Cover’s Push to Make Pensions and Insurance Clearer and Easier to Use
A more direct connection between people and their money / Courtesy of Cover
For most Israelis, pensions and insurance are not exactly subjects they choose to dwell on. The money is there, deducted from their salary every month, appearing in periodic reports, and most of the time remaining in the gray area of “one day I’ll check it.” But that “one day” can hide high management fees, duplicate coverage, unsuitable plans, and a lot of money the public simply does not know how to read. That is exactly where Cover comes in, an Israeli platform trying to turn one of the most outdated areas in the financial system into a simple, digital and clear experience.
Lior Shakuri, co-founder and chief operating officer of Cover, comes from the worlds of technology, startups and product management, with experience in Israeli growth companies that began with small teams and became significant players. He is now bringing that experience to one of the least accessible fields for the general public, pensions and insurance.
The problem is not with you, it is with everyone
Shakuri says the initial understanding was very simple, people do not understand their pension and insurance world not because they are not smart enough, but because the field is built in a way that makes it hard to understand. “Two of us came from the tech world, and my technology partner and I knew this subject from the employee’s angle, the customer’s angle,” he says. “The third partner came from the investments and finance world, and had already been involved in pensions for years. The connection between the two worlds made us understand that this is an old and opaque market, but the interesting thing is that everyone thinks that only they do not understand it. In practice, it affects everyone.”
According to him, most people simply got used to passing the responsibility on. “People trust, if they are lucky, an insurance agent connected to them or to their workplace. He handles it, closes the issue for them, but they themselves do not really understand what they have.”
From there came the idea to create a more direct connection between the person and their money. No more scattered documents, spreadsheets, five-page reports and unclear terms, but one clear picture. “We wanted to create an unmediated connection with my money. Instead of someone else holding all the documents and explaining to me what to do, I can see and understand it myself.”
When technology meets the gray world of pensions
Cover allows a user to register in a short time and receive a picture of their pension savings, insurance and key data. The information is collected from sources such as the Pension Clearing House, Har Habituach and the Capital Market, Insurance and Savings Authority, and presented in a more accessible way than most of the public is used to.
But Shakuri stresses that simply presenting the information is not enough. “Har Habituach, for example, gives you infrastructure. You see data, but your ability to understand it, draw conclusions and know whether you can improve something is almost nonexistent.”
At Cover, he says, the emphasis is on translating data into action. “You can discover that your management fees are high relative to your salary, that you are paying twice for the same coverage, or that you have coverage that does not suit your life situation. On the other hand, it may be that your situation is excellent, and that is also fine. The main thing is that you know.”
Shakuri says he himself discovered early on how easy it is to miss basic things. “When I started at Cover I was 31 and I saw that my pension was invested in a very conservative government bond track,” he says. “This was money I was supposed to meet in 40 years, while I was managing my disposable money in much more aggressive channels. That did not happen because I decided it, but simply because I did not know.”
For him, that is exactly the point. Sometimes just seeing where the money is, what track it is managed in and what that means over time already creates change. Not necessarily because an immediate action is needed, but because for the first time there is a picture one can understand.
The default of startups
One of the interesting parts of Cover’s story is its adoption דווקא among an audience considered one of the most critical and tech-savvy in Israel, tech workers, founders, finance managers and HR managers. According to company data, 350,000 users are already on the platform, alongside more than 600 tech companies. One of the most notable figures for it is the adoption among employees of Israel’s technology giants, including Google, Amazon, Meta, Apple and Microsoft.
Shakuri says that much of this growth came from the ground up. “To our surprise, we discovered that almost a quarter of the employees of the major technology companies in Israel use Cover. That includes employees, senior managers, people in funds and large companies. Before that says how amazing we are, it mainly says that the problem is real and that a solution is needed.”
According to him, many companies came through employees who left large companies and founded their own startups. “Employees who left to launch a venture saw it as a natural solution. It became a kind of off-the-shelf product, something founders know and bring with them.”
At this stage, Shakuri explains, the change is no longer happening only through marketing activity or direct outreach to companies, but through the industry itself. Employees who were exposed to the platform in large companies move on, found new ventures or join management roles, and bring their familiarity with Cover with them.
“As more employees and managers in the big companies get to know Cover, a natural network effect is created. When 25% of the employees of the giant companies in Israel are already with us, founders and HR managers come through that familiarity, because it has become the default for them. In the coming year we will take this technology one step further, both in Israel and abroad.”
Especially for fast-growing startups, the value is not only for the individual employee. Shakuri explains that companies growing from dozens to hundreds of employees in a short time need a system that can manage onboarding, deposits, reports and processes without creating unnecessary burden on finance and HR departments.
All the information, recommendations and options in one place / Courtesy of Cover
Despite the technological emphasis, Shakuri is careful to clarify that Cover is not trying to remove the human from the equation. Quite the opposite. “We are not eliminating the insurance agent,” he says. “There are users who prefer to do everything digitally and not make a phone call, and there are those who prefer to talk to a person, have a call or even video. Both exist.”
This combination is especially important because the product is aimed not only at young tech workers or people comfortable with apps. “In the end it is relevant to almost anyone over 18 who has insurance or has worked and contributed to a pension.”
Tech was a natural entry point for Cover, an audience accustomed to digital products, demanding transparency and quickly recognizing solutions that save time and hassle. But for Shakuri, the product is much broader.
One of the main barriers in the world of pensions and insurance is the feeling that every check immediately leads to a sales call or some commitment. At Cover, Shakuri says, the idea is the opposite: first of all, to allow the user an unmediated encounter with their pension and insurance. See the information, understand the terms, get a clear picture, and only then decide whether and what they want to do.
“In the world of pensions, the user does not pay the insurance agent. The insurance agent is compensated by the insurance companies, and that is how we work too,” Shakuri explains. “The difference is that with us the interface is first of all almost independent: you encounter your information, your recommendations and your options, and you are not required to make any change. Even if you decided to make a change through Cover, it does not cost you anything at any stage. We are compensated by the relevant insurance companies.”
The people behind your pension. Cover employees / Florentin Film
Not just an app, also people
And what next? Here, he says, artificial intelligence enters deeper into the process. “I thought we would combine technology in the world of pensions, but I did not understand how critical it would be. An agent can provide good service to ten clients, maybe a hundred. For hundreds of thousands, that is already impossible. So technology is a necessity.”
The vision for the coming year is to make the system smarter and more proactive, one that not only presents a snapshot, but identifies changes, checks the portfolio against the market and alerts when something requires attention. Or, as Lior Shakuri puts it simply, the goal is that every person will know what they have, what they are paying for, and what they can do better.
In a world where financial illiteracy costs a lot of money, this is no longer just convenience. It is the beginning of a change in all of our financial consumption habits.
An independent interface / Courtesy of Cover
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