How Does Lemonade Make Money? The Lemonade Business Model In A Nutshell

Lemonade is an insurance tech company using behavioral economics and artificial intelligence to process claims efficiently. The company leverages technology to streamline onboarding customers while also applying a financial model to reduce conflicts of interest with customers (perhaps by donating the variable premiums to charity). The company makes money by selling its core insurance products, and via its tech platform, it tries to enhance its sales.

Origin Story

Lemonade is an insurance company using behavioral economics and artificial intelligence to process claims efficiently.

Founded in 2015 by Daniel Schreiber, Shai Wininger, and Ty Sagalow, the company quickly made a positive impact in the typically bureaucratic and exploitative insurance industry.

To that end, Lemonade uses artificial intelligence to promise zero paperwork and near-instantaneous claim processing for its customers.

With so much of the claim process automated, the company can offer extremely competitive pricing.

It is also changing the stigma of insurance companies by sending a portion of its underwriting profits to a non-profit organization of the customer’s choosing.

Understanding the Lemonade business model

Marketing Flywheel Trifecta: delightful experience, aligned values, and great prices

Lemonade Marketing Flywheel is driven by what Lemonade defines its trifecta, delightful experience, aligned values, and great prices
(Image Source: Lemonade Financial Prospectus).

Lemonade follows a customer-centric experience approach with a financial model that leverages technology while trying to minimize conflict of interest with customers:

Leveraging technology: every process on the platform, from marketing to onboarding leverages technology to both improve customer experience and mitigate risk.
Alignment of our interests: in the Lemonade model, the company gives away variable premiums, and as the customer purchases a policy, they can designate a charitable cause which is where Lemonade gives the residual premiums from their policy.
Subscription-based model: Lemonade follows a subscription-based model to smooth out its revenue generation.

Technology

AI Maya: The Lemonade onboarding and customer experience bot sells policies and handles everything from collecting information and personalizing coverage to creating quotes and facilitating payments.

*Image Source: Lemonade Financial Prospectus*.

AI Jim: handling the “first notice of loss” for 96% of claims (as of September 30, 2020).

CX.AI: the bot platform is built to resolve customer requests without human intervention.
Forensic Graph: to predict, deter, detect, and block fraud throughout the customer engagement.
Blender: to facilitateing collaboration among customer experience, underwriting, claims, growth, marketing, finance, and risk teams.
Cooper: hancling complex and repetitive internal tasks.

Product Offering & Upselling Strategy

Products:

Renters and Homeowners Insurance:
Pet Insurance.
Giveback Feature: Lemonade donates leftover money to causes our customers care about.
Reinsurance service through which the “reinsurer,” agrees to cover a portion of the claims of another insurer, the “primary insurer,” in return for a portion of their premiums.

Lemonade revenue generation

This Lemonade trifecta, delightful experience, aligned values, and great prices, is used to move three key metrics
(Image Source Lemonade Financial Prospectus).

Lemonade makes money by selling a range of insurance options.

These include:

Renters insurance – starting from $5/month.
Condo insurance – starting from $25/month with the exact price depending upon the deductible, the age of the building, the desired coverage amount, and the location of the condo. The average cost of condo insurance in Massachusetts is $46/month. In Illinois, it is $31/month.
Pet insurance – starting at $10/month. Lemonade also offers a 10% discount to customers if their home is also insured with the company.
Term life insurance – starting at $9/month with a five-minute application process that saves customers from having to schedule a medical exam.
Homeowners insurance – starting from $25/month.
Co-op insurance – ideal for those living in a co-op arrangement. This policy covers the individual and their personal belongings and excludes physical structures, facilities, or grounds. Prices are available on request.

Of the premiums collected by Lemonade, 25% is used to cover administrative costs and any surplus amount becomes profit.

The remaining 75% is used to buy reinsurance, cover taxes and fees, and fund claims. Any surplus of the remaining 75% goes to a charity chosen by the customer.

Artificial intelligence and behavioral economics

Using the vast amount of data it collects, Lemonade can give more accurate quotes to prospective customers. It also uses anti-fraud algorithms to process simple claims more quickly, saving money on employee wages.

Furthermore, the company uses behavioral economics to minimize insurance fraud which erodes profits. By allowing each customer to donate to charity, they become less motivated to make unreasonable claims.

It should also be noted that Lemonade is a B-Corporation. In the United States, this denotes a for-profit organization that also meets rigorous social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency standards.

Ultimately, this means that making a profit and being a force for public good are of equal importance to Lemonade.

Key takeaways:

Lemonade is an American insurance company using artificial intelligence to disrupt the bureaucratic and somewhat inefficient insurance industry.
Lemonade makes money by selling a host of insurance products for a monthly fee. Customers can opt for renders, condo, pet, co-op, homeowners, or life insurance.
Lemonade also uses behavioral economics to reduce insurance fraud and champion social causes. The latter is particularly important to Lemonade as an organization that prioritizes profit-making alongside public service.