Last month we told you about a range of new products brokers could potentially recommend to customers as add-ons on top of standard home and landlord policies. Target clients are Airbnb hosts and others in the growing sharing economy.

Over in the US there’s another player disrupting the field of insurance and zeroing in on on-demand cover. The difference is – and it’s a big one – this two-year-old disruptor does not use brokers.

In fact, the digital insurer describes the process of getting covered as “easy as 1-2-3,” with approximately three minutes of signing up and providing “a few” details. Slice Labs provides pay-per-use insurance to homeshare hosts, while its rideshare product is currently in beta phase.

In addition, a policy with Slice is “primary and non-contributory” – meaning it is independent of annual homeowners’ insurance. Slice, currently operating in 36 US states, issues non-admitted policies in the excess and surplus lines market.

“You tap a button you become a business, you tap a button again you become a person again,” said Slice cofounder and chief executive Tim Attia at a forum, as quoted by a report by The Royal Gazette. “We are insuring and protecting that period of time where they are acting as a business.

“With on-demand insurance, we wanted to reimagine insurance. We were playing with time, so we removed the annual policy.”

The firm – whose CEO said they took an insurance company and put it in the cloud – has the backing of Horizons Ventures, XL Innovate, Sompo, and Munich Re.


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