Cover Genius, which offers a platform for ecommerce companies to provide insurance to their customers, has expanded further into the automotive and mobility space, where it has had a presence for five years.

And it has hired a former Flexdrive and Cox Automotive executive to lead those efforts.

Austin Ledgerwood, who is now head of strategic partnership – mobility for the Americas, joined Cover Genius from Flexdrive, where he led client success for the mobility subscription tech provider.

Before Flexdrive (which is a joint venture between Cox Automotive and Holman Enterprises) Ledgerwood was with Cox Automotive, where he held multiple leadership roles. He also has worked with CarMax and Southeast Toyota.

“With a strong background in the automotive industry, Austin offers the team a unique, firsthand perspective on the challenges that have gone unaddressed in the U.S. marketplace,” Cover Genius cofounder and chief executive Angus McDonald said in a news release. “He recognizes the opportunities that exist within the ride-share, Peer2Peer and fleet-sharing platforms, as well as the vast automotive distribution industry.

“By combining his expertise with our product suite, which offers a number of unique capabilities, Cover Genius is able to offer auto retailers and mobility disruptors another source of revenue and a way to increase brand loyalty without extra costs.”

Auto Remarketing caught up with Ledgerwood by phone to talk about the new position, Cover Genius’ offering and more.  

As alternative ownership programs come into play in automotive retail, the insurance piece can be complex.

Ledgerwood explains that dealers would have a garage policy to cover inventory while it's on the lot or on a test drive, for example. 

"But when you switch it, when you put that car into service through subscription, there is a piece where you have to have fleet coverage. You have to have a more extensive policy to meet the state minimums when it comes to collision and liability. So for a dealer, it gets very complex when they get into those programs. Flexdrive provides the insurance for the dealer. But the cost associated with it is not cheap,” he said.

“And it may average out to be a good number, but as you have more and more ride-share drivers using subscription, I think you're going to see issues there, to where those insurance costs go up, based on how the car's being used,” Ledgerwood said.

"Ideally, if I'm a dealer, I don't want my cars to be used in ride-share; It's inevitable that it's going to happen. But then you have to take into account (that) you've got associate costs to cover that," he said. 

As far as the individual using the subscription, Ledgerwood said: "With a lot of the subscription platforms, the insurance is included and covered. But it's often set to the minimums (required by the respective states). And this is where we come into play and how we're talking with some of these different (alternative ownership models)." 

For example, Ledgerwood points to the deductible waiver the company offers, where the customer would pay an additional weekly amount, and then should an accident occur, Cover Genius would cover the deductible. The company also offers supplemental liability insurance.

"So, if they're putting the state minimum for liability and you really mess up and get into a monster accident, and there's injuries and property damage, you can burn through that initial state minimum very quickly."

These types of offerings, Ledgerwood said, apply to where the auto industry is headed. 

Though he says that fully autonomous vehicle usage is "so far away," Ledgerwood notes that when it does happen "you're going to get to a point of, 'how do I protect myself when I'm in a  Waymo car? What do I need? So, I think that the dynamics of insurance are going to greatly shift to more of a personal articles, damage waiver, simple liability in case of accident when I'm in an autonomous car." 

But in the near term, around current car-sharing and subscription programs, "it's more and more individual-based on what you need beyond the minimum (required by states)." 

Below is some of what Cover Genius is providing to automotive clients, as listed in the company’s news release:

• XCover, a distribution platform that provides point-of-sale insurance for any vehicle that’s rented or shared in any country, currency and language
• The application of its patented data science, which enables policy bundles to be customized in real time for any individual to ensure optimized conversion rates and relevance.
• Ability to insure and price policies based on any metric, including microseconds and mileage for usage-based pricing, or parametric inputs such as flight data for drones and air passengers or weather and traffic.
• Ability to scale operations from a seamless integration in more than 60 countries and 50 U.S. states.
• Turning insurance into a profit versus a cost center.
• Competitive insurance plans for fleet, ride-hail and commercial use, additional drivers, liability, income loss, contractor’s insurance and unbundled travel options for riders.

*Story has been updated to clarify that Cover Genius has been in the mobility space for five years and that it was expanding into this space, not entering it.