Scout InsurTech Interview with Activar

Activar is an insurtech company. They seek to enable insurers to sell pay-as-you-go insurance. Chris Luiz sat with Founder, Mariano Barone, to learn more about how Activar is impacting the industry.

Who are your clients?

We serve both individuals and businesses. Our platform is designed for anyone looking to insure assets like motorbikes, classic cars and ATVs (quadricycles). We’ll soon be adding laptops and home goods as well as for businesses needing coverage for transport, property, travel or employee accident protection. 

We also work with agents, brokers and banks who use our web platform to enroll and manage their customers. Once a customer is onboarded, they remain linked to the distribution channel that brought them in.

What does your product do?

We provide an on-demand insurance platform. Through our mobile app, customers can activate and deactivate their coverage whenever they need it. To activate insurance, they simply take real-time photos of their vehicle (front and back), which prevents the use of outdated images and helps reduce fraud.

Our platform is expanding to offer broader multi-risk coverage — including home insurance with on-off theft protection, transport insurance, travel and accidental coverages. On the distribution side, brokers, agents and banks can sell and manage all these products directly from our dedicated web platform.

How much capital have you raised?

We’ve been completely bootstrapped. I funded Activar with my own savings and support from my family.

Was the company born from within or outside the industry?

Activar was born from within the insurance industry. My family owns a brokerage in Argentina, and I’ve been working in insurance for over 10 years. I’m also a licensed agent. Through that experience, I saw the opportunity to create insurance products that better fit customers who don’t need full-time coverage.

What growth metrics have you accomplished over the last 12 months?

We’re currently selling about 300 policies per month. We’ve achieved this without a dedicated sales team and with almost no marketing budget — just about $200 a month on Google Ads. Despite that, we’ve maintained positive technical results with a healthy combined ratio, and growth has been stable.

Within your domain, what is the current challenge that the industry is facing?

One of the biggest challenges has been convincing insurers that an on-demand model can still be profitable. Many were concerned that people would activate insurance right after a claimable event. We addressed that by requiring live photos at activation, verifying timing and authenticity and building a pricing model where frequent users would pay more than traditional monthly policies — but infrequent users would save money.

How does Activar take a unique approach to providing value?

We built our fraud prevention system around mandatory live pictures, making it nearly impossible to fake an activation. We offer flexibility that traditional insurance products don't. Our dual-platform approach — a customer-facing mobile app and a distribution-focused web platform — helps brokers and agents grow their businesses. We’re also laying the groundwork for fintech integrations: loans and digital wallets for agents, building a community around our ecosystem.

What inspired the team to start this company?

The idea came when someone we knew from our family brokerage, who owned several motorbikes, complained about paying full insurance premiums for vehicles he only used a few weekends a year. That mismatch between usage and cost is what inspired me to start Activar.

Can you share any goal(s) for the next 12 months?

In the next year, we plan to launch our version 2.0 platform, which will include personal accident insurance, goods transport coverage and additional protections for both individuals and businesses.

We aim to expand to eight different types of risks by year-end. We also plan to roll out our fintech features and — most importantly — start expanding beyond Argentina. Ideally, we would close a deal to enter a new market, possibly the U.S. or elsewhere in Latin America.

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