2022 in numbers: How we circled the globe 239 times

Another exciting year filled with new achievements has passed by in what felt like the blink of an eye and the wind in our sails is now stronger than ever. In 2022 investors supported our goal to build and scale tailor-made insurance products and services for platform workers by backing us with €5.5m in investment. Our team has also doubled in size, and we are eager to reach new heights this year together with both the partners who have been with us since the beginning and the new partnerships we initiated in 2022.

Distance is no challenge for our customers

Our customers have been busy too, driving as many kilometres as it takes to circumnavigate the earth 239 times. Just thinking about that is enough to get your head spinning. This year our app taxi drivers in Estonia, Latvia and Poland drove at a faster pace compared to 2021 and managed to work fewer hours while helping all of us to reach our destinations. To be exact, it took 455 600 hours to drive 9 593 000 kilometres. Even though more kilometres were driven last year, more than 80% of ride-hailing drivers did not file one single claim during this period. 

But let’s put these numbers into perspective. The average speed of our drivers was 21 km/h. Of course, we know this includes waiting for you when the driver arrives before you can get your coat, mittens and hat on and head downstairs. They also spend time in traffic jams during rush hour, but if you got into your car right now, and started driving straight around the Earth to complete 40,075 km at a pace of 21 km/h and without ever stopping, you could complete 1 round in almost 80 days. But to circle 239 times would take an incredible 52 years. We do not recommend trying this if you’re a proponent of safe driving practices. The longest distance any of our customers drove with one client was more than 434 kilometres. This must have been an exciting adventure. The shortest trips have been really short, sometimes even walking 10 metres can be too much in the Northern European climate, and our app taxi drivers had to help out.

Regarding driving habits, 30% of our drivers fall into the weekender category, the benefit of being a gig worker is that you can work on multiple platforms and choose when you want to drive. 22% of our drivers are Night Riders – they are the patient people who can handle party people and one can only imagine the stories they have to tell. Most of the drivers fall into the Rushers category – that means 41% prefer to drive during rush hours. 

Partnerships that power our success

The past year was not only busy for our ride-hailing customers, it has been an eventful year for our platform partners as well. We launched a gig liability insurance product that enables our partner platforms to cover each and every one of their platform workers jobs. The product launch has had an amazing impact on their sales results because their customers now have an extra layer of protection while people help them to take care of their cars or homes. In 2022 Cachet insured more than 36 000 clean-up jobs provided by gig workers through several platforms. To put that data into perspective, imagine doing clean-ups of your car or home 99 times a day throughout the year and every single day. 

The number of Bolt, Citybee and Elmo Rent vehicles parked via Cachet also grew following the launch of Cachet mobility,  our car-sharing parking product in Latvia together with Bolt Drive. In total, we managed parking of almost 5000 cars, enabling people to commute without owning a personal car. Almost 1M parking sessions were initiated by them. To move on to even more environmentally friendly statistics – more that 14 000 cargo bike bookings were made through Cachet and we are positive that this number will only grow in 2023. 

We started partnerships not only in Latvia but also in Poland where we had successful new beginnings with PZU insurance, iTaxi and Natviol. In cooperation with PZU, we now provide even more flexibility in app taxi car insurance products. What brought Cachet to partner with iTaxi.pl S.A. was a similar story and the desire to introduce revolutionary market changes. iTaxi has revolutionised taxi services in Poland. Cachet is revolutionising insurance, making it easy, quick, digital, and fairly priced. Together with Natviol we started offering innovative usage-based insurance with the best price guarantee for Bolt, Uber, iTaxi and FREE NOW drivers. 

“2022 was a turbulent year in the world, therefore we can be grateful that for Cachet it was a good year. We are extra proud for more than doubling the team and our business. We successfully launched new product lines for blue collar platform workers, following the same principles around work schedule driven flexibility. With new target markets in mind and together with a strong, focused, and united team, we are ready for 2023.” — Hedi Mardisoo, CEO & Co-founder, Cachet

Outlook for 2023 – accelerated growth in a changing world

When it comes to the platform economy, the number of platform workers and freelancers will increase. This will be driven by two trends: companies will hire their staff on more flexible contracts to cut costs and people will use a wider range of services via platforms. We see many new gig platforms popping up (gardeners, car washers, cleaners, lawyers etc). This will increase the demand for people who offer their services via the platform.

In terms of mobility, we predict strong growth of micro-mobility vehicle usage in urban areas, the traffic will be filled with even more cyclists. Regulators in many EU countries are debating whether to start requiring everyone to take out compulsory insurance similar to what is required of car owners in the form of third-party liability motor insurance.

At Cachet, we welcome the changes towards people having more freedom and more flexibility in working conditions, enabled by gig worker platforms and new ways of urban commuting with more and more micro-mobility vehicles on streets instead of cars. We will continue to support the change by improving our existing products and developing new, flexible insurance services that suit the lifestyle and needs of the platform workers of today and tomorrow. 

We are grateful for the past year and looking into the future with great optimism. We are eager to contribute to the development of the platform economy and its growth.