bolt’s Vertical-First Strategy: Insurance at the Moment of Need

At ITC Vegas 2025, Curtis Scott, Head of Strategy & Industry Verticals for bolt in North America, explains the company’s focus on four verticals – mobility, real estate, financial services, and connected devices. These are the assets people rely on daily, and bolt’s aim is to close the protection gap by delivering relevant insurance cover at the moment of need.

Insurance, says Scott, is shifting from a one-off transaction to a conversational, lifecycle experience tied to the asset – think buying a car with insurance coverage configured for that exact vehicle instead of arranging a policy later. Both paths work, but customers prefer a connected journey. The bigger obstacle isn’t product quality, it’s fragmented distribution. Bolt’s approach is to coordinate with existing players to surface strong solutions in the channels consumers already use, rather than add yet another competitor.

Many of bolt’s clients are global consumer brands Stellantis (Jeep, Dodge), Apple, and Samsung who expect world-class, brand-consistent, embedded experiences that scale globally and comply locally. Scott calls bolt’s “magic” the stitching together of consumer-grade UX with multinational compliance and carrier connectivity so programs move beyond pilots. Insurtech, he notes, is graduating from R&D to implementation; to scale, solutions must be multinational, compliant, and in a compelling way.

Device protection is furthest along: a simple checkout process, with obvious daily value, and natural add-on at the point of sale. Focus is now expanding to higher-value, trickier areas, autos, homes, and the financial institutions that finance them. bolt frames embedded insurance as both consumer-led and purpose-driven: people want to buy where they buy the asset, and doing so addresses an estimated ~$2T global insurance gap across P&C, life, and health. The products and issuer appetite exist; timely distribution is the missing link and bolt’s vertical-first exchange aims to deliver that at scale.