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Unrelated, but I f*cking hate Cover. I tried getting a quote with them once and they gave me some quotes that were not what I wanted and had budgeted for that p

Unrelated, but I f*cking hate Cover. I tried getting a quote with them once and they gave me some quotes that were not what I wanted and had budgeted for that policy. Not a big deal. A week later I started getting bombarded with junk mail sent to my physical address, from insurance companies offering me every possible insurance policy in existence. What a good way to innovate./s They claim they're modernizing the process of buying insurance but still use the same old trashy tactics of the old companies like selling your personal information.

ksar 7y ago
CEO of Cover here. This is super surprising, as we sell our own policies + own a national insurance brokerage. No need to share/sell your information at all (nor would we, as a matter of principle), because we have access to most carriers in the US. We'd prefer to sell you a Cover policy or one from our partner panel that can be managed via our service. Do you mind sharing which companies sent you physical mail? I'm at karn at cover.com. Would be great to dig in.
- whoisjuan 7y ago
  I don't remember exactly since this was a year o more ago. A lot of companies! I only remember talking with the Cover agent via text message. I was quoting for basic Renter's Insurance. She gave me a price of 125/year which was too much since I only need it super basic insurance and both Lemonade and Assurant give you that for half. Anyway. Not a big deal. Exactly one week after that I started getting junk mail from insurance companies. I never quoted with anyone else besides Cover. I bought from Assurant after quoting with Cover. Cover was the only possible culprit for that burst of junk mail. I don't know how you guys share data with other companies or vendors but definitely something happened in the way my info was handled. The timing between that interaction and the correspondence I started getting made it pretty evident.
rubyfan 7y ago
Are you sure it was Cover and not another source? Did you search in your browser, Google, etc? Was your existing policy expiring around the same time? Basically whenever you go shopping and don’t buy, an insurance carrier or agent can assume you bought elsewhere. Be prepared to get communicated to in 11 months. Generally the party you went to directly (agent like Cover or if you went direct to a carrier) owns the relationship so a carrier won’t market you unless you went directly. It’s pretty common for marketers to be able to target you those and many other ways. Also, most (if not all) insurance carriers do not sell personal data and in fact go to great lengths to protect your data. It’s against the law in some cases or breach of contract between agents like Cover (which is probably why Karn is asking who you received mail from). Disclosure: I work at an insurance carrier (not Cover)
- whoisjuan 7y ago
  I mean. It could have been a very unlucky coincidence but that would be unlikely. I was trying to buy new renter's insurance, since the previous one got expired like 3 months before that. So I was for 3 months without renter's insurance, when I quoted with Cover. That's just to say that there was no relationship between the date of the junk mail and the expiration of the previous policy. I got the quote from Cover, because I was seeing the ads and thought they could offer me a good deal. A week later I started getting this insurance junk mail.
  - rubyfan 7y ago
    Yeah if you were seeing ads for Cover then you’re already likely in someone’s “high propensity to buy insurance” list that ad bidding platforms use to target. Insurance companies usually deploy digital marketing capital fairly efficiently and hunt for people who are in the market for insurance. So once you clicked Cover’s ad then likely the ad platform tagged you and you ended up in target lists. There’s a few other ways, like soft pulls against your credit report that usually flag you as interested in insurance. Some companies make it their business to know when your insurance expires. There’s lots of data brokers out there mixing data in a pretty invasive way that will get you into lists.

ksar 7y ago

CEO of Cover here. This is super surprising, as we sell our own policies + own a national insurance brokerage. No need to share/sell your information at all (nor would we, as a matter of principle), because we have access to most carriers in the US. We'd prefer to sell you a Cover policy or one from our partner panel that can be managed via our service. Do you mind sharing which companies sent you physical mail? I'm at karn at cover.com. Would be great to dig in.

whoisjuan 7y ago
I don't remember exactly since this was a year o more ago. A lot of companies! I only remember talking with the Cover agent via text message. I was quoting for basic Renter's Insurance. She gave me a price of 125/year which was too much since I only need it super basic insurance and both Lemonade and Assurant give you that for half. Anyway. Not a big deal. Exactly one week after that I started getting junk mail from insurance companies. I never quoted with anyone else besides Cover. I bought from Assurant after quoting with Cover. Cover was the only possible culprit for that burst of junk mail. I don't know how you guys share data with other companies or vendors but definitely something happened in the way my info was handled. The timing between that interaction and the correspondence I started getting made it pretty evident.

rubyfan 7y ago

Are you sure it was Cover and not another source? Did you search in your browser, Google, etc? Was your existing policy expiring around the same time? Basically whenever you go shopping and don’t buy, an insurance carrier or agent can assume you bought elsewhere. Be prepared to get communicated to in 11 months. Generally the party you went to directly (agent like Cover or if you went direct to a carrier) owns the relationship so a carrier won’t market you unless you went directly. It’s pretty common for marketers to be able to target you those and many other ways. Also, most (if not all) insurance carriers do not sell personal data and in fact go to great lengths to protect your data. It’s against the law in some cases or breach of contract between agents like Cover (which is probably why Karn is asking who you received mail from). Disclosure: I work at an insurance carrier (not Cover)

whoisjuan 7y ago
I mean. It could have been a very unlucky coincidence but that would be unlikely. I was trying to buy new renter's insurance, since the previous one got expired like 3 months before that. So I was for 3 months without renter's insurance, when I quoted with Cover. That's just to say that there was no relationship between the date of the junk mail and the expiration of the previous policy. I got the quote from Cover, because I was seeing the ads and thought they could offer me a good deal. A week later I started getting this insurance junk mail.
- rubyfan 7y ago
  Yeah if you were seeing ads for Cover then you’re already likely in someone’s “high propensity to buy insurance” list that ad bidding platforms use to target. Insurance companies usually deploy digital marketing capital fairly efficiently and hunt for people who are in the market for insurance. So once you clicked Cover’s ad then likely the ad platform tagged you and you ended up in target lists. There’s a few other ways, like soft pulls against your credit report that usually flag you as interested in insurance. Some companies make it their business to know when your insurance expires. There’s lots of data brokers out there mixing data in a pretty invasive way that will get you into lists.