Cachet is on a mission to personalise insurance.
“Today, in the sharing economy, insurance is unsustainable because there is little focus on user accountability,” Cachet CEO and Co-Founder Hedi Mardisoo tells Zag Daily.
“We want to change this by making premiums more personalised and responsive.”
Serving three main verticals – micromobility, cars and the gig economy – Cachet works with operators, riders and insurance providers to promote fair, flexible and tailored coverage for the mobility industry.
The Estonian-based company does this through the use of data which anchors insurance costs to user behaviour, thereby rewarding safer riding habits and reducing costs for operators in the process.
Insurance for a changing world
Born in Estonia, Mardisoo spent her early years working in the fields of finance, data and technology.
Having observed a shift in mobility norms – largely thanks to the advent of Uber and Bolt, the micromobility boom and the Covid-19 pandemic – she and Co-Founder Kalle Palling launched Cachet in 2018 to create a more personalised insurance product for the industry.
“We operate as a licensed broker, working with underwriters as an insurance solutions designer,” Mardisoo explains.
“This means that we employ a B2B model, selling insurance plans to operators but also B2B2C as we offer insurance for gig workers and riders.”
Cachet has quickly gained traction since its launch. In Sweden, where the firm is partnered with Voi, Ryde, Hopp and Swup the company covers close to 72% of the rental e-scooter market. Next door in Finland, it has partnered with eight different micromobility operators.
“Our speed and agility has allowed us to have real success in both these markets,” says Mardisoo.
Across the board, Cachet now insures over 100,000 vehicles and thousands of riders and drivers.
Personalising insurance
Mardisoo believes that it is the personalised aspect of Cachet-designed insurance premiums that sets the business apart from rivals.
Its most advanced scoring system is currently only available to taxi drivers working for ride hailing platforms, but will soon be available to micromobility operators too.
“The score takes into account the number of hours worked by a driver and how many of these hours have been in a row, as well as ride frequency, time of day and break lengths,” Mardisoo says.
“We also look at location specific factors such as weather conditions and infrastructure. Our system also tracks drivers that might be working for several different platforms at once, which gives us data that each operator may not have access to.”
Currently, new mobility platforms can only be insured based on usage time but with access to additional data, the service will become even more customised and accurate.
By compiling all this data, Cachet will be able create insurance plans that reflect rider behaviour patterns accurately. The firm believes this will make micromobility fairer and safer, and plans to pilot the scoring system with micromobility operators next year.
“This technology is pioneering in the insurance industry and we believe it can have a seismic impact within new mobility too.”
A call for rider accountability
Mardisoo says there is very little accountability for shared micromobility riders in cities and this is causing a rift with residents who see these devices as a nuisance.
“There is hardly any awareness of what constitutes good and bad riding in many cities at the moment,” she says.
“Making improvements requires connected action between operators, city authorities and riders.”
From the city side, Mardisoo wants to see more action taken to improve infrastructure so that riders can feel safer while navigating busy roads. However, if operators can pass on higher insurance costs to dangerous riders, this can create a sense of accountability with regards to their behaviour.
“E-scooters and e-bikes in cities are shared assets, so operators need to be able to trust their riders,” she continued.
“By making insurance policies more customised, we can create a system where riders who follow the rules can gain access to cheaper journeys. This benefits all parties involved.”
This theory is already evident in Estonia where Cachet insurance policies for ride hailing drivers are approximately 40% cheaper on the average. Given that insurance is one of the most expensive lines on an operator’s or drivers profit and loss statement, these savings are significant.
“The success of our score system in Estonia is proof that insurance savings are incentivising safe driving,” Mardisoo adds.
Looking ahead, Cachet is hoping to expand its services into the UK and across much of Europe, which is already underway with a growing presence in Scandinavia, Belgium, Germany, Latvia and Poland.
“Improving safety standards and decreasing accident numbers is a priority for the entire new mobility space, from autonomous car and e-scooter OEMs, to insurance providers,” she says.
“We believe that our technology can play a key role in that process and we want to be at the forefront as the industry evolves.”
