The Sofia office is staffed by 15 engineers and data scientists, who were formerly part of travel metasearch engine Skyscanner. Credit: Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

US-based AI-driven insurance comparison platform Insurify has established an office in Sofia, Bulgaria, which is its first international outpost.

The Sofia office is staffed by 15 engineers and data scientists, who were formerly part of travel metasearch engine Skyscanner. The metasearch engine shuttered its Sofia presence as travel was hit by the Covid-19 pandemic.

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Konstantin Halachev will spearhead the new office as director of engineering. Earlier, he was the engineering manager at Skyscanner.

Insurify CEO Snejina Zacharia called the expansion a “pivotal growth milestone”.

Zacharia stated: “We’re excited to bring on such a great team of engineers and data scientists who have a proven record in building machine learning recommendations for hyper-growth platforms. The team is uniquely qualified to help Insurify enhance its understanding of customer shopping behaviour.

“A core focus for the team will be to scale Insurify’s machine learning, personalisation and recommendation technology across multiple insurance verticals and channels.”

Insurify is also setting up a team of in-house agents, who will be an available resource for customers at all steps of their insurance purchasing journey.

The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based firm has already hired 20 agents and intends to hire additional people over the course of the year.

Shawn Powers will be in charge of the in-house agency operations in the role of VP of Sales and Operations. He previously worked at Answer Financial (part of the Allstate corporation).

“A customer may start online, have a couple questions, engage with one of our professional agents and then return online to complete their purchase,” Powers noted.

Insurify serves a one-stop-shop comparison platform for car, home, as well as life insurance. The firm is said to have grown headcount in Cambridge by over 300% in 2020.

Last month, Toyota Insurance Management Solutions collaborated with Insurify to offer its customers a seamless way to compare and purchase car insurance policies online.