Zeal Platform · v1.3 · Prospectus For retail partners considering an in-house extended protection program Now onboarding · Series A · Spring 2026
§ Filed for the independent retail floor

Stop handing the most profitable line
on your invoice to somebody else's insurer.

Zeal is the warranty administration platform built for independent retailers who'd rather run their own extended protection program than continue to hand the underwriting margin to Allstate, Asurion, or the carrier behind your manufacturer's plan.

  • Carrier modelDOWC · PORC · Fronted
  • Coverage50 states · multi-product
  • SettlementDaily · T+1 · ACH/CC
§ 01 The thesis

For every dollar of extended protection premium your store collects, somewhere between fifty‑five and seventy cents leaves with the carrier.

That money — the spread between what the customer pays and what the claim ultimately costs — is the most reliable line in the consumer durables business. For a century it has flowed, by default, to the half‑dozen national insurers and warranty administrators who sell their paper through your register.

Zeal is the operating system for taking it back. We are the third‑party administrator — but you are the obligor, the underwriter, and the residual owner of the reserve. We run the plan, the platform, the claims floor, the compliance back office. You keep the float and the underwriting profit.

—  Zeal · Platform Prospectus v1.3

§ 02 How the business runs, in three movements
01 At the register

A sale, in under sixty seconds.

Your floor staff opens the POS portal on a tablet, scans the product, records the manufacturer warranty, and offers the customer the protection plan you configured. No payment is collected per sale — every sale is rolled into a daily ACH settlement at close.

  • Barcode & UPC product lookup
  • Pre‑built coverage scopes & warranty presets
  • Rep talk‑tracks & objection prompts
  • Customer receipt via email & SMS
02 When the customer files

A claim, opened by text message.

The customer texts the claims number on their plan card. A Claude‑powered intake agent gathers the symptoms, takes a photo, verifies coverage against the plan, and triages — Approve, Review, or Deny — before any human picks it up. Most plan holders never log in.

  • Natural‑language SMS intake (EN + ES)
  • Confidence‑scored auto‑approval under your threshold
  • Seamless human handoff at any turn
  • Photo & conversation history on the claim record
03 Where the money sits

A reserve, earning float, in your name.

Net premium sweeps each day from Stripe into a custodial bank account titled to your DOWC or PORC entity — never commingled with Zeal's operating funds. The platform is the authorized administrator; you are the owner. Earned premium distributes monthly.

  • Segregated custody at FDIC‑insured bank
  • Money‑market / short‑duration bond allocation
  • Real‑time reserve adequacy monitoring
  • Float income split, transparently, line by line
§ 03 Money architecture

Built for the way insurance money actually moves.

Most SaaS that touches premium gets one thing dangerously wrong: it commingles the customer's money with the operating account. Zeal is engineered, end to end, around a single architectural principle.

Customer premium is never held by Zeal. It moves through Stripe to a custodial bank account titled to your warranty entity, with Zeal as authorized administrator. Zeal's account receives only what Zeal has earned.

Fig. 01 A single day's premium, in transit
Customer $1,400 5 plans sold today
at register
Stripe · platform $1,400 daily batch · ACH/CC
TPA fee · 18%
net premium · 82%
Zeal · operating $252 earned fee — Zeal's only take
Custodial reserve · your DOWC $1,148 titled to retailer entity · segregated
Reserves remain in segregated custody for the 1–5 year term of each contract, accruing float income at money‑market rates. Earned premium becomes available for distribution on a monthly schedule. Claims pay out of the same custodial account — never out of Zeal's books.
i.

No commingling.

Each retailer's reserve is a separate, segregated custodial account. One retailer's claims cannot draw on another's premium. Zeal's creditors cannot reach it.

ii.

Ledger‑controlled payout.

Withdrawals from reserves are gated by Zeal's internal ledger against actuarial minimums. The retailer cannot accidentally over‑distribute; an admin error cannot send funds to the wrong place.

iii.

Reconciliation, nightly.

Custodial bank balances reconcile against the platform's reserve ledger every night. Any discrepancy > $1.00 raises a finance alert by morning.

iv.

Float income, transparently.

Investment yield on the reserve is calculated monthly and split per the TPA agreement — typically 70/30 to the retailer. Every basis point is visible in the dashboard.

§ 04 The platform · five portals, one tenant

One product, five front doors.

Zeal is delivered as a multi‑tenant web application with a portal for every stakeholder in the warranty lifecycle. Each portal carries Zeal branding by default; a white‑label upgrade (Growth tier and above) replaces it with your own.

P · 01

Store Owner

For the operator. Configure plans, watch financials, approve claims, run the program.

  • Premium volume, attach rate, loss ratio, reserve balance — at a glance
  • Plan builder with versioning and lifecycle states
  • Claims approval queue with AI triage summaries
  • Profit & loss, reserve account, PORC/DOWC performance
P · 02

Point of Sale

For the floor. A mobile‑first interface tuned for the sixty‑second sale.

  • Barcode scan, product lookup, warranty capture
  • Side‑by‑side plan comparison for the customer
  • Talk‑tracks, objection prompts, commission tracker
  • No payment collected — sales batch nightly
P · 03

Customer

For the end customer. Simple, trustworthy, almost no learning curve.

  • Active plans, coverage windows, plan documents
  • File a claim — five steps, with photos
  • Magic‑link login; no password to forget
  • Status updates by email and SMS
P · 04

Technician

For the service network. Dispatch in, invoice out, paid on schedule.

  • Brand‑certified routing (Whirlpool, Samsung, Sub‑Zero, &c.)
  • Pre‑service checklist; photo evidence required
  • Direct invoicing with Stripe Connect payouts
  • Performance scoring & on‑time tracking
P · 05

Zeal Admin

For Zeal. Full oversight — retailer onboarding, AI claims agent supervision, dispatch, fraud, financial operations, compliance. The control plane we operate so you can run your storefront.

  • Retailer health dashboard with risk scoring
  • Claims queue across all retailers
  • AI agent oversight & live conversation takeover
  • Fraud flags & multi‑state compliance tracking
  • Custodial reserve reconciliation, nightly
  • Configurable report builder & impersonation mode
§ 05 The AI claims agent

A claims floor that runs on text messages.

Most claims volume — a leaking dishwasher, a refrigerator that won't cool, an error code on the front of an oven — is structured enough that a language model can take the intake from start to triage. Zeal's claims agent answers within seconds, gathers the symptoms, requests a photo, checks the plan, and routes.

Median intake
4m 12s
Auto‑triage rate
71%
Customer CSAT
4.6 / 5
Handoff to human
seamless · full transcript

Powered by Claude, delivered over Twilio Programmable Messaging, supervised by Zeal's claims floor in real time.

§ 06 Engagement & pricing

Three engagements. One platform.

Zeal earns through a tiered TPA fee on written premium plus a modest platform SaaS fee. There is no per‑transaction processing markup. Custodial banking is at cost.

T · I

Starter

For single‑location retailers establishing their first in‑house protection program.

20% TPA fee on written premium
Platform fee$450 / mo
Onboarding$2,500 one‑time
BrandingZeal · co‑branded
Float split60 / 40 retailer
  • All five portals
  • AI claims agent · SMS
  • Custodial reserve account
  • Daily settlement & reconciliation
  • Standard reporting library
Talk to us
T · III

Enterprise

For chains, regional groups, and PORC‑structured retailers with captive reinsurance needs.

10% TPA fee on written premium
Platform feeNegotiated
OnboardingScoped
BrandingFull white‑label
Float split80 / 20 retailer
  • Everything in Growth
  • PORC captive administration
  • Reinsurance treaty tracking
  • SSO / OAuth · custom roles
  • Dedicated claims pod & CSM
  • Multi‑state compliance program
Contact us
§ 07 Compliance, by default

An audit‑grade ledger from the first day.

Warranty administration is a regulated activity in every U.S. state. Zeal is built so the regulator's questions are answerable in a single screen, and so the auditor's report writes itself.

Z

The protection plan is the most profitable thing on your invoice. Stop renting it.

Zeal is currently onboarding partners ahead of Series A. If you write $1M+ in eligible product volume annually and have considered the in‑house model, we'd like to talk.

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