Silent Partner

Consumers, it appears, are in a hurry like never before.

The hours or days of research and contemplation needed for important financial decisions—say, purchasing insurance—are now seen as too cumbersome and complex. People expect solutions to be only a few keystrokes away.

Just ask Mark Cole, a 23-year veteran of the insurance industry who’s now head of independent agent distribution for Ohio-based auto insurtech Root. His company partners with the popular used car dealer Carvana to sell auto insurance in 36 states to buyers at the same time as they purchase their vehicles.

“Today’s customers increasingly expect on-demand purchasing experiences that can be completed within a single platform,” Cole says. “They don’t want to wait for the callback. They want kind of a one-stop shop.”

Carvana is one of many companies with no background or expertise in the insurance industry that offer coverage integrated at the point of sale for their own products and services.

During the auto transaction, Carvana’s digital shoppers are offered a price for a policy that is informed by the consumer’s own driving history. A customer can be approved for coverage in just three clicks, eliminating the potentially time-consuming and frustrating task of comparing offers online or by phone.

A growing number of these embedded products are available across personal and commercial lines. Root’s policies in force rose from 453,800 in 2025 to 495,429 in 2026; in April it surpassed 200,000 policies sold through Carvana since their partnership began five years ago, though Root’s gross premiums written dipped to $389 million in first-quarter 2026 from $410 million in first-quarter 2025. Root also partners to provide auto insurance through Experian, Cars.com, Credit Karma, Hyundai, and others, all involving rapid quotes and policy binding.

For these companies, embedded insurance offers an opportunity to generate brand loyalty and a new revenue stream. For insurers, it’s a way to capitalize on a readily available customer base and build product lines. For consumers, it’s a matter of convenience and of trust.

Insurtechs such as Cover Genius, as well as some traditional insurers and brokers moving into the embedded space, are reshaping the market by enabling younger consumers to quickly and easily buy insurance through trusted brands like Uber or eBay.

“Our solutions are built off the brand the consumer is using to do that particular transaction,” says Nidhi Daga, global senior vice president for marketing at Cover Genius. “If it’s eBay, there’s already trust, the consumer knows the eBay brand.” In this way, insurance becomes a “trust infrastructure,” addressing not only risk mitigation but building confidence in the quality of the product being acquired.

Embedded Premiums Grow

Embedded insurance covers everything from home and auto to ticket purchases and trip events to small business and gig worker needs to niche markets like art collections and racehorses. Embedded products could account for $70 billion in gross written premiums by 2030, up from about $13 billion today, a 2025 Boston Consulting Group analysis says.

Globally, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) forecasts that embedded products in the property and casualty market alone will reach $500 billion in gross premiums by 2035.

According to the Boston Consulting study, the conversion rate for traditional insurers offering embedded options is already higher than distinct insurance for the same products. “And these insurers are dynamically defining, monitoring, and adjusting their offerings to adapt to customer needs, opening previously unseen growth opportunities in new customer bases,” the study’s authors wrote.

Numerous analysts warn that traditional players that have yet to enter the embedded space risk losing substantial portions of their personal and commercial lines. Deloitte says established carriers would be wise to adapt to the changing times and integrate coverage into point-of-sale platforms. The professional services specialist predicts that if the embedded insurance model wins 20% of the personal auto market, around $50 billion in premiums could be diverted away from traditional distribution channels.

Brokers Boost B2B2C

Cole and others believe longtime brokers and insurers have a role in this rapidly growing space—evident in the fact that familiar industry names including WTW, Marsh McLennan, and Aon have formed embedded coverage partnerships with many of the newer arrivals, as well as with more familiar product and service companies.

WTW, for example, partners with insurtech platform providers like Qover and Kayna to provide an array of coverage to small and medium enterprise (SME) businesses. Marsh Affinity likewise works with SMEs, offering coverage for product liability, business interruption, workers compensation, and more. In addition, Marsh partners with Amazon to offer product liability insurance to its online sellers through veteran carriers including Chubb, Hiscox, Markel, and Travelers. The brokerage also orchestrates commercial auto and cargo liability coverage for Amazon delivery service partners purchased through Amazon.

Roberto Tinoco Pinto, international affinity leader at Marsh, sees a growing role for traditional brokers and insurers in this space. “I think we can help create and capture a lot of value, not just by being the risk advisor,” he says. “We can set up captives that enable our partners to offer better and more compelling solutions to their customers and, in doing so, create another earning stream.” Anthony Borgman, head of Great Britain affinity for WTW, shares that expectation for growth, saying brokers and insurers can help client companies “deepen their relationships with their customers while offering sustainable compliance and positive outcomes.”

For Amazon, Uber, Zillow, and other companies looking to expand their earning potential through add-on insurance products, brokers can provide the platforms and other infrastructure needed to conduct unfamiliar and often less visible tasks like regulatory approval and claims processing. Technically integrating insurers, systems, and data sources “into seamless journeys is not a trivial process,” Borgman says.

“Insurance is not their core business, and they need a specialist that can help manage not only the distribution of that program but also the engagement with clients, not only the sales process but everything that happens,” Pinto adds.

A New Twist on an Old Idea

The concept of embedded insurance isn’t new. Singer Sewing Machine offered damage coverage and extended service contracts, a forerunner of embedded products, to its customers in the 19th century. A few decades later, Chrysler brought a touch of innovation to the auto industry when it sold theft insurance to buyers before they drove their new DeSotos off the lot.

Consumers today have become accustomed to receiving offers to tack on insurance from a preselected insurer when they book a flight or purchase an electronic device. Apple launched AppleCare coverage for iPhone buyers in 2011, and other cell phone providers quickly followed suit with comparable products.

Those early product offerings have expanded into a range of embedded options for auto coverage, e-commerce, homeowners, and rental insurance, among other coverages. Fresh players abound, such as Lemonade insuring pets through online retailer Chewy, Jetty providing insurance to interested renters though Zillow, and Thimble offering small business coverage through the restaurant software provider Toast.

The gig economy is a significant part of the market, with companies such as DoorDash offering auto coverage to its drivers through insurtechs like INSHUR and health insurance through newcomers like Stride Health. In the United Kingdom, auto insurer Zego provides coverage to drivers for Amazon Flex, Uber, Uber Eats, and Deliveroo.

Much of the growth so far is in personal lines. Cover Genius, launched 12 years ago, serves more than 70 million customers in over 60 countries, including the United States. More than 200 partners use its application programming interface software as their sales platform. The company has the scale to enable partner companies to quickly add insurance offerings, Daga says.

The insurtech has processed $3 billion in gross written premiums in personal lines such as travel and shipping insurance working with major brands like Uber, eBay, Airbnb, Klarna, Turkish Airlines, and Singapore-based travel platform Agoda.

In some states, Root offers customers rental insurance that is bundled with embedded auto insurance and underwritten by Homesite Group, with policies as low as $6 a month.

Embedded insurance products are also taking hold in commercial lines. WTW partners with Kayna, an insurtech launched in Ireland five years ago and now active throughout Europe and the United States. Using partnerships with vertical software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms to integrate infrastructure, the brokerage and insurtech together tailor policies to provide multiple types of business insurance to customers of SMEs such as the cybersecurity firm Vibrant and the physical security software firm Belfry.

WTW also provides embedded products for workers compensation and other insurance needs to construction firms, spas and salons, and niche services. Last year, for instance, it partnered with insurer Markel and Equine MediRecord, a leading international vertical SaaS provider of equine health and associated regulatory compliance platform services for racehorses, to provide theft and mortality insurance.

What’s Driving Growth?

Adoption of embedded products has been quicker outside of the United States, thanks in part to heavy use of “super apps” that offer an easy route for offering the products. In India, for instance, insurance purchases at the time of vehicle sale are more the rule than the exception, according to Deloitte.

As much as 47% of global revenue from embedded products comes from the Asian Pacific, where digital platform providers were early innovators in the space, according to 2025 estimates from Fortune Business Insights. Chubb underwrites much of the business there in a partnership with a super app called Grab, which offers ride-hailing, restaurant and grocery deliveries, e-commerce purchases, transit tickets, and more in Singapore, the Philippines, and other Southeast Asian countries. The insurtech Qoala provides a range of embedded products in the region, including group health and marine cargo and logistics coverage, partnered with familiar carriers including Chubb, Zurich, and Allianz.

Europe accounts for close to 30% of the market, mostly in the United Kingdom and Germany, with North America a more recent arrival, capturing about 17% of the world’s embedded revenue.

Much of the growth overall is attributed to the replacement in the market of aging baby boomers by younger generations, many of whom have never known a time without the internet or smartphones. A 2023 survey by Boston Consulting found that 84% of Generation Z (roughly 14 to 29 years old) and millennials (30 to 45 years old) said they were interested in embedded products. Generation X (ages 45 to 61) has shown similar levels of interest in surveys by Cover Genius and others.

At Marsh, Pinto says consumers increasingly want products that offer “minimum friction and high relevance,” adding that “awareness is at an all-time high. And customers want to make sure they are well protected.” According to a Cover Genius survey of consumers, 86% consider risk when they make transactions and are open to considering adding insurance at that moment.

The younger population’s preference for quick, digital transactions is a factor in embedded growth, but that’s not the only reason they’re shifting to non-insurers for insurance.

Many consumers may not be familiar with Marsh but are open to buying insurance from trusted brands, Pinto says. With embedded products, he adds, “It becomes even easier for them to acquire that protection for the large acquisitions they’re making.”

Faith in the value of add-on insurance products is enhanced by transparency and clarity, with consumers typically able to use digital platforms to interact with their provider easily and quickly for claims and help understanding the nuances of coverage. “At Cover Genius,” Daga says, “the basic philosophy is insurance should be easily understood. We really want to demystify the space.”

Solving SME Underinsurance

At WTW, Borgman sees embedded products particularly as a means to help solve the problem of underinsurance among micro-SMEs, low-revenue businesses that generally have only a handful of employees. Between 40% and 80% of these companies are estimated to be underinsured, with newer businesses at greater risk before they familiarize themselves with their needs.

“These are time-poor individuals who are taking a lot of risks to grow their business,” Borgman says. “They have the expertise in their line of work or service, but they’re often sweeping up the shop floor and doing the paperwork at the end of the day. Searching the right level of insurance when they get home on the computer, trying to understand what to do with the 10 pages of a renewal invite, is daunting.”

Other insurtechs, including some with ties to traditional brokers, are also engaging with SMEs. For example, Munich Re business ERGO NEXT partners with Amazon to offer general liability, professional liability, workers compensation, commercial auto, and other products to its Amazon Business members. ERGO NEXT reports that it can provide a customized quote and then a digital certificate of insurance in less than 10 minutes.

The avenues to reach SMEs are plentiful. WTW, for instance, brokers insurance coverage to these businesses through vehicles like special small business software providers that help proprietors make appointments, track stock inventory, and conduct other activities. Borgman says this enables WTW to send periodic notices to business owners as their operations grow, informing them of options for workers compensation and other coverage needs as they arise.

Insurtech partners like digital platform provider Qover, Borgman says, are ideal to help WTW deliver “optimal data orchestration, service, administration capability and distribution capability that supports the wider ecosystem.”

Growing Pains?

In a 2025 survey by PwC, 95% of insurance industry CEOs from 95 countries and territories said they view embedded products as critical to future strategies for sales and customer experience.

Those executives recognize that insureds want their coverage “to be easy, safe, and convenient—and prefer bundled solutions,” the study’s authors wrote. “Industry boundaries are fading; customers are not looking for products anymore, they are looking for solutions to their needs. Across industries, we can already observe bundled propositions, also including finance/insurance components.”

So far, there appear to be few hurdles to expanding embedded products. Daga says Cover Genius can navigate different regulatory environments with a global platform tailored to the region where services are offered, enabling companies selling embedded insurance products to expand without having to adjust to each country’s regulations. Similarly, Pinto at Marsh and Borgman at WTW tout their companies’ years of experience in multiple regulatory environments. “We have the benefit and privilege of almost 200 years of that experience at WTW managing risk in a regulatory environment,” Borgman says.

According to a 2023 Deloitte U.K. analysis, some speed bumps could lie ahead as regulators examine the role of non-insurers as the forward-facing entity in selling products. Questions may arise about transparency in how embedded coverage is priced and whether, for instance, buyers feel pressure to buy insurance products to get the best deal on their cars.

But if there are any obstacles to growth, they appear largely to lie with the consumer. While younger generations are more open to digital and integrated insurance products, they’re also not shy about walking away from companies that fall short on delivery.

Insurity, a software provider for insurance carriers, brokers, and managing general agents, reported in 2025 that roughly one-fourth of Gen Z and millennials had switched insurance over dissatisfaction with their online experience. “In a world where convenience is king, failing to meet these expectations isn’t just poor service; it’s a strategic vulnerability,” Insurity Chief Revenue and Insurance Officer Sylvester Mathis said in the report.

Analysts also note that consumer consent to share their personal data is a crucial prerequisite to embedded growth because it’s required to personalize pricing and product offerings. In the United States, the Dodd-Frank Act requires customer consent for secure sharing of consumer financial data. The European Union’s new Financial Data Access regulation does the same.

Given the growth to date of embedded insurance, many consumers appear comfortable with sharing personal data. After all, much of it is already passed around the globe by various corporations.

However, Swiss Re warns, patience could be limited. “Due to the distribution model (i.e., sale as part a company’s core service or product), the embedded insurance offering has to be simple. Oversimplified policy terms could make both consumers and insurers more vulnerable to uncertainties or misunderstandings, which could lead to more claims and litigation costs,” the reinsurer said in a 2023 analysis. The rapid purchase process can also raise unrealistic expectations that the same speed and ease will always occur for claims and payout process.

Traditional brokers like Marsh see such challenges as an advantage. “The benefit of companies like ours is that we have an immense amount of data that we can use to better understand needs and better understand results and to build more relevant and compelling solutions for the customers,” Pinto says.

New Areas to Embed

As embedded products evolve, leaders in insurtech and traditional sectors see untapped potential for coverage and performance improvement, with artificial intelligence expected to lead to numerous innovations.

At Cover Genius, Daga anticipates AI will enable hyper-personalization with more context-aware offerings. For instance, a consumer’s purchase of airline tickets and hotel reservations for a ski trip might prompt a bank to offer trip insurance protection—or even automatically incorporate coverage as part of the bank credit’s premium membership plan.

Borgman likewise foresees greater personalization of products to tailor them to a consumer’s potential needs at the time they may be desired. “Insurance will feel less like a separate product and even more like a feature of the underlying product or service that the client partner is offering,” he says.

In the short term, Borgman believes “there’s going to be a big focus on consolidation and quality. We’ll see a shift from experimental use of embedded insurance to scaling it, to better-designed programs with stronger governance and data-driven optimization. I think also embedded insurance will cut across more sectors. We’ll see embedded deepen in automotive, mobility, and e-commerce and maybe continue to expand across the financial services and membership models.”

New opportunities may await in building resilience and coverage related to climate change. Upward of 5 million homes in the United Kingdom face the threat of surface-water flooding as weather patterns change, according to Borgman. He suggests embedded solutions could be distributed via utility organizations and other entities, connecting consumers to coverage as well as ways to protect their assets before flooding occurs.

Homeowners insurance overall is seen as an untapped market with potential for growth among consumers who want to simplify the numbers of steps involved in a homebuying experience. Global insurtech Boltech and its U.S. agency Bolt, launched in 2020, are among the leaders in the field, partnering with new housebuilders and with real estate firms such as Keller Williams to offer policies. The digital insurer Matic, started in 2014, reports partnerships with more than 100 mortgage lenders, services, and banks, including USA Mortgage and the United Kingdom’s HSBC, to provide policies underwritten by 45 carriers.

Pinto expects products will expand for independent contractors, a fast-growing part of the working population, in addition to gig workers. Those workers “still have all of your protection needs without any of the benefits of working for a large corporation,” he says. “Where do you get the right plans? How do you get the right products?” These products might include general, professional, or cyber liability insurance.

Healthcare is also a major opportunity for embedded productions, Pinto believes. The global population over age 65 is projected to increase from roughly 1 billion today to over 2.2 billion in the next half-century. “Healthcare systems around the world are under stress. Imagine what will happen when the population doubles.”

Embedded insurance could fill gaps in protection for that aging population, such as coverage for physical therapy or for making home improvements or equipment purchases to accommodate someone who breaks a hip or falls seriously ill.

Captives may also increasingly be used to provide embedded products. A global heavy machinery manufacturer, for instance, asked Marsh to create a better solution for extended warranties than those then available on the market. The coverage would be provided at the point of sale of the machinery. The program is managed by a captive, providing the client with further revenue generation and greater control over its insurance needs.

A 2025 Marsh report found a shift toward businesses owning multiple captives, with 15% of large companies with $25 million-plus in gross written premiums owning more than one risk retention vehicle.

Insurtech leaders and traditional brokers expect banks to play a larger role in this space, capitalizing on their trusted relationships with customers and the visibility into their financial transactions. A 2021 Cover Genuis survey found that 45% of consumers would be “very” or “extremely” interested in bank-embedded insurance offers, with the interest highest among Gen Z and millennial customers (about 66%), followed by Gen X (44%).

“The key is not about inventing exotic risks in all of this,” Pinto says. “It’s about making relevant protection effortless in context, where customers already see the value.”

Rather than viewing insurtechs and the growth of embedded products as threats to their market share, Pinto and other industry veterans say these newer names offer an opportunity for growth and improvement. Marsh responded quickly to the market and now provides 200 programs used by dozens of companies globally.

“There are many new players, and I think this is an exciting space,” Pinto says. “There’s also a lot of capital to be invested in great people with great ideas. I think it only makes the market more dynamic.”

Some adjustments may be necessary, though. For brokers like Marsh and WTW, and even insurtechs like Cover Genius, much of the work in providing an insurance solution occurs in the background—pushing their own brand recognition out of view.

“If I’m the end user, consumers buying protection on eBay, I will never know on the background it’s Cover Genius, or who is the insurance provider,” Daga says. “The idea is that you want to create a more seamless experience, and eBay is the front and center brand.”

Some traditional brokers and insurers may be uncomfortable with a less visible role or with allowing white labeling of their products to be sold under a different name.

But Boston Consulting Group’s 2024 report on the future of embedded insurance notes that traditional players will have to adjust by moving away from the standard proprietary insurance business and embracing “a help-others-become-insurers approach.”

“To strike successful B4B2C partnerships, insurers will have to acknowledge that future success will come only by helping companies become better insurance providers than they will ever be,” the study’s authors wrote, referring to an evolving business-for-business-to-consumer model. “While they will have to pay the price of yielding customer ownership, they will be able to more than make up for it by gaining access to companies’ customer bases, becoming an integrated part of their sales journeys, and gaining access to consumer data.”

That’s a win for the industry, from Pinto’s point of view.

“We welcome new players, and I think in the end of the day, this is all about how we create and provide value to our partners and their customers,” he says. “There’s a lot that’s been done. But there’s a lot more that can and will be done over the next 20 years.”