August 17, 2021

Eli Rallo

Incline P&C has entered an issuing-carrier partnership with InsurTech Root, just under a week after it announced a similar deal with Hippo, Inside P&C can reveal.

“We’ve just concluded final negotiations on a deal with Root selling personal auto in Texas,” Incline CEO Chris McClellan said.

Root will use one of Incline Group’s carriers in Texas to write what the program carrier hopes will be a substantial portion of its Texas business, the executive added.

“We’ve been working with them for the past couple months on that transaction under contract. I think they’re going to start writing their first policy as early as today or tomorrow,” he remarked.

McClellan added that he believes the insurance industry is heading down the path of greater collaboration with InsurTechs, underscoring the decision to form partnerships with two of the major InsurTechs within the span of a few weeks.

“If you control your data and can analyze it, you have a competitive advantage,” he said.

On the topic of Root and Hippo going public, McClellan said that Incline believes in both companies and their management teams and does not fear any volatility due to potential NYSE challenges.

McClellan also added that recent news of Hippo’s rocky entrance to the public markets doesn’t change matters.

“We haven’t seen anything that causes us any kind of pause or concern,” he said. “We’re looking at long-term relationships.”

“We have a lot of confidence in the Hippo management team as we do with the Root management team, because we’re looking at long-term plays.”

Looking forward, McClellan stated that Incline anticipates writing close to $600mn in business by the end of 2021, going on to say it will likely top $1bn by next year.

“We’re looking at very close to $600mn this year, with all our carriers. We think we will get well above a billion dollars next year,” he said. “There’s a lot of factors that can get involved because we’re a program carrier. But we think very close to a billion dollars, if not over a billion dollars, is certainly reasonable at this point.”

Currently, Incline has 45 programs under contract, meaning they either produce business already, or are coming on-stream, McClellan said.

“We are in discussions with another half dozen right now that – some would be very small, $10mn to $20mn,” he said. “There’s also a couple we’re talking to that would be multi state programs.”