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The sharing economy is not yet ready to share its business plan, at least in the U.S. insurance arena, but one startup has hired some big names from the traditional insurance world.
While not much is known publicly about the business model of the new peer-to-peer insurance carrier known as Lemonade, the company is heralding the addition of a powerhouse crew to man its operations, led by insurance industry veteran Ty Sagalow.
The company, which touts itself as the world's first P2P underwriter and has stirred a lot of intrigue as the industry tries to guess and grapple with its mystery business model, offered a few glimpses of its philosophy and approach to SNL.
Although Lemonade has yet to hang its open-for-business sign, its insurance underwriting plan is fully developed even as it awaits state regulatory approval, according to one of its co-founders.
Lemonade did prepare to announce Jan. 12 that Sagalow, a former president of product development for American International Group Inc., serves as Lemonade's chief insurance officer.
Sagalow is credited, according to a Lemonade press release that was embargoed for Jan. 12, with creating various insurance products in the Y2K insurance, cyber and intellectual property collateral lines. As a founding member at Lemonade, Sagalow leads the insurance team. According to his biography at Innovation Insurance Group, he left Zurich North America as chief innovation officer in April 2011 to create IIG. Before that, he spent 25 years as a senior executive with AIG, including as chief underwriting officer and general counsel for AIG Executive Liability. He also has been employed as an adviser on insurance risk, new product development and innovation, and is a licensed insurance broker in New York, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Sagalow is joined by CFO Ron Topping, who formerly was AIG's head of financial planning and analysis for property and casualty insurance in the Americas, according to the press release.
James Hageman, previously a claims executive at ACE Ltd., is now Lemonade's chief claims officer, and Robert Giurlando is Lemonade's chief underwriting officer, the company announced. Giurlando also has a background at ACE, where he previously was chief underwriting officer.
"We're thrilled Ty and team have come aboard, matching Lemonade's strong tech foundations with an insurance dream-team,"...