Roamly, the first RV-focused insurtech for the outdoor enthusiast market, announced two pivotal hires with the announcement of former senior vice president of Good Sam, Mary Heneen, as chief commercial officer, and former claims director for Root and Uber, Jessica Ballard, as director of claims.
This announcement comes on the heels of what has been a banner growth year for the world’s first RV-focused embedded insurtech for travel marketplaces. Among the many growth milestones in the past year for Roamly, the insurtech’s parent company, Outdoorsy Holdings, received $125M in fresh funding in 2021 to accelerate the insurtech’s product innovation and international expansion.
In early 2022, Roamly announced it had booked $40 million in premium, launched its own pet insurance product to protect the millions of Americans who travel with their pets each year, and also launched a global travel Insurance product designed to take the fear of trip cancellation penalties out of planning a trip.
“Our team is proud to welcome these two impressive leaders into the fold of the growing Roamly family and we’re eager to see what untapped efficiencies, growth opportunities, and innovations are ahead of us with their hands at the wheel,” said Roamly’s Chief Insurance Officer Aaron Ammar.
Mary Heneen joins Roamly as Chief Commercial Officer. As CCO, she will lead Roamly’s insurance growth opportunities and partnerships. Prior to joining Roamly, Heneen worked in strategic revenue growth development and marketing at several fortune 500 companies, including DIRECTV, Amazon, Comcast, Dish, and Nordstrom.
Most recently, she spent six and a half years at Camping World serving as their Senior Vice President and GM of membership products — including Camping’s World’s insurance arm, Good Sam — where she was responsible for $214M of P&L management. Heneen also helped increase the profit margin for all of Camping World’s subscription-based annuities products by 27% by introducing new products and bundling services as well as integrating cross-sell, upsell, and renewal features.
“It was really just taking a business, flipping it upside down, looking at all the different components associated with it, and putting it back together in a way that made sense,” Heneen says of her tenure at Good Sam. “It’s rethinking the entire business model and putting guardrails in place to make sure it was running effectively, efficiently, and growing.”
There hasn’t been a lot of choice in the insurance marketplace, Heneen says, and what excites her most about joining Roamly is its digital assets and access to RV-specific data from sister company, Outdoorsy.
“There should be some competition in the marketplace and there really hasn’t been,” Heneen said. “So while there are other players in the marketplace, they’re not necessarily solely focused on RVers — it’s a side game for them. I think Roamly can set the stage by being the only insurtech for RVers, by RVers and bundling policies for the best price available.”
“There’s already a great understanding of RVers from Roamly’s sister company Outdoorsy — how they travel and what they like to do when they travel — and that rich source of data will help Roamly grow tremendously,” Heneen said. “Outdoorsy allows for another view into the RVer that is not just about purchasing an RV, but it’s about enjoying the RV. That is a unique data set that will be inherently beneficial in growing the Roamly products.”
Jessica Ballard joins Roamly as Director of Claims after leading the claims team at personal auto insurtech, Root. Prior to her tenure at Root, she managed the North America claims team for Uber. Ballard has a passion for insurance and over 15 years experience in Property & Casualty. She has spent the last six years in the insurtech space building and growing peer-to-peer and gig economy claims departments.
“I’m excited to start this next chapter of my career at Roamly,” Ballard said. “Being able to help insure and provide peace of mind to consumers operating on platforms that help support families and their financial security is incredibly gratifying and I’m looking forward to growing and scaling Roamly’s claims team and providing white-glove service to our consumers and partners.”
In the U.S., Roamly currently provides embedded, episodic insurance coverage to power peer-to-peer RV rental marketplace Outdoorsy, which just surpassed 5.5M days of booked travel and is live in the U.S., Canada, France, and other countries, with plans to expand its international presence in the year ahead.
Agents interested in selling Roamly personal products can learn more about the application process here.
To see what sets Roamly apart in its unique suite of insurance product offerings, visit roamly.com.
About Roamly
Roamly is the first embedded insurtech for travelers that was built to address significant coverage gaps for modern peer-to-peer rental platforms as well as for a rapidly evolving RV industry. Roamly currently powers the episodic rental insurance embedded into the Outdoorsy platform in the U.S., and is paving the way for Outdoorsy’s global expansion. Roamly is currently launching the embedded product in France and will be launching more broadly in the EU in the year ahead.
Roamly also provides personal lines RV policies built for rentals and popular campervan inventory. Most recently, Roamly released additional insurance products for travelers, namely Trip and Travel insurance and Pet Insurance products for those who travel with their pets. For more information, visit www.roamly.com.