Lemonade nabs NY’s top insurance regulator who gave it a hard time

Lemonade, the artificial intelligence and behavioural economics-powered insurtech, has brought in New York's former chief insurance regulator who, it claims, “played a make-or-break role” in the company’s initial days by scrutinising its business model before finally granting it license to operate in New York.

The former executive deputy superintendent for insurance at the New York Department of Financial Services, Scott Fischer (pictured), joins  Lemonade as head of government relations and co-general counsel.

As  Lemonade's first head of government relations, Fischer will provide strategic counsel regarding laws and regulations impacting the company and guide strategy around relationships with key stakeholders throughout the insurance regulatory community. He will also serve as co-general counsel alongside Bill Latza, who has been a core part of  Lemonade's team from the start and plans to retire at year-end.

Most recently, Fischer was a partner at global law firm DLA Piper, where he represented international, national, and local insurers and producers in their regulatory and compliance activities. Fischer worked with New York’s insurance regulator for nearly 10 years, ultimately becoming the “top insurance regulator” by serving as the executive deputy superintendent for insurance in the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYSDFS) before departing the public sector. During his tenure at the NYSDFS, Fischer led a unit supervising approximately 1,700 insurers operating in New York with assets exceeding $4 trillion.

“Scott played a make-or-break role in  Lemonade's early days, as the regulator who scrutinised our business, gave us a hard time, and ultimately gave us our license!” said Daniel Schreiber,  Lemonade CEO and co-founder. “He was a thoughtful, fair minded, and exacting regulator, and his deep familiarity with insurance regulation on the one hand, and  Lemonade on the other, make him the ideal leader of our government relations efforts.”

Fischer commented: “I spent years regulating an industry that’s been operating the same way because, simply put, that’s the way it’s always been done. Not with  Lemonade. They’ve been challenging this orthodoxy since day one when I granted their license to operate in New York. Now things have come full circle, and I get to be part of the fun, helping Lemonade grow and reimagine the industry in a tech-first world.”

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