Oh, I see, I wasn't clear. I meant specifically a policy underwriter, as opposed to something like GMAC of old. I've updated my original comment with the necessary adjective.
Looking over GMAC's history via Wikipedia, I find they did underwrite insurance for a time and that no other US insurance company originated within an automaker. That suggests to me Tesla's operating model here is indeed about as unusual in context as I originally - well, intuited, I suppose. I think that's interesting.
No other auto maker before them (to my knowledge) has built their own grid of gas stations, no auto maker went to the efforts that Tesla did to vertically integrate, no auto maker completely ignored the "classic" model of independent dealerships to sell and service their cars... it makes sense that they're about the first ones (at least in America) to change how the financial side works as well.
Oh, good grief, lots of companies have done things like this before. What do you think it took to drive adoption of automobiles in days before the infrastructure was ubiquitously available to support them, the first time? Have you never wondered why the premier award for quality in classical European cuisine shares its name with a brand of tire? On that side of things they're working out of a playbook older than you and me put together.
Lots of people have been "innovating finance" lately, too, not just Tesla. How has that been working out? I hear it's going great...But we were really talking about insurance in any case, the financialization of which has also I believe gone quite poorly well within living memory. Are you of age to recall the name "AIG?" 'I thought not...it's not a story the Sith would tell you.'
Looking over GMAC's history via Wikipedia, I find they did underwrite insurance for a time and that no other US insurance company originated within an automaker. That suggests to me Tesla's operating model here is indeed about as unusual in context as I originally - well, intuited, I suppose. I think that's interesting.