Personal insurance shopper Gabi lands $9.5M

Gabi hopes to save the average consumer $460 in auto insurance annually

Car insurance is one of those essential expenses that often remains unchecked - meaning it's not something you typically review to make sure you're not overpaying. That's unfortunate since it turns out that the average person could save $460 a year on auto insurance. 

How do you find the right auto insurance plan for you that can put more money into your pockets? Meet Gabi, a free online insurance shopper. Gabi just announced a $9.5 million round, led by Canvas Ventures. Correlation Ventures, Northwester Mutual Future Ventures, and Securian Ventures, plus prior investors also participated. Gabi plans to use the funds to take its service nationwide.

"Most people do comparison only once," said Hanno Fichtner, CEO and co-Founder of Gabi. "Only 30% of customers compare rates on a regular basis and only 10 percent switch. So most people sign up and forget about their policy." 

Gabi is designed to alert consumers to new policies that can save them money and to make the switching of policies hassle free. "In our system, you include the username and password of your account and we extract the information. We put this into a comparison engine and compare rates with 25 different companies." These companies include ones that Gabi has relationships with, but also large insurance companies, such as Statefarm, Travelers and Geiko.

Not all insurance companies listed work with Gabi. For those that don't, Gabi forwards the lead. But for those that do work with Gabi, Gabi acts as the insurance agent and signs up the consumer and gets paid a 15 percent commission on the premium. Gabi hopes that by being the agent of record, it can develop a long-term relationship with consumers vs just passing them along in a lead-generation model. 

"Our idea is people sign up, so at every renewal, we send a renewal offer," he said. "We text and email at renewal and let our customers know if their policy is the most optimal. Because they’ve connected their account, we see their miles have changed, etc. So we have up-to-date information."

Gabi currently offers auto, home, renters, umbrella and life insurance.