Goodcover & COVID-19: Full Service and Flexible Deadlines

Firstly, I hope you and your family are safe and healthy, and staying home as much as possible. To our Members and community, here’s how we’re serving you during this time:

• Goodcover remains open and operational during the COVID-19 crisis.
• Claims management and support remains unaffected.
• We have implemented a 60 day grace period on overdue premium payments.
• We have extended our deadlines for providing various documentation, appraisals, and valuations.

Goodcover remains open

According to the California Department of Insurance, insurance is an "essential business" and will continue to remain open in general, albeit with as many people working from home as possible, and with as much social distancing as possible.

Goodcover continues to operate with our team working from home. Fortunately, we were already a "remote first" culture, and now we've pivoted to 100% remote as we practice social distancing. The phones are still answered, chat-stats still say "typically replies within a minute", and we're still welcoming new Members, serving existing ones, and paying claims.

This definitely means more time with our kids, more time on video-chats, and some odd hours, but we remain committed to serving our Members.

Claims are unaffected

Goodcover partners with claims administrators, adjusters and capital providers that are executing their business continuity strategies. Adjusters are working from home, capital reserves are healthy, and in general there has been minimal disruption.

We'll keep the Membership apprised of any changes, but in general the insurance industry is good at contingency planning and being ready to pay in hard times. At this point, even if stay-at-home orders are extended, widened, or become more widespread we still do not anticipate any meaningful disruptions in service.

60 day grace period on overdue premiums

We have gladly complied with the California Department of Insurance's request for a 60 day grace period on overdue premium payments. We've already implemented the change in our systems.

Practically, what this means is that you'll get fewer emails from us if your credit card expires or is cancelled. Policies will not be cancelled if payments continue to be overdue 60 days past their final due date. The automated processes Members have set up to pay premiums remain in place, and are editable on your Goodcover Member Dashboard as usual.

If for any reason you can't pay your Goodcover premium or need an extension, just let us know and we're happy to help if we can.

Documentation deadlines extended

Some actions on your Goodcover account such as adding pieces of jewelry worth over $5,000 typically require documentation. This might mean verification of value, photos, or even official appraisals, with 30 to 60 day deadlines for action. Other than verify the value of these items, these docs make claims much easier as most of the discovery has already been done.

We recognize many of these documents are difficult to get right now.

As a result, we've extended our deadlines to a minimum of 60 days in all cases, with some circumstances calling for open ended timelines. We've also begun to accept more creative documentation, such as old appraisals in place of new ones and pictures in place of valuations.

We'll continue to flexibly adapt as things change, and do our best to make processes as easy and effective for Members as possible.

More to come

The above simply reflect what we are doing to make sure we continue to provide the best service possible to Goodcover Members in these tough times.

With our responsibilities to our Members secured, our next question is, "what else can we do to be helpful?" We're acutely aware that as a property insurance startup, we aren't really on the front lines of this crisis like we would have been if this were an earthquake or wildfire.

That doesn't mean we can't help. At Goodcover, our mission is to make financial peace of mind fair, affordable, and accessible to as many people as possible. We're working out what new meaning this mission takes on in this extraordinary moment – more to come.