SVB collapse: An insurtech account-holder's view from Covie

In the middle of the afternoon on Thursday, March 9, Trent Harvey, CEO and co-founder of the Austin-based insurtech Covie, noticed a Reuters article being passed around in some of his online groups. The article was about the pending collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, which held the majority of Covie’s cash.

“Initially, you look at that, and you’re like, ‘Surely this isn’t going to happen,” Harvey says. “It happened so fast – it was mind-blowing.”

Harvey and a team of seven operate Covie, which provides an API platform to help link data from insurance and “insurance-adjacent” companies to each other. Its customers range from independent agencies, who use the connections to improve their data pre-fill capabilities, to property managers who need to verify renter’s insurance coverage. The company launched in 2020 and has raised seed money from funders including Y Combinator, and is planning to move into Series A soon. 

Over the weekend between Friday, March 10, when SVB went into receivership, and Monday, March 13, the day after officials announced a guarantee for SVB’s depositors even for funds in excess of the FDIC’s $250,000 limit, companies like Harvey’s found themselves in limbo. Digital Insurance editor in chief Nathan Golia spoke to Harvey about his experience on the morning of the 13th.