FreightTech Friday: Cover Whale closes Series A to grow insurtech offering

Insurtech company Cover Whale announced it has closed on $27.5 million in debt and equity funding managed by Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital to continue growing its platform and solutions.

As a part of this fundraising event, previous debt investors agreed to convert their owed shares to Series A preferred shares. The company has raised $43 million since founding in 2019.

With its improved balance sheet, the company looks to continue investing in its platform to improve its commercial truck insurance quoting features and overall customer service.

“We believe this investment from Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital will support our continuing mission to deliver the industry’s leading trucking insurance experience, building on the positive impact we’ve already made for our agents, drivers, and the general motoring public,” said Dan Abrahamsen, chief executive officer of Cover Whale, in the release.

In April, the company announced it had added six more states to its auto liability coverage program: Maine, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Vermont. It now offers auto liability in 39 states and other coverage lines in 46.

It also added telemetry data sharing of ELDs and dashcams to its Driver Safety program that can be bound to Cover Whale’s auto liability coverage, highlighting the company’s goal of letting carriers leverage technology in their insurance experience.

Earlier this month, Cover Whale brought on two new executives to its team to focus on technology-driven objectives.

Barninder Khurana, now chief product officer, will oversee technology developments of Cover Whale’s platform and user experience, utilizing his expertise in product innovation from his time at companies such as earthquake insurance provider GeoVera and Coaction Specialty Insurance.

“Cover Whale recognizes that true product excellence goes beyond the user interface to include a blend of technology, processes, and innovative strategies,” said Khurana in the release. “Looking at the world from our customers’ eyes, my goal is to enrich this integration to enable speed, access, and ease of use, building on Cover Whale’s creativity to pull us even further ahead in the commercial auto insurtech sector.”

Cover Whale also hired a leader with nine years of experience at Coaction Specialty Insurance. Bill Hart will serve as chief architect. He will help lead Cover Whale’s data architecture strategy.

“Both Barninder and Bill have impressive track records of leading technology transformation and execution,” said Darryl Siry, chief operating and technology officer at Cover Whale. “Their proven experience in insurance and technology will be invaluable as we scale our business and align our capabilities and infrastructure for the next phase of growth.”

Brief Bytes

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Articles by Grace Sharkey

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