Scout InsurTech Interview with Mango Policy

Mango Policy is a digital distribution platform for simple insurance products. They seek to help brokers sell products like renters and pet insurance through branded, self-serve storefronts. Michael Fiedel sat with Angela Sethi, CEO & Founder, to learn more about how Mango Policy is impacting the industry.

Who are your clients?

“We have a few different stakeholders. I like to envision it like this: a Carrier, an MGA and an Independent Broker walk into a bar & say to each other ‘let’s put 1 system together to sell  insurance…and if the customer doesn’t want to talk to anyone, they can buy online.’

The carriers have the product. The MGAs manage networks of brokers & agents. The individual brokers sell. We hand each of those brokers a white-labeled storefront link as well as a quick snippet of embed code - so they can sell digitally without having to build or manage any tech.

Then, sitting on the receiving end of the system  is the policy purchaser (ideally many of them) who just want to buy online.”

What does your product do?

"We describe Mango Policy as the 'Shopify for Insurance.' We give brokers & agents turn-key e-commerce storefronts and embed code they need so they can sell simple insurance online.

What everyone knows (& often gets taken for granted) is that brokers have existing client books and great relationships.. When you ask them why they don't actively sell products like Renters, Pet, Personal Cyber, or Flood, they give you an honest answer - 'The juice isn’t worth the squeeze.' A manual, phone-based sale for a $150 policy brings in $20 commission. The economics don't make sense. So all that business gets left on the table.

Meanwhile, direct writers like Lemonade have proven that buyers love buying simple products online. Whether we like it or not, modern consumers expect an Amazon-esque experience where they can click, buy, and be done. Especially insurance, which isn’t something people love to buy in the first place.

Mango respects both sides of that equation. We get that brokers don't want to lift a finger for a low-commission sale, but we also know they own client relationships. So we give them a self-serve option. A customer lands on the broker's site, answers questions, puts in their credit card, and buys a policy in under five minutes. The broker wins the customer and the commission, the carrier gets the policy, and the buyer gets covered quickly & easily. We emphasize that having a good user experience is key so that the buyer knows what they are buying."

How much capital have you raised?

“We’ve bootstrapped till now. Now that the tech is live and active policies are  binding (selling), we’re preparing to start our official seed round.”

Was the company born from within or outside the industry?

"I’d call us a hybrid. I spent years inside the industry at Munich Re heading up a platform to sell simple products online, so I got to see what works & where the distribution gaps are. But that said, I’m not a traditional insurance lifer - I’ve worked across other industries that went through massive shifts.

My CTO, Ed, comes completely from outside insurance. He brings years of enterprise Shopify development experience. When we sat down, he looked at insurance through a pure e-commerce lens and asked, 'Why isn't this as simple as buying anything else online?' That fresh perspective shaped our entire platform.

To round that out, we have 2 industry veterans who play integral roles as advisors. Tom Reid, a Canadian legend, helped us build the product & got us off the ground. And Nick Lamparelli brings decades of deep US insurance market knowledge and industry credibility to the table. So, my biased opinion is that we get the best of both worlds: deep industry perspective mixed with modern e-commerce execution."

What growth milestones have you achieved over the last 12 months?

"The last year has been a huge eye-opener for us, and honestly, a total crash course in patience! We cleared a lot of hurdles that were expected, yet still surprisingly challenging.

There was never value in us creating a half-baked prototype: our model is all-in or nothing. So, we spent this past year putting together an end-to-end solution that covered the big AND small stuff. We executed lengthy contracts with our launch partners. We tied directly into our carrier partner’s underwriting APIs & worked through a full legal review of an approach to helping our partners market the product.

Today, we are officially live in production with our first product. We ran a successful soft launch, bound our first live policies, and just this week onboarded our first pilot broker - who placed our embed code live on their site in under five minutes. Concurrently, we are working on integrating a second ‘simple’ product that will follow the same model.”

Within your domain, what are the current challenges facing the industry?

“For years, the story was that the direct-to-consumer writers (like Lemonade or Geico) were going to take over and make independent brokers obsolete. It made sense on paper: throw massive ad dollars and social media influencers at the problem to attain online customers directly.

But looking at the market today, the unit economics aren’t so clear-cut. Digital customer acquisition costs across those direct channels have gone through the roof. While direct writers don't explicitly publish their strategies, our observation is that direct brands are quietly opening agency distribution channels and creating agency partner roles. When we read the tea leaves, we believe this means that the industry is realizing that you simply can't bypass the trust and relationships that independent brokers hold.

At the same time, independent brokers have had a frustrating tech barrier. They know how to get & keep customers,  but they haven't had turn-key 'click-to-buy' storefronts. So when a customer wants to buy a simple policy online at 10 PM, the broker hasn't had a way to capture that sale.

The core industry challenge is bridging that: giving brokers the instant digital checkout that buyers expect, without forcing the agency to become a software development shop or spend a fortune on digital marketing.”

How does Mango Policy take a unique approach to providing value?

“Our biggest advantage is that we aren't a carrier, an MGA, or a broker. We sit right in the middle with a bird’s-eye view of how the whole system actually works. In our view, this is a feature, not a bug.

Because we’re independent, we can take a step back and look at what every single person needs to make a sale happen. We know the carrier wants policy volume without high advertising costs. We know the MGA wants to support their agency network. We know the retail broker wants to make money on simple products without having to lift a finger. And most importantly, we know the customer just wants to buy online in five minutes without a hassle. And they don’t REALLY want to talk to anyone for these simple products. Currently, 47% of US home & auto is purchased online. That’s almost half.

We connect all the pieces behind the fence so everyone’s incentives align, and then we give the customer a super clean, simple storefront on the front end.”

What inspired the team to start this company?

"The spark really came from my time working on a platform to sell simple products online. It didn’t survive COVID & the market wasn’t ready. But I remember brokers loved the concept. The tech back then was very expensive.

Years later, when I mentioned this to  Ed, who has a background in Shopify development and enterprise marketing, he looked at the insurance landscape and couldn't believe how behind the e-commerce experience was. Or why it was dominated by only a few key players.

That led to this: combining a 'click-to-buy' checkout with marketing tools so brokers can actually promote these simple policies across multiple channels. For the first time, brokers aren't just posting brand awareness content (which is important). But now, they can also drop a link or embed a snippet with a live 'Buy Now' button attached."

Can you share any goals over the next 12 months?

“Over the next 12 months, we have four main goals that we’re focused on.

First is expanding distribution – getting our onboarding pipeline rolling, bringing on more brokers & partners, and helping them actually start selling.

Second, we want to establish the marketing playbook for this new scene. We need to learn what actually works and what doesn't when it comes to helping brokers cross-sell to their existing book, and just as importantly, what marketing tactics can attract new clients. This is the new world of ‘click to buy’, not ‘get a quote’. We see this to be a big difference.

Third, we need to make sure our tech is ready for the future, especially as LLMs and AI search experiences start changing how consumers look for and buy insurance online.

And fourth, we want to expand the product catalog. Now that Renters is live in production, we want to bring on additional simple lines like Pet, Personal Cyber, Event, and Flood.

If we hit those four targets by the end of 2027, we’ll be happy!"

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