In this Instant Impact exclusive, HousingWire President Diego Sanchez caught up with Canopy Connect’s CEO, Tolga Tezel, at the MBA Annual Conference to discuss their transformational approach to insurance data sharing and verification.

After a career as an early engineer at Dropbox and Nova Credit, Tezel founded Canopy Connect in response to the challenges he witnessed in data-sharing across industries. His experience with Nova Credit involved using consumer-permissioned data to help newcomers gain fair access to credit, which inspired him to explore other areas consumers struggled with information verification.

“I had a conversation with an insurance agent who was literally driving to clients’ homes to have them log into their insurance accounts,” Tezel shared. “It seemed so manual and inefficient, especially in a world where people are accustomed to connecting their bank accounts to apps like PayPal or Venmo.”

This led to the creation of Canopy Connect, a platform that allows consumers to share verified insurance information with lenders, servicers, and other partners quickly and securely.

Reimagining insurance in the mortgage process

Before Canopy Connect, consumers often faced a “scavenger hunt” of sorts to collect insurance documents and share them with lenders. Canopy’s platform eliminates this frustrating step by connecting directly to insurance carriers, automating the entire process.

“For both the consumer and the lender or servicer, there were too many manual steps and too much back-and-forth,” Tezel explained. “We believe consumers should be able to share and verify their critical information easily, securely, and with full consent.”

A key partnership with Encompass

Recently, Canopy Connect partnered with Encompass to bring its verification capabilities to a wider user base. Tezel highlighted the benefits of this integration, stating, “It’s now really easy for Encompass users to send a verification email to a borrower, who then selects their insurance provider and signs in. The data flows automatically into Encompass without any data entry needed.”

By directly connecting with the carrier, Canopy Connect provides lenders with structured, normalized insurance profiles, reducing need for manual review.

Expanding to servicing and compliance

Canopy Connect’s capabilities and applications extend beyond origination to the servicing process. “We maintain the connection to the insurance profile, monitoring for policy changes like cancellations or compliance issues,” Tezel noted.

As a platform handling sensitive consumer data, Canopy Connect prioritizes trust and data security. “We were the first in our category to achieve SOC 2 Type 2 compliance and have undergone rigorous reviews with major carriers and banks,” Tezel emphasized. Their commitment to data security has earned them the trust of over 3,500 companies.

Building for 2025 and beyond

Looking ahead to 2025, Tezel described the company’s goal of transforming insurance transactions into “one-click” processes by connecting directly to carriers and integrating with customer systems.

“We’re already covering over 91% of the homeowners’ insurance market, and we aim to reach 100%,” Tezel said. “Our vision is to power insurance transactions across the entire policy lifecycle, eliminating manual steps like document review and data entry.”

Future-proofing against fraud with source-of-truth data

Tezel also touched on the broader industry issue of synthetic document fraud, specifically the rise of generative AI tools. “Documents can be easily falsified, and relying on them leaves gaps in security,” he warned. “Connecting directly to the source of truth via APIs is the way forward.”