Standing on our Business: AnchorWatch Insurance Policies

Our @anchorwatch insurance policies are the result of years of our work, advocating for Bitcoiners to legacy insurance markets, which resulted in the ability for the first time ever, to get high quality coverage when individuals hold their own private keys. We've since expanded to nearly ten different products across custody and insurance.

We have always been transparent about the coverage and exclusions in our policies and are happy to talk about any typical or wild scenarios, explain how we believe that Lloyd's Claim Department would decide according to our policy language, or answer your questions. If you have scenarios that stump us, we can take them to Lloyd's for consultation and bring back that information to the prospective customer.

We are happy to advise you on the coverage and exclusions, and we will always go a step farther and explain why they are excluded. Usually, it's because it's either uninsurable or because the cost of the coverage would drive up the price to the point that no one would purchase it.

Trident Vault and the Flagship and Multi-institution insurance policies work together in tandem. First, remove all possible risks with tech (this helps keep down the insurance costs). Insure the rest.

The tech protects you from the majority of risks and for that reason it can be purchased as standalone service, without insurance, and is an excellent deep cold storage choice that gives you institutional levels of technical security with procedural and regulatory oversight. The insurance fills in the tech gaps where bitcoin native technology cannot protect you. There are three main risk areas that are not highly highly mitigated by Trident and our cutting edge use of native bitcoin script.

‍1. Wrench attacks. You, your family, those in your presence and the same treatment for keyholders at the institutions. No funny business about technical procedures when you've been taken hostage. Real coverage for a real risk. Being dragged in front of a Zoom call with a gun to your head, forced to demand your company's bitcoin be sent or they will kill you and your family is a real risk for some people and companies. Our policy covers those risks.

‍2. AnchorWatch being a bad actor, as determined by law enforcement, not as determined by ourselves. Examples include building zero day and backdoors into our platform, fraudulently altering the vault construction, and misusing the recovery layer in collusion with the recovery partner. These are MASSIVE risks at all tech providers. We cover those risks, backed by A+ rated Lloyd's of London. They underwrite that risk because they spent 2 years tearing us apart doing due diligence; that examination gave them the faith in us and our products that they are willing to back us with billions of dollars.

‍3. Government seizure. The tech doesn't protect you from it, AnchorWatch cannot prevent it, and the insurance doesn't cover it. Your only shot here is if  you or your representatives are still in control of their seed phrases or signing devices when your Flagship vault moves into pure-self custody, in which case you can move your own bitcoin. On the insured policy, CoinCorner being domiciled in Isle of Man may slow down Government Seizure, but it cannot assuredly prevent it. If you feel you are at risk of government seizure and are trying to avoid it, we are not the best option for you.

We cover additional causes of loss, but you shouldn't experience those causes because of the tech. There are additional exclusions, such has hacking, which would drive insurance costs to 3-4% annually despite being a cold storage vault, where those risks are mitigated by airgapped Trident and AnchorWatch technology and procedures. We exclude Bitcoin cryptography breaking (quantum). Nuclear events and war, and there are a few others, but the tech should be able to withstand them. The exception to that is Government Seizure, which the technology and AnchorWatch cannot reliably prevent. Prospective customers are supplied with policies to review prior to making a purchase decision.

Every other custodian in the industry is an insurance customer. AnchorWatch is an insurance expert. We write our policies, we listen to customers, we advocate on their behalf to the oldest insurer in the world and one of the most respected capital markets in the world. In exchange we are trusted by Lloyd's as a Coverholder to determine who is insurance-worthy, to craft policy language, and uniquely to write insurance policies available to individual retail customers, not only businesses. The regulators and Lloyd's hold personal insurance policies and practices to a far higher standard than commercial policies. They must offer real coverage at a fair price, or they will not be accepted into a reinsurance binder. If you need information about insurance, you ask the experts who are required to tell you the truth, not the customers.

‍I and @rob1ham stand behind our products - all of them - and we are always available to discuss our policies, platform and procedures. Our team of licensed experts are extremely knowledgeable and has the ability to get answers quickly on edge cases. If you would like our calendar links, just ask. I'll include mine and Rob's at the end of this article.

We offer three different custody models on our own platform at capped pricing that is the best in the industry for comparable security. Retail pricing starts at $100 a month and cannot go higher than $1000 a month. Flagship insurance policies average .55% and Multi-institution policies average .6% of the amount you choose to insure (you can choose how much insurance you want, for example, you could insure $1M but have $3M in custody). We also offer half a dozen commercial policies, including E&O, D&O, K&R and Mining Property, among others. We offer Insurance Risk Consulting and technical and procedural auditing services through that lens, to help you obtain insurance more affordably. We spend significant amounts of time brokering custom policies for L1 and L2 applications, especially where collateral needs to be safely stored for the duration of a financial contract. We work with miners and data centers to put together unique credit products not available elsewhere. If it's insurance-ish related and has anything to do with Bitcoin or crypto, you should start with us. We can help, or we'll put you in immediate touch with someone who better can.AnchorWatch exists to keep people's Bitcoin, wealth and legacies safe.

Please reach out with questions.