When QuoteWizard started 10 years ago, it was incubated inside an education marketing firm, housed in a little corner of an office in Seattle’s Pioneer Square. Now, the insurance comparison marketplace occupies four floors in the same building, and the company announced today that it is opening a new office in Denver.
The bootstrapped business has grown in market share, as well. What started out as a place to find auto and home insurance has recently expanded into health coverage as well. The company currently has more than 8,000 local insurance agents that quickly provide online quotes.
Five years ago, the company had about 15 competitors and they were starting to consolidate, said QuoteWizard CEO and co-founder Scott Peyree.
“We had about 2,000 insurance agents, but it just wasn’t a critical mass, and so we said, ‘We’re either going to have to sell the business, or we’re just going to have to go big and get a really big mass of insurance agents,'” Peyree said. “And we decided to go big.”
QuoteWizard is on track to do $100 million in revenue this year. Peyree thinks that number will double by 2020. The company makes money by letting insurance providers purchase leads online; the service is free to end users.
The company has about 180 employees right now, with about 15 already working at the Denver offices. However, that space has room for 40 people, and with a number of smaller competitors based there, Peyree expects to draw in more talent from the region.
QuoteWizard is almost a family business. Peyree founded the company with his brother Rob Peyree, his father Tom Peyree and his longtime friend John Anderson. Rob is the COO and Tom is the CFO, while Anderson serves as CTO.
The company hasn’t taken any outside investment. The team self-funded the company in part thanks to the sale of their previous business, WorldClass Strategy, which was sold to Halyard Education Partners in 2007.
