How LOOP Is Different From Other Car Insurance Companies

The car insurance industry is broken.

As a driver, you’re legally required to have car insurance. But most people have no idea what they’re paying for. And many don’t have enough coverage.

Imagine you get into an accident and you’re found at fault. If you don’t have enough (or any!) insurance coverage, you may be on the hook for car repair costs you can’t afford. Maybe you also have to pay medical bills, or you end up losing access to your car and are unable to get to work.

These factors can quickly snowball into a financial crisis—making it impossible to live your life.

Many car insurers do this. They sell you cheap policies that don’t offer enough coverage for your needs, or they use tactics to avoid paying your claim. If that wasn’t enough, many insurers price you based on factors that have nothing to do with how you drive, factors that are completely biased.

We saw just how damaged the system was. So we decided to change it. Here’s how LOOP is different.

How LOOP is different?

We believe in the basic idea that how much you pay for car insurance should be based on how and where you drive. That’s it.

Instead of following the outdated and unfair rules of traditional car insurance, we’re rewriting them. We think insurance shouldn’t discriminate, customer service should be a positive experience, and companies have a responsibility to give back to their community.

We don't just talk about making our members' lives easier—we actually do it.

“At LOOP, we want to make sure that everyone can have access to insurance,” said Mari Mergerson Sharpe, Head of Success at LOOP. “And that it'd be fairly priced and not based on things that are rooted in some type of systemic inequity, so that we can have that collective coverage and protection for everyone.”

LOOP is a mission-driven registered B-corp, which means that we're focused not just on insurance, but on creating social good in the process. We’re the real deal.

How LOOP prices our customers

We want to rewrite the rules of car insurance by adapting a unique ratings system that removes everything except what’s important: how and where you drive. We use a dynamic measure of risk, a combination of telematics and artificial intelligence, that allows us to create more inclusive pricing for our customers.

When it comes to insurance, the cheapest policy often isn’t the best option. It’s easy for insurers to cut back on necessary coverage to advertise low rates. That’s why we’re values-focused over price-focused, providing the highest-quality coverage for our members and pricing them on factors that actually matter.

What we care about

The two things we use to price your policy is how you drive and where you drive. Where you drive includes the roads you drive on, the streets you park on, and the way you drive. We also factor in the basics like how many years you’ve been driving and the type of vehicle you drive.

To understand how you drive, we use predictive models and real-time driving data like:

• How fast you drive
• How hard you break and turn
• If you’re driving distracted
• How much time you’re spending on the road

Yet, protecting your privacy is very important to us. We will never, under any circumstances, sell or give away your data.

What we don’t care about

We don’t care what your credit score is. Really—we’ll never ask for it. We believe using credit scores to price your car insurance is discrimination.

Why? Studies show that insurance companies charge people with low credit scores 50-70% more for car insurance. Credit scores are proven to be systematically biased, creating barriers for marginalized communities to access credit when and where they need it.

The same goes for factors like zip code and job title. We believe in mobility for all—no matter your neighborhood’s average home prices, what your job is, or how far you got in school.

Because none of that has anything to do with how you drive.

“Just because you have a master's degree doesn't mean that you are a more safe driver than someone who doesn't,” said Sharpe. “So we’re not looking at those types of things.”

We also don't look at minor violations like speeding tickets. Accidents happen, and if you don't have a history of getting speeding tickest every single month you're on the road—we'll take that into account. This is how we take a personalized approach to rating our members.

Why our members stick with us

We’re not just in the business of insurance—we’re in the business of relationship building. We want to reach the underserved and under-cared for communities to provide a personalized, transparent experience for our members. Plus, we believe customer service should be a real-life human, not a robot—something our members agree on.

While we currently only offer insurance in Texas, we’ve grown into key areas of the state, saving members almost $6.3 million from industry bias. Many of our members have switched from both industry incumbents like Progressive and USAA to other insurtech companies like Lemonade and ROOT.

LOOP members saved an average $1,360 per year in premiums.

Education is the key to building financial health, which is why we work with our members to help them understand what insurance is, how it works, and why it’s so important to have.

“It's really a company that is not just about profits, but about people,” said Sharpe.

Why LOOP is a great place to work

We’re a mission-driven company, a place that doesn’t just offer high-quality insurance to our members. We also strive to be a great place to work. People are at the center of everything we do. We treat our employees like our members, by putting them first.

“We really mean what we say. It's not some cute tagline or something that sounds good or looks good on a poster,” said Sharpe. “We don't really think about auto insurance as a thing that could have a big impact on someone's life, on their finances, on their well being. But it can.”

See how much you can save when you switch to an insurance company that provides fair and transparent pricing.