Zego

Zego provides insurance for food delivery drivers, couriers, private hire drivers, small businesses. Policies available from an hour to a year. Founded by three ex-couriers in 2016 (originally under the name Tego), the venture aims to cater to the needs of car and scooter delivery workers by providing them with flexible, affordable policies

Zego offers a range of auto products – UBI for cyclists, scooter drivers and car drivers, as well as social, domestic and pleasure insurance for scooters. It also provides for fleets. Zego’s products integrate directly with a driver’s gig economy platform and their hourly cover can start and stop in sync with their shifts.

Early on the venture secured partnerships with multiple international couriers, including Deliveroo, UberEats and Quiqup, and announced plans to expand across Europe in 2018 and 2019.

In January 2018, Zego was announced as one of three Insurtech startups to take part in Tech City UK’s Upscale program. Later that same year, Zego launched public liability insurance for the gig economy. Coverage is available for purchase by the day, week, month or year up to £1 million.

In 2019, Zego revealed it had secured an undisclosed amount from VC debt provider, Triplepoint, in the form of a credit facility. Later that year, they would partner with France-based La Parisienne Assurances (LPA) to expand its services across Europe, as well as WeFlex, a vehicle provider platform helping companies like Uber manage their fleet. As part of the WeFlex partnership, Zego will provides its 700-strong fleet with a first-of-its-kind insurance policy, driven by real-time data. The result? Rather than an annual premium, often based on arbitrary measures, WeFlex will receive tailor-made pricing models which Zego produces by analysing every aspect of the fleet and its drivers’ behaviour.

In June 2019 Zego announced it had raised $42m in Series B funding, led by investor Target Global. The raise came after the startup announced it had seen 900% growth over the past 12 months. The latest funds are being put towards Zego's expansion across Europe, and the founders stated they planned to double their team from 75 to 150.

The company's arrival in mainland Europe came in July 2019, with the announcement of a partnership with the European e-scooter startup 'dott'. Zego will provide insurance to dott's fleet of shared e-scooters across France and Belgium. The following month Zego secured a partnership with car-subscription service Drover to insure its private hire vehicle subscriber base.

In November 2019, Zego partnered with Engineius to offer the movement-management startup a pay-by-the-mile insurance policy to its fleet customers across 30 European countries.

Later that same month, Zego secured an insurance license, enabling it to collect and share data with its insurance partners.

Zego reported it had tripled its workforce in 2019, reaching a headcount of 200 employees in early 2020. It also revealed it had reached 230m hours' worth of flexible policies sold, and expanded to its fifth European country.

In February 2020 the company secured an insurance broker license in France. The new licence will help to simplify the company's continued expansion in Europe regardless of oncoming Brexit regulations.

In March 2020, Zego announced it would offer 14-days free cover to any customers with suspected symptoms of Covid-19, to enable them to safely isolate without additional costs. A few months later, in May, the startup expanded its partnership with RSA to enhance its flexible van fleet insurance partnership due to the spike in demand for delivery and courier fleets during the pandemic.

In September 2020 Zego announced a new partnership with Bravo Group. The deal will provide greater distribution for the insurtech's fleet product.

Zego acquired telematics company Drivit in December 2020 to help them collect real-time driver behaviour data in-house. Zego claims that by leveraging the information Drivit collects, traditional factors, driver behaviour and an individual's working habits data, they will be able to collect up to 5x more data per vehicle than competitors. Drivit's technology is already embedded into the recently launched Zego Sense app.

Just a week later, Zego announced it has become the first UK insurtech to secure a European broking licence, opting for a Dutch licence. Zego already operates in a number of European countries (including France, Italy and Spain) but the new licence will help ensure business as usual post-Brexit, and help them scale to new territories next year.

In February 2021 Zego partnered with zero-carbon shared vehicle startup Brite, to provide insurance for its e-mopeds, e-scooters and e-bikes in Ireland. The two will share trip data to offer usage-based pricing.

The following month Zego reached Unicorn status with a new $150m Series C round. The new funds will be used to continue its expansion across Europe 'and beyond', double its workforce to 500 by the end of the year, and invest further into technology (the company acquired telematics venture Drivit last year). The insurtech, which collects more than 50 data points per vehicle per second, has provided over 17m policies to date.

Also in March 2021, Zego launched new products, developed in partnership with Wakam, for moped and e-bike businesses in the food delivery market.

In June 2021 Zego partnered with flexible leasing company Sogo to provide flexible UBI to its fleet of cars, including its electric vehicle fleet.

In July 2021 continued its focus on electric vehicles, partnering with energy giant BP for an EV service trial proposition.

Zego doubled its workforce in 2021.

In March 2022 Zego announced a multi-year partnership with Aviva to provide tailored fleet policies to trades and haulage businesses.

In June 2022 Zego partnered with on-demand logistics company Ryde, which connects businesses with last mail delivery riders. The collaboration will involve Zego's insurance validation API being embedded into the Ryde platform, simplifying onboarding.

In July 2022 Zego announced it had laid off around 17% of its workers due to the difficult economic climate. Zego stated it was still on a growth trajectory this year, but costs are increasing due to the inflation in the global economy, causing it to adjust its plans for H2 2022 in order to adapt.

In August 2022 Zego announced a new partnership with QBE to help improve their fleet insurance products. As part of the deal, QBE will be underwriting Zego's behaviour-led fleet product, which uses telematics data to offer a comprehensive risk profile of fleets. By return, QBE will also provide actionable data on how the fleet can improve their risk.