HBR On Strategy · Harvard Business Review

Using New Tech to Compete in an Old Industry

·27 min·1 clip

Hippo's rebuilding promise pushed lumber costs up 5X during the pandemic.

1. HBR On Strategy’s "Using New Tech to Compete in an Old Industry" follows Hippo’s attempt to change home insurance buying and selling. 2. Harvard Business School professor Lauren Cohen joins Brian Kenney as the case author and finance professor explaining why Hippo matters. 3. The episode asks whether insurtech can use AI, machine learning, and app-based service to compete with century-old insurance incumbents. 4. Cohen traces insurance back to the 1666 London fire, 13,000 destroyed homes, and Benjamin Franklin’s Philadelphia Contribution Ship. 5. He says traditional insurance depended on brokers and agents who were neighbors, PTA parents, and Little League contacts. 6. Hippo rejects that model with quick quotes, little paperwork, and a "silent partner" approach after purchase. 7. The company also tries to lower premiums by suggesting thermostat changes, light-bulb swaps, and other device-driven adjustments. 8. Cohen says insurtech’s public pitch is better pricing through machine learning, but its biggest advance so far has been UI and UX. 9. He names Lemonade and Ladder as other entrants using similar digitally stripped-down insurance experiences. 10. He says many insurtechs have not yet shown better loss performance than incumbents despite their technology claims. 11. Cohen compares insurance with banking and payments, where apps displaced some personal interaction but major brands like Citi, Chase, and Visa still dominate. 12. He also compares insurance with robo-advisors such as Betterment and Wealthfront, which grew before flattening when richer clients still wanted a human advisor. 13. Insurance claims feel different, he says, because people file them when "something bad happens" and would rather argue with a computer than a person. 14. State-by-state regulation creates openings for entrants because firms can start in one state, lobby for rate changes, and expand where incumbents retreat. 15. He points to Florida and Louisiana as risky markets where insurers pull out and costs can shift to states like Massachusetts, California, and Oregon. 16. Cohen says Hippo is less than 10 years old and entered risky markets while managing disaster exposure and higher rebuilding costs. 17. The interview style is conversational, with Brian Kenney pressing for examples and Cohen answering with case details and comparisons. 18. The energy stays analytical and practical, moving from historical context to business-model tradeoffs and long-term adoption timing. 19. Best for listeners interested in insurtech, pricing models, and regulation. 20. Skip if you want a short, purely consumer-facing insurance explainer.

As heard by us

A useful look at how digital entrants can carve out space in a heavily regulated market.

HBR on Strategy looks at a long-settled industry with a clear eye, showing how digital entrants can still find room to move. Lauren Cohen and Brian Kenney use Hippo to show a model built around fewer intermediaries, direct targeting of customers already comfortable online, and…

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If you want to see how AI reshapes a centuries-old market, start here.

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