Leaky (YC S11) Relaunches with Real-Time Price Updates

The fact that I pay substantially less for my insurance than anything Leaky quotes me is actually disconcerting.

I got my policy through an independent agent that came recommended by a relative. They set me up with Travelers for my home and car. My auto policy for a 2009 Nissan Altima with comprehensive and collision coverage is only $800 per year. The lowest quote from Leaky was about $650 per 6 months, or $1300 per year.

I've looked through the actual policy documents for my coverage and the limits all look the same as when I was with Geico paying twice as much. Now I wonder if I'll find out there's some kind of mistake and I'm not actually covered if I get into an accident. The discount for having multiple policies with the same company is usually 10%, so that doesn't explain the 60% difference.

This is the best website i've ever searched for insurance on! The lack of spam alone is a major selling point, but in addition to that, its quick, and snappy. Quite the amazing job. Also, you just saved me $100 on insurance... so my opinion may be biased :D

It would be nice if you integrated with CarWoo, so while I search for my car I can see how my insurance will change.

I don't think they are out of woods yet. They are still reliant on the insurance companies for their revenue(essentially they are just an affiliate site)...so they've complied with the letter of the complaint, but not the spirit.

They are still doing something that insurance companies care enough about to shut them down over.

Talk about tenacity! And there's such a huge amount of disruption to be had anywhere in the insurance industries - looking forward to them earning the 'hipmunk for insurance' title.

I enjoyed that the prices refreshed (though they did not change) when I entered my first name. I could imagine: "Oh, your name's Phillip? +$30/year."

A huge (multiple million policies) missing market that no one is covering here is motorcycle coverage. Almost every site caters to car insurance, but no one touches bikes.

Opportunity for someone for sure.

Geico offers all new cars extended warranty for 30/year. 7 years 100k miles, 250 deductible. This caused me to go with Geico, they also have very inexpensive road side assistance. $20/year for two vehicles. It would be nice if these types of add-ons are also included in the comparison.

Dealers hate Geico extended warranty. They try very hard to not let you talk to the Geico rep, because they want to sell you an outrageously priced extended warranty.

I had a bad experience with a Nissan Sentar (motor went at 90 k miles) and was looking into extended warranty for my next new car purchase. The Dealer tried to add the new car to my Geico policy without me talking to the Geico rep. Geico will not insure a vehicle with out talking to the owner. I ended up driving the car (2011 Chevy Cruze) off the lot without insurance (very long story).

Not to sound like that guy.. but I'm skeptical of their model.

Normal price comparison sites make a ton of money.. why? because they dominate the search results. Makes sense.. hard to make a brand out of something that sounds boring like comparing prices. Yet I think Leaky is betting the brand will attract users.

And if they do acknowledge they'll need search engine visitors, then that's a huge risk because 1 penalty and they're dead. And where's the "thick" content? Google frowns upon any site that looks like thin content.

Second, this is insurance. Noone's gonna compare prices regularly, like they do with regular purchases. It's not like airline tickets where people buy them 3-4 times a year either. It sounds like something someone would use once, then forget for a long time.

I almost was part of a startup (which we were going to submit to YC) that did exactly the same thing. We were trying to negotiate with providers of insurance comparison quotes to get the data, with web scraping as a backup precisely because I knew the insurance companies would not like us scraping their sites. We were not able to make our data deals go through, and so the only option left would be exactly what Leaky is doing now: compute from the publicly available data. We did not feel we could do a good job of that at the time and that combined with other reasons caused our efforts to fall apart. (This was 2010, though we'd tossed the idea around since 2008 I believe.)

Anyway, I get what Leaky is going through and also the need for a product like theirs in the industry.

The insurance market is very lucrative. It's up there with gambling and loans. There are so many insurance quotes affiliate sites who do nothing but blackhat google so they can get their useless site on top. I say useless because these sites can't really offer you the insurance rates comparison that they promise, they do not have the data. They are just in it to collect your details and pass them over to an insurance agent.

I used to run sites like these and it was frustrating because there isn't much you can to differentiate yourself from the competition.

Thinking more generally than just insurance, there are a lot of things I buy on a recurring basis which, if I just allow my current providers to have their way with me, tend to get more and more expensive over time. Lawn weed control/fertilizing is the example which comes immediately to mind. I'd love to set-up a profile of my lawn with a site which would then allow providers to quote me prices for services semi-continuously. This would keep my current provider in check.

Here is what I'd like from a service (like this):

I submit my insurance profile/needs (cars, bikes, boats, RVs, home, life, disability and umbrella). Your service checks for a combination deal every month and emails me if a better deal is out there.

I buy insurance for many things and auto is only one of them. Usually I use the same company for all/most policies because of the combination discounts and the less hassle in dealing with multiple companies.

I've always wondered if YC would fund ideas that were based on scraping (like this one) and therefore liable to receive this sort of letter at any time

Now I know! Usually there is some sanctioned way to get at the data that you're scraping, but it's impossibly expensive. Looking at you, ATPCO... (raw airline fare data)

Kudos to these guys for sticking with their idea and finding another way to feed it data!

The deals in insurance don't come when an insurer follows its filings religiously. They come when insurers make a big move for market share and max out their deviations from manual/filed rates, which vary by state.

This happens infrequently, unpredictably and, sometimes, for short periods of time. Real shoppers are probably still better off going direct.

I spent a few years working for a P&C insurance company. The most valuable variable for determining the expected value of future claims (and therefore one which significantly impacts price) is one's credit score. That Leaky is quoting without knowing my credit score means that the rates provided can't be terribly accurate.

Hey Jason, I worked at a company called Comparison Market that later bought Insurance.com between 2002 to 2008. I might be of some help to you, and if you have any questions about pretty much anything in that industry my email is in my profile.

If you want to compare real quotes coming directly from the insurance companies you should check out Answer Financial (www.answerfinancial.com). We're a national auto and home insurance agency that represents over 20 insurance carriers. You can compare quotes and buy online or over the phone with an insurance agent. We do this via direct XML connections into the insurance companies we've contracted with.

Fascinating! The real time aspect is actually fun to play with.

It allows you to probe the black-box and see what comes out the other end. For example, I would be saying a lot of money if I were a married 60 year old woman called Mary. But I guess we all knew that!

Congratulations, looks good. It didn't appear to have information for my zip-code (01267), but I was able to play around with pricing and get an estimate (which is frighteningly high for a 20 year old male).

These companies are the only way anyone buys insurance in England. Fantastic businesses that make tons of money.

This is a pretty awesome hack.

Great work guys!

I just tried it, and it quoted me double of what I'm paying.

their drop downs bugs made me give up halfway.

doesn't help that they were $1.300+ off real quotes either.