Kin Insurance vs Hey Telo

About

Kin Insurance is a Chicago, Illinois-based direct-to-consumer homeowners insurtech — having raised $476 million total including a $50 million Series E in September 2025 at a $2 billion pre-money valuation led by QED Investors and Activate Capital, plus $200 million in debt financing from Wellington Management — providing technology-driven homeowners insurance in catastrophe-exposed markets including Florida, Texas, California, Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee, Arizona, and Virginia where traditional insurers are retreating. Founded in 2016 by CEO Sean Harper, Lucas Ward, Sebastian Villarreal, and Stephen Wooten (entrepreneurs with fintech backgrounds from Groupon, Insight Venture Partners, and Avant), Kin operates as a Managing General Agent (MGA) writing policies on behalf of reciprocal exchanges it manages — a structure that gives Kin underwriting control and risk management authority while distributing policy risk through the reciprocal exchange mechanism rather than Kin's own balance sheet. In fiscal year 2024, Kin wrote $495.3 million in premiums (up 43% from $346.3 million in 2023), generated $156.1 million in total revenue (+48% YoY), served 160,000 policyholders (up from 115,000 in 2023), and the reciprocal exchanges it manages achieved their first full year of profitability with $12 million in operating income (+126%). The company's total insured property value surpassed $100 billion by April 2025, and Kin employs 800 people.