Meet the insurtech: Modern Life

In the insurance industry, it’s commonly said that life insurance is the hardest product to sell. Young people don’t want to think about it, and it’s abstract compared to home and auto insurance, which often are required either by law or in contracts to buy a property.

The process for getting life insurance has usually required a comprehensive medical exam and a lot of paperwork. In August, Modern Life, an insurtech start-up founded in 2021, announced $15 million in backing led by Thrive Capital. The company, founded by insurtech and fintech entrepreneurs Michael Konialian and Jack Arenas, set out to speed up and streamline the process with technology that major life insurance carriers have already signed on to use. 

“The inspiration for Modern Life was my own experience of buying life insurance for my family,” says Konialian. “I was just surprised by how challenging the experience was. I had to do an in-person medical exam and get blood and urine drawn. I had to do an hour-long phone interview, answer the full litany of possible medical ailments. I had to fill out 50 pages of paper application forms for a process that took months to complete.”

Konialian previously helped build Coverwallet, a commercial insurance startup. Arenas was a co-founder of Petal, a consumer credit startup. Konalian’s personal experience led him to seek a way to build technology for buying life insurance that carriers would use.

“We want to go from months to minutes,” he says. “Advice and advisors really matter. It’s very consequential for families like mine, a very complex financial product and underwriting. Unlike some companies that go direct to consumer, our goal is to empower the modern advisor and to give them super powers rather than trying to cut the advisor out of the sales process.” 

Modern Life is now working with 15 carriers, including Lincoln Financial, Pacific Life, Prudential and John Hancock. Lincoln Financial is the newest partner distributing its policies through Modern Life. The company’s services combine technology applied to underwriting and onboarding of policyholders, advice from insurance experts for policyholders’ needs, and its partnerships with carriers providing coverage.

“We help our advisors understand the major features that might go into a certain carrier offering,” says Konialian. “For a permanent product, we look at how do cash values grow and whether there are guarantees associated with the product.”

Modern Life also looks at whether policies can be underwritten traditionally or in an accelerated way, according to Konialian. “We help advisors get a nuanced view of what the best product is for a certain client situation,” he says.

The company isn’t limited to one form of insurance, offering term life, permanent life, long-term care and disability coverages. “We don’t represent a product. We represent a customer and we find the right product for that client need,” Konialian adds. The overall goal for Modern Life is to “dramatically transform the buying and selling process for life insurance and other highly underwritten financial products through technology, changing it from something that is arduous, opaque and long to something that is streamlined, transparent and fast.”