CoverWallet to grow staff to nearly 200 here

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An online insurance company that last year promised to create nearly 100 jobs in Rochester has surpassed that number, fully expecting to employ nearly 200 here in short order.

“We started the company about four years ago and the company is doing extremely well. We have more than 200 people across all our locations,” co-founder and CEO Inaki Berenguer said. “Today, the largest office location is Rochester. Every week we add two or three people. We expect to continue growing because the market is huge, it’s massive.”

CoverWallet was founded in New York City by Berenguer and Rashmi Melgiri, both MIT graduates, as an internet-based small-business insurance company. The business offers general liability, property, workers’ compensation, professional liability and cyber liability insurances. Cyber liability, Berenguer said, is a growing area.

CoverWallet targets micro and small businesses, he said, and represents companies in the 48 contiguous states. CoverWallet also has an audience in Switzerland and Spain, and is considering other countries as well.

Why Rochester?

“We wanted to continue growing and we were evaluating different locations and we thought that Upstate New York had some advantages for us,” Berenguer explained.

Those advantages include daily one-hour flights from New York City to Rochester via several airlines, as well as the number of great colleges and universities in and near the area.

“There’s some know-how in the region,” Berenguer said. “We also considered California, just to cover the West Coast, but we thought it would be better to be close to New York City.”

CoverWallet differs from other small-business insurance agents or brokers in that all of a client’s needs can be filled via the internet, although CoverWallet experts are a phone call away.

“There are 30 million small businesses in the U.S. Today they go to a traditional insurance agent or broker, they complete a paper application, they wait five to seven days to get a quote, make a payment and get a copy of their policy,” Berenguer explained. “What we allow now with more businesses is that they can come to coverwallet.com and very quickly they (input) information about themselves, and in real-time they get a quote. And if they want to purchase that insurance policy, they put a credit card in and buy it.”

After locating in Brighton last spring, CoverWallet quickly outgrew its facility and recently moved to Lehigh Crossing in Victor. The office is outfitted with bright colors, lots of natural light and an open floor plan. A graffiti wall adorns the space and workers have access to an outdoor patio and hiking, running and walking paths.

“We’re building technology to capture a big piece of the market,” Berenguer said. “Traditionally it has been very paper-based, analog, time consuming, and we are a technology company that is reinventing the experience of insurance: fast, simple and convenient. And it is all thanks to data science, technology and beautiful design, with everything on the internet.”

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