Insurance app Lemonade looks set to drop lawsuit against Germany’s Wefox

Lemonade, the New York-based insurance platform, looks set drop the lawsuit it filed against German company ONE Insurance, its parent company Wefox, and Wefox founder Julian Teicke.

The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court Southern District of NY, alleged that Wefox reverse engineered Lemonade to create ONE, infringed Lemonade’s intellectual property, violated the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and breached the contract in Lemonade’s terms of service.

At the time of the filing, a statement issued on behalf for Wefox said the allegations had no merit and “ultimately appear to be an attempt to disrupt our business rather than a serious dispute,” dubbing Lemonade’s concerns as meritless. “We intend to defend ourselves vigorously. This lawsuit appears to be an attempt to bait the media into covering a non-issue,” concluded the statement.

However, in a slightly bizarre turn of events, Wefox founder Teicke has taken to his personal LinkedIn profile to post what appears to be a mea culpa of sorts — also revealing that he and Lemonade founder Daniel Schreiber recently met in person to discuss Lemonade’s lawsuit against ONE Insurance (as adults are supposed to do).

Posted to LinkedIn on the 2nd of August, Teicke writes: “Here’s the bottom line: Lemonade created something truly revolutionary, and their innovation inspired many in our industry – including myself. There’s a fine line between inspiration and imitation, and we acknowledge that Lemonade’s perspective is that we crossed it in some parts”.

Continues Teicke:

“While ONE has many unique features, I’m committed to addressing this concern of Lemonade. To that end, ONE will immediately undertake a redesign of elements in the app, website and marketing material that are similar to Lemonade. I am looking forward to putting this conflict aside and to exploring possibilities for cooperation in the future”.

In response, Schreiber shared Teicke’s post on his own LinkedIn profile, and thanked him for a “very amicable and constructive meeting” and for committing to remedy the issues raised in the complaint. He also said he is “committed to dropping the lawsuit once all these changes are implemented”.

I have reached out Teicke, who said he was unable to comment, and to Schreiber, who declined to comment on record. If and when the lawsuit is dropped, which I understand could be within a matter of a couple of weeks, we’ll endeavour to update our reporting. As always, watch this space.

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