GUEST POST: Charmian Holmes, The Fold

Currently, managing the settlement of insurance claims is not a regulated financial service in Australia because it is excluded from the definition of ‘financial service’. This is set to change very soon as the Hayne Royal Commission has recommended that claims handling should be regulated as a financial service.

Without a doubt, third party claims administrators (TPAs) and underwriting agencies/MGAs will need to be licensed or authorised under a licence. Insurtechs and other service providers who support insurers with claims handling platforms or ‘full service’ solutions may need to assess their operations to determine whether their activities will be regulated.

Whilst it is possible to become an authorised representative of an insurer that holds an AFS licence, there are pros and cons – so it’s worth assessing the feasibility of having your own AFS licence.

Claims handling licensees will be subject to the same basic requirements as other AFS licensees, for example:
– to provide their services ‘efficiently, honestly and fairly’;
– to have adequate financial, technological and human resources; and
– to comply with financial services laws and licence conditions.

The industry is waiting to see what the change will look like and the Federal Governmenthas indicated that it will pass legislation before the end of 2019.

Don’t panic! It’s likely there will be a ‘transition period’ for licensing to allow the industry to prepare for the changes.

For more information about the regulation of claims services, click here for an article published by The Fold and Finity Consulting in their Royal Commission Response series.

The Fold Legal has handled 500+ licence applications and variations. For more information about what is involved with AFS licensing, get in touch with Charmian Holmes or Sonia Cruz – we’d be happy to help.

‘The Inspire Insurtech Interview’ series are interviews to inspire your fellow insurtechs. We’d like to share who you are, what you do, what we can expect from you in the future. This month we are talking to Blair Nicholls from Blue Zebra Insurance – bzi.com.au

Tell us Blue Zebra’s brief pitch
We are an underwriting agency that is a different breed in insurance. We’ve delivered an insurance platform using modern technology, we leverage external data sources to deliver quotes efficiently & understand the underlying risk better and introduced insurance product innovation to brokers. Our product innovation and modern platform is helping brokers to grow their businesses and service their customers better.

So how did Blue Zebra begin?
We saw a big gap in the market to support brokers to efficiently deliver much needed advice to their customers. Most of the main insurers either have a direct to market strategy or a strategy that contains heavy distribution channel conflict and brokers felt they had limited options for long-term partners. Based on research and the collective experience of the founders, we knew there was an opportunity to deliver something different in the market. We started building our technology in late 2017 and by May 2018 we had written our first insurance policy.

How has Blue Zebra evolved since inception?
For the first 9 months we didn’t really do any active marketing, we just built something that was well received by our customers and word of mouth did the rest. Since we launched, we’ve taken on board feedback and upgraded our platform more than 40 times in 14 months. Our ‘pilot’ started in May 2018 with 5 brokers with just Home insurance. 2 months later we delivered Motor insurance and by that time we had around 30 brokerages working with us. Then in November 2018 we released Landlord to our 100 broker partners. In February 2019 we started offering instalments billing and since that time we’ve started to deliver renewals and we now have our SME product that will launch before the end of the year. Today we have more than 300 brokerages from every cluster group working with us. We consistently have more than 1,000 users on our system every day and more than 3,000 brokers have bound business with us. The consistent enhancements to the platform are one of the things that keep people coming back. In simple terms, if our customers want something we deliver it.

What is your team currently working on? Any accomplishments you’d like to tell us about?
The SME product will really shake up the market. We’ve listened to brokers about how to deliver a great user experience and we’ve built something that we know will be well received. The behind the scenes data integrations mean that the quote flow and understanding of the risk is fantastic. From a claims perspective we were delighted to see that we recently received an 87% home insurance claims satisfaction rating by our customers, which was 20% above the average of the top six insurers. We’ve had a fantastic partnership with Insurx, our claims management TPA (part of Claim Central), to deliver this result. Insurx really focus on providing a connected claim experience to our customers, which is completely aligned to our methodologies – and the results speak for themselves. It’s amazing what can be achieved when like-minded businesses combine forces like this.

How does Blue Zebra ‘give back’?
Our product innovation is something that is giving something different back to the Broker market. For Home, for example, there is the option to add a Home Business Extension to an Accidental Damage policy. For motor, we have a comprehensive plus product that is targeted mainly at new vehicles, but it has some great benefits included. For Landlord, we have an Essentials product that is a Landlord cover targeted at landlords of apartments designed to support brokers, for example, to partner with significant distribution sources to sell an easy to use product.

What is Blue Zebra’s biggest challenge in today’s markets?
Our ambition is to grow to a $1bn business with around 20 staff. To do that we need a) great technology; b) great people; and c) strong support from brokers. For the technology, getting the priorities right has always been a focus to deliver so much so quickly. For the people, we’ve been very selective about who we’ve brought into the team and this has meant that the people on board have had to really work hard, get their hands dirty and help build the business from the ground up. In the end, it means we all understand the business intimately and can respond to our brokers in real time …. but it hasn’t been easy to find the right people that can work in such a fast-paced environment. As we’ve grown, our strongest supporters have been those brokers that have really helped us experiment and roll out our products. We are moving at pace and that means we start with a minimum viable product, which is often quite skinny, but we are able to respond and make corrective action quickly. The best brokers are those that are here to co-create something special and enduring.

Have you partnered with any other businesses to improve the BZI offering?
Our partnership with Insurx, our claims management TPA part of Claim Central Consolidated, has been instrumental in satisfying our customers. Insurx has an incredible claims management platform that manages claims from end to end, and is streets ahead of any other product on the market. But more importantly when you combine that technology with the mindset and culture of putting the customer first and connecting them to their claim through more visibility and better communication, you really have a winning formula. Insurx have a similar approach to building and deploying technology to our team at Blue Zebra. We’ve been impressed by how they have worked closely with us to move our arrangements (technology, commercial agreements, service team) from a ‘start-up’ to a ‘scaling’ business to better support us maturing as a business. Since partnering with Insurx, the feedback from both brokers and customers on their claim experience has been phenomenal and it’s this sort of partnership that opens your eyes to the exciting possibilities when you partner up with like-minded businesses.

‘The Inspire Insurtech Interview’ series are interviews to inspire your fellow insurtechs. We’d like to share who you are, what you do, what we can expect from you in the future. This month we are talking to Libby Roberts from Leap4Ward – www.leap4ward.co

Tell us Leap 4Ward’s brief pitch
Leap4ward is digital skills training, delivering a cost-effective, quality controlled and evidence-based program which guides people to overcome the physical and mental barriers which hinder their recovery and return to work from injury or illness.

So how did Leap 4Ward begin?
Our founder, Libby Roberts, has 25 years’ experience in the workers compensation industry, running a successful rehabilitation provider, WRM. As a psychologist, Libby understands what drives people to make positive changes in their behaviour and what mindset is required to facilitate positive change. We believe that by helping individuals to thrive we can have a positive impact upon families and our community. Developing the Leap4ward program as a digital tool, allows us to deliver our evidence-based program in a cost-effective and scalable way, to a much wider client base than the traditional face to face model.

How has Leap 4Ward evolved since inception?
Our program, and the product design itself, has undergone many iterations since its conception! We are about to pilot our MVP with an insurer which will allow us to test our content with real people. We will then take those results to the wider insurance market.

What is your team currently working on? Any accomplishments you’d like to tell us about?
Our team is currently working on ensuring the MVP is pilot-ready. We are also meeting with product and UX experts to get advice on further developing our App once the MVP has been tested. Our founder, Libby Roberts, recently graduated from the Sydney cohort of the Founder Institute and won third prize at B2B Rocks in June.

How does Leap 4Ward ‘give back’?
Leap4ward’s vision is flourishing individuals, families and communities. 10% of our profits support charities which help the most vulnerable in our community. Our founder’s teenage daughter suffered from anorexia for 3 years and was in and out of hospital. Our charity partner for 2019 is the Butterfly Foundation who are committed to supporting anorexia sufferers and their families through this terrible illness.

What is Leap 4Ward’s biggest challenge in today’s markets?
Our biggest challenge is convincing insurers that digital delivery of rehab programs will be just as effective as face to face programs. Being the first to market has its own set of challenges and finding early adopters who are willing to embrace change is exciting.

Anything else you’d like to say that we haven’t asked?
We love collaboration – especially with our customers, the insurers! So, if you’re curious, and willing to revolutionise the way we help people get back on their feet after an injury, contact us at leap4ward.co

24 July, 2019 : FinTech Australia & Insurtech Australia are pleased to announce the relaunch of Insurtech Australia, which will now operate as an independent industry association from 1 August 2019.

Insurtech Australia joined FinTech Australia at formation after finding a common vision for their respective member communities. FinTech Australia has provided governance, policy advocacy and operational support to Insurtech Australia since 2017. The partnership has produced a thriving Insurtech Australia which now represents a key value driver for insurance-focused tech startups in Australia.

“For the industry to be at a point where we are able to support sub-industry groups is a great step in the right direction for us,” General Manager of FinTech Australia, Rebecca Schot-Guppy said.

“Our overall goal is to grow the influence and support for fintechs around the country. “We will continue to work closely with insurance tech companies and Insurtech Australia to ensure the best outcomes in this sector going forward.

“This will include representing insurtech’s interests in a regulatory and policy environment including our work on relevant policy such as Open Banking.

“Insurtech companies are welcome to participate with both industry associations.”

Rita Yates, CEO of the newly formed Insurtech Australia, echoes this sentiment.

“We will continue to work alongside FinTech Australia to create the best possible environment for our respective tech startups to thrive, both locally and as a springboard into other markets”

“The ability for us to now operate as an independent organisation is a reflection on the growth of the insurtech ecosystem here in Australia over the past two years. With an active membership and highly engaged set of industry partners, this is an exciting time for us as an organisation.”

https://www.insurancebusinessmag.com/au/features/the-big-interview/a-champion-of-innovation-172963.aspx

Hello! The next release of the ‘Inspire Insurtech’ series where we interview inspiring insurtechs to find out who they are, what they do, what we can expect from them in the future, and more is here!

For this feature, we have MoneyLoop with Founder, Joshua Theeuf. Enjoy!

Tell us MoneyLoop’s brief pitch

MoneyLoop empowers insurers to offer an interest-free instalment plan for their customers, which allows them to pay their excess on an interest-free and fee free basis.  

Cool!

So how did MoneyLoop begin?

MoneyLoop began in early 2018 through participating in the H2 Ventures accelerator program.

Many great start-ups came out of accelerator programs!

How has MoneyLoop evolved since inception?

MoneyLoop has undergone several pivots, from a peer-to-peer marketplace focusing on micro-loans, through to out of pocket medical financing and finally landing on its feet in the insurance space. We believe we are best positioned to better support Australians during life’s emergencies.

Awesome!

What is your team currently working on 2019 or what have you accomplished recently?

MoneyLoop are in the process of procurement with an established insurer, which is very exciting!

We are also working through the second version of our customer-facing dashboard. We went live with our product in April, and to date have originated $50,000 In loans with our current partners.

We have also been finalists in the Metlife inclusion plus competition, and a finalist in DXC insurtech innovation competition.

Great! Congrats!

How does MoneyLoop ‘give back’?

MoneyLoop ‘give back’ on a day to day basis by supporting Australian’s through life’s mishaps! We also give back to the community through mentoring other founders and students.

Well done!

What is MoneyLoop’s biggest challenge in today’s markets?

Working through the aftermath of the Royal Commission has been very interesting. Also, just like every other start-up, not enough hours in the day!

We hear you!

What are your thoughts on our monthly topic?

We believe that insurance is on the precipice of massive change in how it is delivered, where we will see products being driven by consumer behavior to better reflect what customers wants and needs are. MoneyLoop was designed from the ground up with insurers and their entire customer base in mind, to address a real pain point in the insurance value chain.

Well said!

Anything else you’d like to say that we didn’t ask?

We are presently raising a round of capital to support our growth, and the upcoming partnership. If you want to help us better support Australians we would love to hear from you.

Thank you!

Cary Cheung (left) and Joshua Theeuf (right) of MoneyLoop

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Hello! The next release of the ‘Inspire Insurtech’ series where we interview inspiring insurtechs to find out who they are, what they do, what we can expect from them in the future, and more is here!

For this feature, we have AirAssess with Director and co-Founder, Anthony Marsh. Enjoy!

Tell us AirAssess’s brief pitch

AirAssess conducts rapid roof inspections for insurers and their supply chains, reducing claim cycle times, enhancing the customer experience and improving safety. We achieve this with drones, our intelligent technology platform and a national network of pilots.

Cool!

So how did AirAssess begin?

AirAssess sprung to life off the back of a chat between its co-founders (Lorraine Scott and Anthony Marsh) who had previously worked together on drone projects, about the lack of any tailored solution for the insurance market. While drones were being used in basically every other industry at scale, our early experience was that existing offerings did little to add value or remove friction for insurers, inhibiting their adoption of this powerful technology. We founded AirAssess to build an eco-system comprising pilots, trades and technology solutions, empowering insurers to incorporate drones into each and every roof inspection at scale, while delivering superior customer outcomes.

Well done!

How has AirAssess evolved since inception?

We initially started AirAssess with an idea, a handful of pilot projects and a small team. Our process involved receiving a manual referral for assessment, allocating resources, obtaining inspection imagery by Dropbox or email, preparing inspection reports in Word, converting them to a PDF and then emailing them to clients, e.g. there was great value in the final product, but the process to get there was incredibly labour intensive and difficult to scale.

Fast forward to today and we’ve got a national network of over 200 drone pilots and trades, are about to hit 6,000 inspections (most completed over the past 6 months), captured data for most general insurers in Australia, and we’ve automated the bulk of our processes, enabling us to average a turnaround time of less than 48 hours from claim referral to report delivery.

Awesome!

What is your team currently working on 2019 or what have you accomplished recently?

Since automating a large portion of our processes and after having ‘stress-tested’ our model (500 inspections a week at peak), we’re now exploring ways to incorporate AI and machine learning into our workflow to drive improved reporting outcomes, such as automated damage detection and classification, improved consistency and further reduction to our turnaround times.

We’re also building our API to further automate and streamline engagement and continually refine our platform based on feedback. We’ve also just started developing our first mobile app, which will bring us closer to our suppliers, insurers and their customers and improve the overall experience.

Great! We’ll hear more about this space!

How does AirAssess ‘give back’?

AirAssess gives back through its industry participation and the community engagement of its team. For example, I volunteer a significant amount of my time sitting on various committees, workshops and associations in the drone industry. I am also participating in this year’s CEO Sleepout raising awareness for homelessness, volunteer for my local Beach Patrol and serve on my local tennis centre committee, among other things. As a business, we also assist drone pilots who are just starting out in their careers.

That’s a good one!

What is AirAssess’s biggest challenge in today’s markets?

I’d probably have to say that it’s a mixture of regulation and the slow uptake of emerging technology by insurers.

In terms of regulation, there are numerous applications across insurance where drone technology is a great fit, but where current regulation inhibits our ability to provide some services in a timely manner, if at all. For example, it is currently very difficult to map a large populated area shortly after a catastrophic event (bushfire, flood, cyclone etc.). We believe this will improve with time and continue to work with the regulator and industry groups to ensure we’re extracting the most value from the technology for our clients.

As for adoption, insurers are large and complex organisations and often bring in new technology well after it has been implemented by other industries. That said, this is good in a sense as it forces you to come to the table with a compelling value proposition (rather than innovation for the sake of innovation), and organisations like Insurtech Australia are helping to raise awareness and to highlight the value of embracing new technologies.

Well said!

Anything else you’d like to say that we didn’t ask?

People often think of AirAssess as a drone company, and while we use drones to perform inspections across the country each and every day, we’re not a drone business. Drones are just a tool, like a spanner is to a tradie or a notebook is to an IT professional, but they do offer a number of advantages over traditional inspection methods, e.g. by getting people off roofs and out of harm’s way, reaching areas otherwise inaccessible, and capturing objective and high resolution visual data at scale. Drones form one part of our highly automated and efficient workflow and the real value is in the timely, independent and objective data we’re able to provide to our clients.

AirAssess is always looking to collaborate with like-minded companies so if you’re an insurer, supplier or innovator and think there may be an opportunity to work together, please reach out.

Finally, keep an eye out for our new product ‘AirPass’, which we’ll be launching later in 2019.

Thank you!

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Effective from 1 May 2019, Rita Yates will be the CEO of Insurtech Australia. Rita was one of the founding team of Insurtech Australia and has been instrumental in building the Ecosystem in the past 2 years as Head of Partnerships. Please join us in welcoming Rita Yates to her new position.

A message from the departing CEO Simon O’Dell on Rita Yates’ succession as CEO:

14 May 2019

This week we’re announcing that Rita Yates is the new CEO of Insurtech Australia. As a key stakeholder of Insurtech Australia, we’d like to share some more information on this exciting news.

Rita has formed part of the leadership team here at Insurtech Australia since we formed over 2 years ago. Rita has been key to the operation over our first 2 years as Head of Partnerships, and also via her role on our Advisory Committee. Rita is a champion for innovation in the insurance industry and is steadfast in her belief that insurtechs represent the greatest opportunity for insurance incumbents to realise a digital transformation strategy. Rita brings experience from both the corporate insurance sector, and more recently through her role at Stone & Chalk, the #1 Fintech hub in APAC, where she has helped finance sector focused tech startups partner with incumbents and realise success.

Rita’s passion and commitment for Australia’s tech startup community and the insurance sector is portrayed in her professional and effective work ethic. Rita is well placed to be leading Insurtech Australia and representing the needs and views of both our members and partners. Please join me in congratulating Rita in his new role.

As for me, I am honoured to be joining Brenton as an adviser to Insurtech Australia and will join the board of directors. This will enable me to support Rita and the Insurtech Australia team and continue to build our insurtech ecosystem together with our members and partners.

I have commenced a role in an exciting new venture – Insurtech Gateway Australia, focused on supporting APAC’s most promising early stage insurtechs. The lighter load at Insurtech Australia will certainly enable me to focus on this new role and in-turn offer a new service to Australia’s emerging insurtech talent.

I’d like to thank all of our members, platinum, gold and ecosystem partners, and our team of volunteers from across Australia for helping us to grow our insurtech ecosystem into a position where we’re realising our vision of making Australia a world leading market for Insurtech – only achievable with your support, thank you.

I am very proud to be part of the team who founded Insurtech Australia, and I look forward to continuing to support you in my new role.

Please contact Rita and the team for further information, or keep an eye out for our monthly newsletters. As always, I am free if you’d like to connect directly also. Looking forward to seeing you at one of our events shortly.

-Simon O’Dell, CEO & Co-founder of Insurtech Australia

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The excerpt below is from The Australian, Tuesday, 14 May 2019.

Start-up insurers stake a claim

By Supratim Adhikari

Hello! The next release of the ‘Inspire Insurtech’ series where we interview inspiring insurtechs to find out who they are, what they do, what we can expect from them in the future, and more is here!

For this feature, we have CINCH Insurance with Founder, Warren Burns. Enjoy!

Tell us Cinch’s brief pitch

Cinch is a tool that provides families and small businesses access to all of the their insurance information, regardless of vendor, from a single source.  Log in to Cinch and you can see all of your policy information, take out new cover as when you need it, renew your current policies and even make a claim, all from one dashboard.

Cool!

So how did Cinch begin?

Cinch began as a sense of frustration with the kinds of technology that were being provided to manage your relationship with the industry.  As we began to work with some insurers and brokers we got to understand that they shared our frustration.  The insurance technology market had been under invested in compared to other similar sectors.  Software that had been built in the 90’s was still in common use across the industry and customers were feeling the pain through low levels or automation, heavy reliance on paper and poor user experience.

Well done!

How has Cinch evolved since inception?

We originally aimed to build a robo advice business that was aimed at the SME sector.  We had experience building financial advice algorithms and had a strong data science team.  Through our interactions with potential clients we learned that the advice side of things is not where clients are feeling the pain.  The main pain point we came across was how distributed and obfuscated your insurance information was.  Multiple insurers, each with multiple brands, fronted by brokers meant that even a simple insurance portfolio was difficult to interact with.  We are now concentrating on being the central place where all of your data lives, personal and business, and giving users the ability to control who has access to their insurance information.

Awesome!

What is your team currently working on 2019 or what have you accomplished recently?

We have two big accomplishments that we are celebrating recently.  We gained agreement from another one of the bigger insurers to work with the Cinch platform.  They have agreed to provide policy information for users of the tool and will also provide quotes and renewals through Cinch which is great news for us as we need everyone to collaborate in the best interests of clients for this to work.

The other big news this week is that we have signed an agreement with a medium sized broker to run their affinity lines through the Cinch For Affinity tool.  This really enhances our ability to reach our intended audience and offers the Broker access to a technology solution that enhances their brand.

Great! We’ll hear more about this space!

How does Cinch ‘give back’?

The truth is that we are not in a position to yet.  We are bootstrapping ourselves to market and all of our attention is on getting this amazing technology launched.  Perhaps in the future we will start a charity that holds parties for 80’s era insurance executives so that they can dress in double breasted suits and regale each other with stories about how much better the parties were back then.

That’s a good one!

What is Cinch’s biggest challenge in today’s markets?

Our view on this has changed.  We originally worried that regulation and compliance would be our biggest hurdle.  Our conversations with regulators have been nothing but positive and helpful.  We are focused on the challenge of participation.  We need all participants to look at us as an opportunity to make everyone’s lives easier and not a technology threat that is here to automate people out of the loop.  Relationships, Risk Management and Reputation are key to success in insurance, we are purely a technology business that supports each one of those principles.

Well said!

Anything else you’d like to say that we didn’t ask?

The number of insurers who still use 1993 ANZIC codes is a statement that tells us all we need to know about where the industry is right now.

Thank you!

The awesome CINCH Insurance team!

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Hello! The next release of the ‘Inspire Insurtech’ series where we interview inspiring insurtechs to find out who they are, what they do, what we can expect from them in the future, and more is here!

For this feature, we have wiCover with co-Founder and CEO, Nick Evans. Enjoy!

Tell us wiCover’s brief pitch

wiCover enables insurance companies to meet the technology expectations of the modern digital customer. We build digital customer experiences to change the way insurance is consumed. As a technology business providing front-end digital insurance platforms, we create solutions that reduces user friction, reduces costs and resources; and increases transparency.  wiCover provides our technology as a Service, we take care of the ever evolving technology requirements and the insurance company focusses on developing the product and the distribution channels. Customer experience leads into Customer Effort: what additional effort are you forcing your customer to undertake to do business with you? What friction can be removed to drive a better customer experience?

wiCover operates in Australia, South Africa, Dubai, the UK and our teams provide services in the US and Asia. We provide services to global insurers, listed entities, InsurTech startups, MGA’s, brokerages and provide the same level of UX, design, technology, security, encryption regardless of whether you starting your business or changing a 100 year old business. In some markets, we are building interfaces between large insurers and the brokers to enable brokers to enjoy the speed that customers are now expecting from digital direct insurance offerings. We solve a specific problem in insurance – the customer experience. Each customer is different, in some spaces, we are enabling customers, and in other markets we are enabling brokers. We are not an admin platform. We do integrate into existing technology partners to enable customers to digitally access sales, service, claims and create additional engagement opportunities.

Cool!

So how did wiCover begin?

wiCover say the opportunity to remove the friction and frustrated created when filling out paper forms for claims and new business; and to reduce the reliance on call centres for sales and service. We built a lot of really cool technology that we expected insurance companies to “want” or even “need” to assist with their digital plans while connecting with new age customers. We found that most of the insurance businesses we engaged with loved new technology presentations, even though they had no capabilities to use the technology and were not selling insurance online. We found our sweet spot in creating digital front end customer technology that allows insurance companies join the digital age. Our as a Service model allows speed to market, reduce time to market, reducing the technology invest and building long term partnerships that create value. Now we challenge insurance companies with the statement: your customers are digitally enabled, are you?

That’s an awesome origin story!

How has wiCover evolved since inception?

We started out building technology solutions for insurance businesses to own and slowly (these lessons are not always quick!) realised that we had better opportunity following the Software as a Service model that reduced the upfront costs significantly for insurance companies to create a meaningful digital presence for their customers. We also made a few mistakes in our hosting solution and were losing business opportunities as a result. We started again from scratch after 18months and a few tough lessons to meet the needs of the market. We take our role in providing powerful digital customer experiences seriously and will continue to push the limits of what insurers believe is possible in meeting their expectations. Long live the Customer!

Keep moving forward!

What is your team currently working on 2019 or what have you accomplished recently?

We are delivering solutions to clients in Australia, Africa and Europe which keeps our DevOps teams very busy. It feels right when your business learns lessons, takes action and we reap the benefits and enjoy successes. Our focus on adding to our wiCover Core platform capabilities, continue to reduce the cost to create digital solutions and expand our client base in Australia. We have seen huge appetite for digital solutions in the Australian Insurance market and look forward to driving future successes. Each client deployment has a totally unique user experience, so each week we are working on something new, creating something of value and learning new tools and tricks.

Great! We’ll hear more about this space!

How does wiCover ‘give back’?

wiCover creates and participates in events, summits, interviews that helps focus attention on InsurTech industry and particularly shines the attention on solving customer problems. In Africa there is a massive opportunity to extend financial services to previously uninsured markets by decreasing the cost to connect and distribute insurance products and we aim to provide the technology that will connect that new customer to the insurer. We are all about the customer experience changing the way insurance is consumed and we aim to bring that purpose to life with each client deployment being to closer to that goal.

Cool!

What is wiCover’s biggest challenge in today’s markets?

We face challenges of potential clients thinking we just build websites and cannot understand why they need to invest in their digital customer experiences. Having come face to face with our own technology limitations and slayed that dragon, our challenges of scaling into new markets rapidly are creating the challenges of video technology limitations meeting time zones! Other challengers we face are fear of replacing people by digitising insurance services. We actively say that technology enables relationships and does not replace the need for the human connection. Technology can automate processes that creates efficiencies and reduces friction, and then allows people to provide the human touch. 

Having deployed teams onto 3 continents to face the challenge head on, managing those teams has its own set of challenges. We have amazing partners in some territories that make the transition from newcomer to market credibility extremely smooth and we cannot thank them enough. We are allowed to think Global and act local due having existing business networks in those territories. InsurTech Australia and it’s community would count as part of those we are thankful to be part of.

Thank you!

Nick Evans together with Wimpie van der Merwe and Ronald Gall are the founders of wiCover

The awesome wiCover team!

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