those hands from the cookie jar and bringing life insurance directly to you. By removing the middlemen, we’ve been able to bring you the lowest cost coverage directly from the insurance company. We’ve created a platform that provides advice on types of coverage, amounts needed with smart calculators and seamless process that takes you through the underwriting process in minutes, not months. Welcome to the future of life insurance, welcome to Cover’d.

Have you ever been a part of something that wasn’t working all that great? Kind of like when Ferris Bueller convinces Cameron Frye to run his dad’s Ferrari in reverse to erase the mileage they had driven. Well, that’s how we felt after spending a considerable amount of time working in the life insurance business. Depending on who you ask, there is somewhere between a $16T-$19T life insurance gap in this country. Translation: there are a whole lot of people that want and need the protection that life insurance offers for their families, but they’ve not gone through process of getting coverage. Talk about a big gap. In fact, the gap is so massive, we began to ask ourselves, "why? ". There are a whole host of reasons, all of which we are tackling with our new online digital insurance company, Cover’d Life.

Life insurance is an essential part of any family’s financial make-up. But the challenge is that insurance companies have not kept pace with the technological innovations of the 21st century, thus continuing to lose the interest of consumers. Unfortunately, it is those folks that are missing out on the financial protections that life insurance provides. Our read on the situation is this; people want a transparent and simple process that is not muddied with several middlemen and overly generous commissions.

We are life insurance nerds that grew up in the digital age (if you include Nintendo as a digital qualifier, that is). We are not a group of tech folks that saw an opportunity to make a buck in an antiquated industry. At the end of the day, we have one goal and it is our "north star", if you will: Get more people access to low cost life insurance so they can protect their families. We’ve been fortunate enough to partner with some giants in the industry that agree with our position and share this same north star. We are happy to call them our partners and we could not even begin to impact this change without their support. We hope you agree that life insurance shouldn’t be complicated, intrusive or sleazy. It should be seamless, transparent and most importantly provide you and your family piece of mind.

Thanks for reading. We are Cover’d Life.