Evertas buys crypto currency mining insurer

Evertas, a Bermuda-licensed crypto insurance company, has agreed to buy Bitsure, which provides insurance to crypto currency miners.

Evertas said the acquisition would enable Bitsure, which currently insures about 6% of the Bitcoin mining network, to write crypto mining policies up to $200 million per location, and 20 times more capacity than Bitsure had access to previously.

Evertas said crypto mining is the computer processor intensive method by which most blockchains, including Bitcoin, verify transactions and issue new coins.

It added: “Multiple factors combine to make insuring mining equipment significantly more complex than insuring network data centres or other operations with large concentrations of computer hardware.

“Consequently, property insurance protecting crypto mining operations has been difficult to get.”

Evertas chief executive officer J. Gdanski said: “Bitsure is a product of smart and eager entrepreneurs who built a great company fulfilling a critical yet mostly unmet need.

“As a result, Bitsure quickly grew to the point where they needed help scaling — not just from an insurance capacity perspective but also from a team and resources perspective. These are all things Evertas has to offer.

 “In joining forces, Evertas benefits from the addition of key personnel and their deep understanding of mining, mining risks, and the broader Web3 ecosystem.”

Crypto news website Coindesk reported that Evertas had asked Bitsure to be its dedicated mining policy underwriter earlier this year.

Bitsure co-founder Thomas Shewchuck will  join Evertas as head of underwriting. He started his career as a wholesale insurance broker in 2011 and began mining cryptocurrencies with his partners in 2019.

“Not long after launching Bitsure, we collaborated with Evertas on multiple underwriting projects, where it was readily apparent that together, there was real synergy. That realization soon led to conversations about merging our operations,” Shewchuck said.

“The combination of Bitsure’s expertise and the unmatched insurance capacity Evertas has access to is a game changer for crypto mining operations of all sizes.”

Bitsure’s regulatory compliance expert and lead underwriter, Sarah Leon, reprises that role at Evertas.

“The Bitsure team saw the huge insurance gap afflicting a vibrant but poorly understood market and decided to build a solution. It’s a very relatable story, because it describes our origin as well,” said Evertas Co-Founder and President Raymond Zenkich.

“Only a handful of people possess the kind of specialised insurance and crypto mining knowledge we saw in abundance at Bitsure, and we’re fortunate to have them joining our team.”

In June, Evertas announced that Bermuda-based Arch Capital had authorised cryptocurrency insurer Evertas to increase the coverage limit for a single policy to $420 million for custodians or exchanges in what the Eveertas said was the highest in the industry.

Evertas, which is a Lloyd’s of London coverholder, previous cover limit was $5 million. Its status as a coverholder gives Evertas the authority to write crypto insurance on behalf of Arch.

The previous single policy limit for Evertas was $5 million.

Arch’s London subsidiary has also authorised Evertas to provide insurance on crypto mining hardware of up to $200 million, also the largest single policy coverage, according to Evertas. Those are property policies used by crypto miners to protect their mining equipment from being destroyed by damage from fire, flood, and other natural causes.