Meet the insurtech: Ladder

A personal experience is rooted in the founding of Ladder, an insurtech focused on life insurance access. 

When Jamie Hale, CEO and co-founder of Ladder, was 11-years-old, his father passed away.

“I got to experience how life insurance kept me and my family in my community and played an important role in my life,” Hale says, who was previously working in fintech and private equity.

How difficult it is to buy life insurance, came up in a conversation between Hale and his friend and co-founder Jeff Merkel, who had just left a job at Google.

The two started discussing the buying process and that was the initial spark for Ladder, which is a full stack digital carrier.

“I didn’t realize how difficult it was,” says Hale. “There has to be a better way to make applying and getting life insurance easier and as delightful as it should be. People are putting their love for others into action by buying life insurance.”

The vision for Ladder was to make purchasing life insurance instant, flexible to life changes, simple and smart. Hale describes the experience as Amazon-like. Most policies can be obtained in 10 minutes. 

“We’re radically different than most other life insurance carriers,” adds Hale. “We found that being able to be accessible 24/7 and digital has opened the market to under 50-year-olds. … The vast majority of our customers are fully digital.”

Hale adds that one of the busiest traffic times for Ladder is after 10 p.m., which he says is likely when young people are discussing finances and doing research. Being digital makes Ladder more accessible, which is a key selling point, Hale says. For example, a policyholder can update their address online from their phone. 

“Those simple things help us have retention,” he says. “One [other] thing we focused on was getting underwriting right. Charging the right price for the customer.”

Ladder raised $100 million in Series D funding in October last year. The round was led by Thomvest Ventures and OMERS Growth Equity. The funding will be used to make life insurance more accessible and affordable, as well as to grow its team, according to the press release that announced the financing. 

Hale points to Haven Life and Wyshbox as two insurtechs in the industry that are also trying something new. He hopes more companies move toward more digital options.

“More people having more life insurance is good for society and good for people,” Hale says. “Insurance is digital and we are bringing [it] back to where it belongs.”