Hippo Holdings (HIPO) Risk Factors

Existing regulations and changes to existing regulations, their interpretation or implementation, or new regulations could impede our use of this technology or require that we disclose our proprietary technology to our competitors, which could impair our competitive position and result in a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, and financial condition.

Our success is dependent in part on protecting our intellectual property rights and technology, including any source code, proprietary information, data, processes and other forms of information, know how, and technology. We rely on a combination of patents, trademarks, service marks, and trade secret laws to establish and protect our intellectual property. We also seek to control access to our proprietary information by entering into a combination of invention assignment agreements and nondisclosure agreements with our employees, consultants, and with our third-party providers and strategic partners. While these agreements will give us contractual remedies upon any unauthorized use or disclosure of our proprietary business information or intellectual property, we cannot assure you that these agreements will be effective in controlling access to, and use and distribution of, our platform and proprietary information, and we may not always be able to effectively monitor or prevent such unauthorized use or disclosure. We also seek to protect our proprietary information and intellectual property through contractual restrictions in our commercial agreements with third-party licensees, partners, and other third parties. However, some license provisions that protect against unauthorized use, copying, transfer, and disclosure of our technology may be unenforceable under the laws of certain jurisdictions and foreign countries. Certain arrangements with joint development partners may limit our ability to protect, maintain, enforce, or commercialize such intellectual property rights, including requiring agreement with or payment to our joint development partners before protecting, maintaining, licensing, or initiating enforcement of such intellectual property rights, and may allow such joint development partners to register, maintain, enforce, or license such intellectual property rights in a manner that may affect the value of the jointly-owned intellectual property or our ability to compete in the market. We have filed, and may continue in the future to file, trademark and patent applications to protect certain of our innovations and intellectual property. However, we cannot guarantee that patents will issue on our pending patent applications or that we will be successful in registering our trademarks. Our existing intellectual property, and any intellectual property granted to us or that we otherwise acquire in the future, may be contested, circumvented, invalidated or held unenforceable, and we may not be able to prevent third parties from infringing our rights to our intellectual property. Therefore, the exact effect of the protection of this intellectual property cannot be predicted with certainty. In addition, given the costs, effort, risks, and downside of obtaining patent protection, including the requirement to ultimately disclose the invention to the public, we may choose not to seek patent protection for certain innovations. Any failure to adequately obtain such patent protection, or other intellectual property protection, could later prove to adversely impact our business. While software and other of our proprietary works may be protected under copyright law, we have chosen not to register any copyrights in these works, and instead, primarily rely on protecting our software as a trade secret. In order to bring a copyright infringement lawsuit in the United States, the copyright must be registered. Accordingly, the remedies and damages available to us for unauthorized use of our software may be limited. We currently hold various domain names relating to our brand, including hippo.com and hippoinsurance.com, among others. Failure to protect our domain names could adversely affect our reputation and brand and make it more difficult for users to find our website. We may be unable, without significant cost or at all, to prevent third parties from acquiring domain names that are similar to, infringe upon, or otherwise decrease the value of our trademarks and other proprietary rights. While we take precautions designed to protect our intellectual property, there are steps that we have not yet taken to protect our intellectual property on a global basis. Additionally, the steps that we have already taken to protect our intellectual property may not be sufficient or effective. Third parties may knowingly or unknowingly infringe our proprietary rights and third parties may challenge proprietary rights held by us and we may not be able to prevent infringement or misappropriation of our proprietary rights without incurring substantial expense. If third parties copy our technology and use our proprietary brand, content, and information to create or enhance competing solutions and services, the value of our brand and other intangible assets may be diminished, competitors may be able to more effectively mimic our service and methods of operations, the perception of our business and service to customers and potential customers may become confused, and our ability to attract customers may be adversely affected. We may need to engage in litigation to enforce our rights. Litigation to protect and enforce our intellectual property rights could be costly, time-consuming, and distracting to management and could result in the impairment or loss of portions of our intellectual property, and the outcome of litigation could be unpredictable. Our efforts to enforce our intellectual property rights may be met with defenses, counterclaims, and countersuits attacking the validity and enforceability of our intellectual property rights. Our inability to protect our proprietary technology against unauthorized copying or use, as well as any costly litigation or diversion of our management's attention and resources, could impair the functionality of our platform, delay introductions of enhancements to our platform, result in our substituting inferior or more costly technologies into our platform, or harm our reputation or brand.

We provide homeowners' insurance products through our website that competes with traditional offline counterparts. While we also offer insurance through traditional, offline producers, the continued growth and acceptance of our products and services will depend, to a large extent, on the continued growth in commercial use of the internet and our ability to innovate and distinguish our products and services from traditional markets. Purchasers of insurance may develop the perception that purchasing insurance products online is not as effective as purchasing such products through a producer or other traditional offline methods, and the homeowners' insurance markets may not migrate online as quickly as (or at the levels that) we expect. Moreover, if, for any reason, an unfavorable perception develops that data automation is less efficacious than traditional offline methods of purchasing insurance, underwriting, claims processing, and other functions that use data automation, our business, results of operations, and financial condition could be adversely affected.

We must continue to attract, retain, and grow the number of skilled and reliable service professionals who can provide services across our products. In addition to skill and reliability, our customers want to work with service professionals and claims adjusters whom they trust to work in their homes and with whom they feel safe. While we maintain screening processes to try to prevent unsuitable service professionals from entering our organization, these processes have limitations and, even with these safety measures, no assurances can be provided regarding the future behavior of any service provider. Inappropriate and/or unlawful behavior of service professionals generally, particularly any such behavior that compromises the trustworthiness of service providers and/or of the safety of our customers, could result in bad publicity and related damage to our reputation, detriment to our brands and brand-building efforts, and/or actions by governmental and regulatory authorities, criminal proceedings and/or litigation. The occurrence of any of these events could, in turn, adversely affect our business, reputation, financial condition, and results of operations.

Our business relies on certain third-party data, software, technology, and intellectual property that we obtain under licenses from other companies including insurance industry proprietary information that we license from Insurance Services Office, Inc. ("ISO"). We anticipate that we will continue to rely on such third-party data, software, technology, and intellectual property and we may license additional third-party data, software, technology, and intellectual property in the future. We cannot assure that these third-party licenses, or support for such licensed software and technologies, will continue to be available to us on commercially reasonable terms, if at all. Although we believe that there are commercially reasonable alternatives to the third-party products we currently license, other than proprietary information provided by ISO, this may not always be the case, or it may be difficult or costly to replace. In addition, integration of new third-party products may require significant work and require substantial investment of our time and resources. Also, should ISO refuse to license its proprietary information to us on the same terms that it offers to our competitors and we are unable to find a comparable replacement, we could be placed at a significant competitive disadvantage. In the event that we cannot renew and/or expand existing licenses, we may be required to discontinue or limit our use of the products that include or incorporate the licensed software, technology, or other intellectual property. Any of these results could harm our business, results of operations, and financial condition. Any errors or defects in third-party data, software, technology, and intellectual property that we license could result in errors that could harm our brand and business. We also cannot be certain that our licensors are not infringing the intellectual property rights of others or that our licensors have sufficient rights to the licensed software and technology in all jurisdictions in which we may operate. If we are unable to obtain or maintain rights to any of this software or technology because of intellectual property infringement claims brought by third parties against our licensors or against us, our ability to develop our services containing such software or technology could be severely limited and our business could be harmed. Many of the risks associated with the use of third-party software, technology, and other intellectual property cannot be eliminated, and these risks could negatively affect our business.

We are a holding company that transacts a majority of our business through operating subsidiaries. Our ability to meet our operating and financing cash needs could depend on the surplus and earnings of our subsidiaries, and upon the ability of our insurance subsidiaries to transfer funds to us. Payments of dividends by our insurance company subsidiaries are restricted by state insurance laws, including laws establishing minimum solvency and liquidity thresholds. The limitations are based on income and surplus determined in accordance with statutory accounting principles, not GAAP. The jurisdictions in which our current insurance company subsidiaries are domiciled impose certain restrictions on the ability of our insurance company subsidiaries to pay dividends to its parent. These restrictions are based, in part, on the prior year's statutory income and surplus. In general, dividends up to specified levels are considered ordinary and may be paid by giving prior notice to regulators. Dividends in larger amounts, or extraordinary dividends, are subject to a thirty-day prior notice period unless the insurance commissioner of the relevant state of domicile approves the dividend during that prior notice period. Under the insurance laws of Illinois and Texas, an extraordinary dividend or distribution is defined as a dividend or distribution that, together with other dividends and distributions made within the preceding 12 months, exceeds the greater of (1) 10% of the insurer's surplus as regards policyholders as of the preceding December 31 and (2) net income for the 12-month period ending the preceding December 31. In addition, dividends may be paid only from earned surplus of the insurance company. In addition, our insurance company subsidiaries could be subject to contractual restrictions in the future, including those imposed by indebtedness we may incur in the future. Our insurance company subsidiaries may also face competitive pressures in the future to maintain insurance financial stability or strength ratings. These restrictions and other regulatory requirements would affect the ability of our insurance company subsidiaries to make dividend payments, and we may not receive dividends in the amounts necessary to meet our obligations.

Currently, Spinnaker is licensed to write limited lines of business in 50 states and the District of Columbia, and Hippo Analytics Inc. is licensed as an insurance agency in 50 states and the District of Columbia. Each U.S. state regulator retains the authority to license insurance producers and insurance companies in their states, and a producer or company generally may not operate in a state in which it is not licensed. Accordingly, we are not permitted to sell or underwrite insurance to residents of the remaining states and territories of the United States for lines or products for which we are not authorized, which is likely to put us at a disadvantage among many of our competitors that have been in business much longer than us and are licensed to sell their insurance products in most, if not all, U.S. jurisdictions. Additionally, RHS is domiciled in the Cayman Islands, and as such noncompliance with applicable Cayman regulations may subject us to regulatory action or private litigation. Further, applicable laws, regulations, and administrative practices in the Cayman Islands may be subject to significant change, with or without notice, due to economic, political, and other conditions. We are subject to extensive regulation and supervision in the states in which we transact business by the individual state insurance departments. This regulation is generally designed to protect the interests of consumers, and not necessarily the interests of insurers or producers, their shareholders, or other investors. Numerous aspects of our insurance business are subject to regulation, including, but not limited to, premium rates, mandatory covered risks, limitations on the ability to non-renew or to cancel or elect not to renew business, prohibited exclusions, licensing and appointment of agents, restrictions on the size of risks that may be insured under a single policy, reserves and provisions for unearned premiums, losses and other obligations, deposits of securities for the benefit of customers, investments and capital, policy forms and coverages, advertising and other conduct, including restrictions on the use of credit information and other factors in underwriting, as well as other production, underwriting and claims practices. To the extent we decide to expand our current product offerings to include other insurance products, this would subject us to additional regulatory requirements and scrutiny in each state in which we elect to offer such products. States have also adopted legislation defining and prohibiting unfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive acts and practices in the business of insurance. Prohibited practices include, but are not limited to, misrepresentations, false advertising, coercion, disparaging other insurers, unfair claims settlement procedures, discrimination in the business of insurance, and offering illegal inducements in connection with insurance sales. Noncompliance with any of such state statutes may subject us to regulatory action by the relevant state insurance regulator, and, in certain states, private litigation. States also regulate various aspects of the contractual relationships between insurers and licensed agents and brokers. Such laws, rules, and regulations are usually overseen and enforced by the various state insurance departments, as well as through private rights of action and by state attorneys general. Such regulations or enforcement actions are often responsive to current consumer and political sensitivities, such as homeowners' insurance rates and coverage forms, which may arise after a major event. Such rules and regulations may result in rate suppression, limit our ability to manage our exposure to unprofitable or volatile risks, limit our ability to non-renew business, or lead to fines, premium refunds, or other adverse consequences. The federal government also may regulate aspects of our businesses, such as the protection of consumer confidential information or the use of consumer insurance (credit) scores to underwrite and assess the risk of customers under the Fair Credit Reporting Act ("FCRA"). Among other things, the FCRA requires insurance companies to have a permissible purpose before obtaining and using a consumer report for underwriting purposes, as well as comply with related notice and recordkeeping requirements. Failure to comply with federal requirements under the FCRA or any other applicable federal laws would subject us to regulatory fines and other sanctions. In addition, given our short operating history to-date and rapid speed of growth, we are particularly vulnerable to regulators identifying errors in the policy forms we use, the rates we charge, and our customer communications, including but not limited to cancellations, non-renewals, and reinstatements. For example, in March 2024 we received inquiries from the California Department of Insurance ("CDI") related to the complaints they received from consumers specifically as regards the compliance with California law of the non-renewal of those homeowners' policies. Although Hippo was able to resolve the California complaints and corresponding concerns of the CDI, if additional or future compliance issues arise, the CDI could impose fines as well as require remediation, refunds, or other penalties, which could be substantial. Regulatory actions or related civil actions by consumers could have a material financial impact on Hippo or its subsidiaries. Regulators also have the ability to issue cease-and-desist orders and take other civil actions to address compliance. Our ability to retain state licenses depends on our ability to meet licensing requirements enacted or promulgated in each state (sometimes based on model laws and regulations developed by the NAIC), subject to significant variations across states. If we are unable to satisfy the applicable licensing requirements of any particular state, we could lose our license to do business in such state, which would result in the temporary or permanent cessation of our operations in that state. Alternatively, if we are unable to satisfy applicable state licensing requirements, we may be subject to additional regulatory oversight, have our license suspended, face monetary penalties, or be subject to seizure of assets. Any such events could adversely affect our business, results of operations or financial condition. In addition, as a condition to writing business in certain states, insurance companies are often subject to assessment, required to participate in various pools or risk sharing mechanisms or to accept certain classes of risk, regardless of whether such risks meet their underwriting requirements for voluntary business. The performance of this business may negatively impact us. Some states also limit or impose restrictions on the ability of an insurer to withdraw from certain classes of business. Certain states impose significant restrictions on a company's ability to materially reduce its exposures, non-renew, or to withdraw from certain lines of business. State insurance departments can impose significant charges on an insurer in connection with a market withdrawal or refuse to approve withdrawal plans including on the grounds that they could lead to market disruption. Laws and regulations that limit cancellation and non-renewal of policies or that subject withdrawal plans to prior approval requirements may significantly restrict our ability to terminate unprofitable policies or to exit unprofitable markets. Such actions and related regulatory restrictions may limit our ability to reduce our potential exposure including, but not limited to, catastrophe events such as hurricane-related losses.

We must accurately and timely evaluate and pay claims that are made under our policies. Many factors affect our ability to pay claims accurately and timely, including the efficiency of our claims processing, the training and experience of our claims adjusters (including our third-party claims administrators and adjusters), and our ability to develop or select and implement appropriate procedures and systems to support our claims functions. The speed by which our technology allows us to process and pay claims is a differentiating factor for our business and an increase in the average time to process claims could undermine our reputation and position in the insurance marketplace. Any failure to pay claims accurately or timely could also lead to regulatory and administrative actions or material litigation; lead to loss or reduction in the reinsurance recoveries; or result in damage to our reputation, any one of which could materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, and prospects. If our claims adjusters or third-party claims administrators are unable to effectively process our volume of claims, our ability to grow our business while maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction could be compromised, which-in turn-could adversely affect our reputation and operating margins.

Our financial and operational results could be impacted by emerging risk and changes to the regulatory landscape in areas like ESG requirements. While we closely monitor and respond to topics like social, environmental, and demographic changes that include longer lifespans, income and wealth inequalities, environmental challenges and opportunities to expand global access to the financial system across all segments of the population, updated and changing regulatory and societal environment requirements could impact financial and operational results. Changes and uncertainty in U.S. and non-U.S. legislation, policy or regulation regarding climate risk management or other ESG practices may result in higher regulatory costs, compliance costs and increased capital expenditures, and changes in regulations may impact security asset prices, resulting in realized or unrealized losses on our investments. Physical risks and transitional risks could increase the Company's cost of doing business and actual or perceived failure to adequately address ESG expectations of our various stakeholders could lead to a tarnished reputation and loss of customers and clients.

We believe that growth of our business and revenue depends upon our ability to strategically grow our business in the geographic markets that we currently serve by retaining our existing customers, adding new customers in certain geographies, and adding new insurance and non-insurance home-related products. Expanding into new geographic markets, reducing our footprint in some geographic markets, and introducing new products takes time, requires us to navigate and comply with extensive regulations, and may occur more slowly than we expect or than it has occurred in the past. If we lose customers, our value will diminish. In particular, while we expect our loss performance to improve over time as more customers renew their policies and remain customers for longer, our recent nationwide pause in writing new HO3 business and other actions to combat volatility resulted in a loss of customers, and any future loss of customers could lead to higher loss ratios, loss ratios that cease to decline, or declining revenue, any of which would adversely impact our profitability. If we fail to remain competitive on customer experience, pricing, or insurance coverage options, our ability to grow and retain our business may also be adversely affected. In addition, we may fail to accurately predict or execute risk segmentation of new and renewal customers or potential customers, which could also reduce our profitability. While a key part of our business strategy is to retain and add customers in our existing markets, we also intend to expand our operations into new markets and new products. In doing so, we may incur losses or otherwise fail to enter new markets or introduce new products successfully. Our expansion into new markets and new products may place us in unfamiliar competitive environments and involve various risks, including competition, government regulation, the need to invest significant resources, and the possibility that returns on such investments will not be achieved for several years or at all. There are many factors that could negatively affect our ability to grow our customer base, including if: - we fail to effectively use search engines, social media platforms, content-based online advertising, and other online sources for generating traffic to our website;- potential customers in a particular marketplace or more generally do not meet our underwriting guidelines;- our products are not competitive in terms of customer experience, pricing, or insurance coverage options;- our competitors mimic our digital platform or develop other innovative services, causing current and potential customers to purchase their insurance products instead of our products;- we lose customers to new market entrants and/or existing competitors;- we do not obtain regulatory approvals necessary for expansion into new markets or in relation to our products (such as line, form, underwriting, and rating approvals) or such approvals contain conditions that impose restrictions on our operations (such as limitations on growth);- our digital platform experiences disruptions;- we suffer reputational harm to our brand resulting from negative publicity, whether accurate or inaccurate;- we fail to expand geographically;- we fail to offer new and competitive products, to provide effective updates to our existing products or to keep pace with technological improvements in our industry;- we are unable to maintain traditional retail agent relationships;- customers have difficulty installing, updating or otherwise accessing our website or software application on mobile devices or web browsers as a result of actions by us or third parties;- customers are unable or unwilling to adopt or embrace new technology;- technical or other problems frustrate the customer experience, particularly if those problems prevent us from generating quotes or paying claims in a fast and reliable manner; or - we are unable to address customer concerns regarding content, data privacy, and security generally or for our digital platform specifically. Our inability to overcome these challenges could impair our ability to attract new customers and retain existing customers and could have a material adverse effect on our business, revenue, operating results, and financial condition.

The global economy has been negatively impacted by the military conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas has caused political, economic, and military instability in Israel and surrounding regions. Several of our employees are located in Israel, and the ongoing conflict may adversely affect them and our operations there. While we have no operations in Russia or Ukraine, our business may be indirectly adversely affected by this conflict and its effects, including as a result of financial and economic sanctions imposed by governments in U.S., United Kingdom and European Union, among others, on certain industry sectors and parties in Russia. We are unable to predict the impact of either the Israel-Hamas conflict or the Russia-Ukraine conflict on our business or the global economy. The impact of further escalation of geopolitical tensions related to these conflicts, including increased trade barriers or restrictions on global trade, is unknown and could result in, among other things, heightened cybersecurity threats, protracted or further increased inflation, lower consumer demand, fluctuations in interest and foreign exchange rates and increased volatility in financial markets, any of which could adversely affect our businesses, results of operations and financial condition.

In January 2020, the outbreak of COVID-19 was recognized as a public health emergency of international concern, or pandemic, by the World Health Organization, and the WHO declared an end to the pandemic on May 5, 2023. The spread of COVID-19 caused us to modify our business practices (including employee travel, employee work locations in certain cases and cancellation of physical participation in meetings, events and conferences and to increase our use of web-based solutions for business processes like meetings and working remote solutions) and severely impacted businesses worldwide, including many in the insurance sector. Certain effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are expected to continue to impact our loss ratios as homes are still being used more intensively due to widespread remote working environments, as home infrastructure and equipment breakdowns occur more frequently with increased use. COVID-19 also delayed our recoverability of premiums where moratoriums were imposed and delayed the launch of some of our Hippo Home Care products. Although the pandemic has come to a conclusion, the full extent of COVID-19 related financial impact on our business cannot be accurately predicted at this time.