Oscar’s IPO came on the heels of several other public market debuts for insurtech groups in the past year, which fueled an already strong run of stock market listings. While Oscar, which bills itself as the first health insurance company “built around a full stack technology platform”, has more than half a million paying members and offers its insurance plans in 18 US states, the company has struggled to become profitable. In 2020, it recorded widening losses of more than $400m on $2.3b of direct policy premiums, a stand-in for revenue. Most of those premiums are ceded to reinsurance firms.