Naby Mariyam: Who Is Coverhero?

from Scouting for Growth · host Sabine VdL

In this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine VdL interviews Naby Mariyam, CEO of Coverhero, an insurance platform that provides coverage for all types of gig-economy hustle. The first product delivered by Coverhero, Hustlecover.com was recently launched to fill the gap of financial insecurity for the growing gig economy and self-employed generation. KEY TAKEAWAYS Before setting up Coverhero, my last two startups were in the gig economy and supply chain, so I have some experience building marketplaces and gig-economy platforms. I launched Australia’s first ride-share platform, Ridehero, and a last-mile delivery platform, ZipMate. Before transitioning into tech, I was a social scientist in academia for about 15 years. It’s very humbling to go into a whole different industry where you don’t know how it’s done after being an expert in academia. In my area, I was at the top, and then to go to a completely different industry and start from the bottom was deeply humbling. This is core to my existence, to who I am; I have to fight through these barriers pretty much every single day. I left the Maldives to move to another country and started over. I then decided to get into tech, tick all of the diversity boxes, and fight those biases. And building what we have at Coverhero is a huge accomplishment. There’s no other way for us but to build a customer-centric business. This was truly weird when I first started talking to insurance industry executives who design products around actuaries or loss/expense ratios; it’s very product-centered rather than customer-centric. I then learned how broken the insurance supply chain is, and that got me really excited because I love solving non-sexy, complex supply chain problems. I wanted to find out how we build a product that customers actually want, and how we acquire and retain customers at a lower cost. Our philosophy is to build a truly valuable piece of software that connects insurers to distribution. A couple of factors led us to take this direction. When we first started, we wanted to go direct to consumers and acquire customers that way, but along the way, we realized that to build a company that can dominate a category, you need to find a gap, then define, refine, and refine it again. The category that we define is "work integrated life cover", which is for someone who has finished university and who decided to go into the workforce as a self-employed. BEST MOMENT ‘I wasn’t really interested in insurance, but I had a life-changing experience where I got really sick, and we had an insurance claim rejected. That process led me to be curious enough to think, “Why is this so difficult? Why can’t it be as simple as booking an Uber?”’ ‘To leave academia to jump into the startup world was an existential crisis, I think.’ ‘I’ve always been passionate about creating equity and opportunity for people that don’t have access to networks, this is something the world needs to do a lot more of.’ ‘The last four years I’ve been in the space, I’ve seen a lot of money being invested into ideas that may or may not work, and the bar that’s being set by the insurance industry is very different from the bar that is set for a startup that is not from the InsurTech industry.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Naby Mariyam says: Graduating with a Master of Philosophy in Management at the age of 22, I have had 18 years of experience in a wide range of industries across senior-level positions spanning Academia (Business studies, Research Methodology and Design), Management Consulting, Documentary production, Travel & Destination Marketing, and Technology. Naby's Research background is in social science, where she deeply studied human behavior in her Academic career. Naby is currently taking a break from her PhD to focus on building technology-driven solutions that solve community problems. Naby shares that she is not a new face in the Australian startup scene, having launched several of her own startups and Business ventures, working closely with founders and catalysts of innovation in the Australian Startup Ecosystem over the last 8 years. Naby advised the United Nations Development Project on building start-up ecosystems and designed accelerator programs to drive innovation in developing Nations. Naby was an Australian delegate at the G20 Young Entrepreneurs conference in Berlin in 2017. Naby is a Keynote speaker, commentator, thought leader, and advocate for diversity of thought in the financial services and technology sector. She loves salsa dancing, poetry, and InsurTech (in that order). When Naby is not exploring her side hustles, she runs Coverhero, an embedded InsurTech startup focusing on revolutionizing insurance services, focusing on the needs of Millennials and Gen Z. Coverhero launched its first product www.hustlecover.com to fill the gap of financial insecurity for the growing Gig Economy and self-employed generation, and its smart home insurance API www.lucci.io in 2021. Website: www.hustlecover.com Email: [email protected] ABOUT THE HOST Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet. If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights. And if you’re interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at [email protected]

What this episode covers

If booking a ride takes 30 seconds, why does filing an insurance claim feel like a legal marathon? In this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine VanderLinden speaks with Naby Mariyam, Founder of Coverhero, about redesigning insurance for the gig economy — starting from lived frustration. Naby didn’t plan to enter insurance. A life-changing illness and a rejected claim forced her to confront a system that felt opaque, rigid, and disconnected from customer reality. That experience sparked a question: why can’t insurance be as simple as booking an Uber? Her answer became Coverhero — and its first product, Hustlecover.com. The gig and self-employed workforce is growing rapidly, yet traditional underwriting models penalize independence. Credit scores drop. Risk profiles shift. Products are designed around actuarial efficiency rather than customer experience. Naby approached the problem differently. With a background in social science and experience building gig marketplaces, she understood behavior, incentives, and ecosystem design. She also recognized something broken in the insurance supply chain — complexity layered over misaligned incentives. Instead of building another narrow product, Coverhero defined a new category: Work-Integrated Life Cover — protection designed around someone entering the workforce as self-employed, not someone tied to a single employer. The strategy evolved. Initially, Coverhero pursued a direct-to-consumer model. Over time, the team identified a larger opportunity: building a valuable software layer connecting insurers and distribution more efficiently — solving infrastructure friction rather than just product gaps. Naby’s journey also reflects founder resilience. Leaving academia was an existential shift. Moving countries, navigating bias as a diverse female founder, and building in a regulated industry required persistence. Yet those experiences shaped a deep commitment to equity and access. She challenges the industry’s mindset: too much capital has chased shiny ideas without addressing systemic friction. Meanwhile, startups in InsurTech face higher regulatory bars than many tech peers. This episode is essential listening for: Insurers targeting Millennials and Gen Z Founders building embedded insurance infrastructure Investors evaluating category-defining platforms Leaders rethinking supply chain complexity Because the next wave of insurance innovation won’t come from tweaking policy wordings. It will come from rethinking how work, identity, and risk intersect. And for a generation building careers on hustle, protection must integrate seamlessly into life itself. The question isn’t whether gig workers need cover. It’s whether insurance can finally meet them where they are.