Covéa Insurance will be joining the likes of AXA, Ageas, LV=, RSA and UK General on Uinsure’s Adviser Platform, aiming to drive a much greater pricing competitiveness and expanding the total insurers on its Home Insurance product to seven.
The multi-award winning insurer has a Standard and Poor’s AA- rating as a guaranteed subsidiary of Covéa, over 60 years trading experience and over 2.1m policyholders in the UK.
In tandem with Covéa Insurance joining Uinsure’s Adviser Platform, Uinsure will now also recognise up to 9 years No Claims Discount on both buildings and contents cover, expanding from the previous maximum of 5 years.
Martin Schulthiess, Chief Commercial Officer at Uinsure commented: “We’re really pleased to welcome Covéa Insurance to Uinsure’s Adviser Platform. Covéa will help us to deliver even more competitively priced, 5 star rated home insurance to customers, across a much wider range of property risks.
The addition of Covéa Insurance supports our mission to grow intermediary distribution of home insurance across the UK by equipping advisers to deliver against the needs of their customers. We believe that our focus on premium value, quality of cover and exceptional customer experience enabled by Uinsure’s technology capability, gives intermediaries a clear differentiator that is hard to match elsewhere.”
ComparetheMarket recently launched a range of online execution-only remortgages with two of the largest lenders in the UK. I’m sure this headline will have grabbed the attention of anyone that leads a mortgage firm and intends to grow their business over coming years and quite rightly so.
In fact, if you log on to any well-known price comparison website, you’ll find that it’s not just insurance products that are part of their overall game plan. Next to the usual compare home insurance or travel insurance buttons, you’ll see options for protection, conveyancing and now also unsurprisingly, a pathway to self-serve a remortgage.
Last year, around 600,0000 people who had been advised on a mortgage by a firm like you, found their home insurance elsewhere. Furthermore, these sites have also collected upwards of 60 personal and property data fields per quote, providing vast intelligence to market your clients with sophisticated, highly personalised communications to deepen that new founded relationship.
Today’s reality is that most people choose financial advisers to arrange a mortgage, but this does not rule out how much power online brands are gaining by building relationships with a footfall of your clients who seek wider product advice alongside their mortgage. From home insurance to conveyancing, these products are a likely need of your client throughout the homebuying process, if not a legal requirement of the mortgage. It therefore makes a lot of sense for advisory businesses to take these products more seriously to make sure they’re delivering against their client needs.
Mortgage advice certainly opens the door to the potential of building a successful business, but what is becoming more apparent to me is that the breadth of service across wider product areas, is the key to protecting and retaining a loyal and longstanding client base which is well-served. Frankly, I believe it’s a necessity to build sustainable and long-lasting client relationships in 2021 and beyond.
The irony is that innovation in home insurance and conveyancing technology for intermediaries has moved much faster than many direct-to-consumer services. I can’t stress enough that it’s not about spending more hours working, late nights filling in forms or rekeying data. The answer is to choose the right technology partner, who can tangibly evidence their capability to integrate and embed these services within your business.
So, if I asked you now to consider offering wider financial services and advice to your clients, would you?
Uinsure have today launched a new tech platform that aims to remove insurance complexity for advisers and their clients. It coincides with the unveiling of a brand refresh for the first time since its inception in 2007.
“Uinsure’s rebrand is not just cosmetic. It represents a maturing of the company, from the inside out that is setting the pace and responding to the demands of our industry by designing the experiences, products and services advisers and their clients expect” said Lauren Bagley, Uinsure’s Chief Partnerships & Marketing Officer.
Lauren continues, “The value that is enabled through our technology is the toughest thing to communicate. Words only means so much – you have to be the words and hence our decision to refresh the brand.
“It’s a major milestone for us as the Uinsure brand becomes synonymous with technology that empowers advisers to provide an insurance experience that kills the complexity that we believe exists in accessing insurance today.”
Martin Schulthiess, Chief Commercial Officer agrees, saying: “Our Adviser Platform introduces innovation that gives advisers the opportunity to outstrip the advantages of direct-to-consumer insurance distributors and deliver greater value to consumers across home, BTL/landlords, non-standard and commercial insurance in one location. Our tech has always been a key differentiator and now that we’ve upgraded this even further, we’re able to be agile, which is now more important than ever against the demand from advisory businesses to digitise their businesses too.
“There’s a big difference between a company that offers technology and actually being a technology company. The latter is the journey that Uinsure has been working towards for the last 36 months. It’s been tough at times; building technology is hard but building technology that makes a difference is even harder. It has required a fundamental shift in culture, structure, process and a complete obsession about our partner and customer needs. We’re now seeing this investment pay off with the delivery of our new Adviser Platform and a refreshed brand to match our ambitions. We’re so excited about the future and this is just the first of several new technology solutions that will be released in 2021.”
The new platform seamlessly enables advisers to receive an insurance quote across home, buy to let and commercial in 3 questions (name, date of birth and postcode) and from there advisers can configure the cover and apply within minutes. It can now be accessed anywhere, on any device and includes features such as giving clients the choice to progress their application in their own time once the quote has been configured, providing clients with an ‘always on’ experience.
In addition to using big data to remove traditional lengthy and complex question sets, it also accesses new build postcode data up to 6 months before postcodes are minted by Royal Mail, meaning advisers can get new build properties insured faster.
Referrals to Uinsure’s GI advisers can now also be made in a few clicks, if the referring adviser does not want to provide the advice themselves. It also has the ability for advisers to flag customer vulnerabilities which then helps Uinsure to deal with clients in the most appropriate way post-sale.
Features of Uinsure’s new Adviser Platform
Uinsure’s Adviser Platform has removed complex and lengthy questions from its journey using big data and third-party integrations to prefill information and therefore remove the need to rekey or answer complex questions.
Advisers can deliver a quote in three questions (name, date of birth and postcode) and from there can configure the cover and apply in minutes.
Advisers can give their clients the choice to progress their application in their own time once the quote has been configured, giving clients an ‘always on’ experience.
It can provide a seamless, straight through digital experience for all types of properties, even if the circumstances are unusual or non-standard.
It accesses new build postcode data up to 6 months before postcodes are minted by Royal Mail, meaning advisers can get new build properties insured faster.
It gives the ability to refer to Uinsure’s GI advisers in a few clicks if the referring adviser does not want to provide the advice themselves.
It has the ability for advisers to flag customer vulnerabilities which then helps Uinsure to deal with clients in the most appropriate way.
The pricing methodology reflects the proposed FCA final rules on GI pricing practices, ensuring that existing customers are treated like new customers at renewal.
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BestAdvice (BA):What have been the traditional problems with accessing insurance products?
Martin Schultheiss(MS): From our perspective, there are a few key challenges that advisers are facing. The first one would be time. In my previous role, (Schultheiss was group managing director of Sesame Bankhall Group before joining Uinsure) we undertook an exercise that essentially worked out all that was required by advisers to do mortgage/protection/GI – to provide the full stack of advice. We got up to around 100 questions or pieces of data that had to be collected. And I did it myself; it took up three hours of administration and that was without actually doing the advice! It shows that the time it takes to do give full advice is a real challenge.
Advisers have to input multiple pieces of data repeatedly, often across multiple systems and with multiple passwords and then logins, completely rekeying all the time. It just takes too long, it’s not practical.
Secondly, particularly in the case of home insurance, is how challenging it has been for advisers to compete with price comparison websites. It’s well-documented now how price comparison websites and others have been able to win adviser’s clients by discounting new business premiums and then over a period of time raise prices by anything up to 50% over a 3-5 year period. This practice is often referred to as ‘price walking’, whereby the premium is artificially discounted in order to capture the attention of the customer, but the intent is to make up that loss by hiking renewal premiums in subsequent years.
So, with new regulation coming in that proposes to ban this practice, we should start to see a more level price playing field, I think now’s the time for the adviser to develop confidence and to get back to having the conversation with their clients.
From a consumer perspective, I would argue there is a level of knowledge and skill required for an individual to navigate their insurance needs if they do it themselves. Again on popular online sites, you’ve got multiple questions, multiple product providers, decisions on multiple features and benefits, so it’s not as simple as it might seem. Advisers have a compelling value proposition through their advised service and should be thinking about taking that hassle away.
BA: So, presumably that’s what drove you to design a tech-based solution for advisers? How are you doing things differently and what effect will it have on an adviser’s time?
MS: First and foremost Uinsure has been on a journey of moving from being a business that manufactures products which are accessed via technology, to becoming a technology company. Our rebrand comes after having made the strategic decision to deliver insurance technology that removes the complexity we believe exists today for the benefit of advisers and their clients. That’s not an easy thing to do, by the way.
We understand that time is key. So, in three questions, advisers should be able to search the market with Uinsure, and then provide a policy in less than 60 seconds. We use data and technology to do this, allowing advisers to give advice while cutting out as much administration as possible.
General Insurance give the adviser permission to engage with the customer every single year [as it is annually renewable], which to me is probably the greatest asset an adviser could have, particularly in a world with longer term fixed rates that are reducing the frequency of engagement within a client base.
Through our tech we deliver a single common policy, with a 5 Star rating; something that’s simple to understand and not complex and all our insurers then compete to deliver the best price based on that property risk. The key is that the price is fair for the lifetime of the policy, we also review this annually to ensure the customer has the most competitive new business price at every renewal.
We’re not the cheapest because we offer a high quality product and we have never offered introductory cut price offers with the intent to hike at subsequent renewals. In fact, we’re probably one of a very small number of companies that deliver negative premium reduction on an annual basis. I see this as a point that advisers should be talking to their clients about, in contrast to what they may receive elsewhere.
BA:What are the biggest pressures advisers face in the future and how can they address them now?
MS: There are two key things that are going on in the market right now. One is that customers are coming to advisers because they trust them and want to be guided through the process, which in itself philosophically places the onus on us to do a ‘full stack’ job for that customer.
Secondly, customers are giving price comparison websites an enormous amount of permission to harvest their data and, in harvesting their data, to use it to offer other products going forward, which in itself creates an enormous risk for the adviser and the protection of their customer base; those comparison websites are offering general insurance, conveyancing, remortgaging, critical illness, income protection, life cover and execution only mortgages, all of which form the product suite of an adviser firm.
So if nothing else, an adviser should be offering a fully comprehensive service to protect the customer and preserve the relationships of their customers. This is against allowing their customers to leave data footprints all over comparison websites that are getting them to agree to privacy statements that will clearly offer a clear and present danger to the existence of the adviser’s business going forward.
BA: When advisers are reviewing technology solutions, what should they be looking for?
MS: In the beginning of my career, technology meant the guy that came to fix my laptop when it wasn’t working. It wasn’t the essence of the core strategy. Today, for me, it’s now people, culture, technology and data; so, the first thing I would say is that it requires a completely new skill set.
Secondly, there’s a very big difference between traditional companies in manufacturing of products and services that claim to offer technology, versus companies that are technology companies which offer products and services. There’s some subtlety there, but it describes an enormous difference.
From a Uinsure perspective, it’s taken us the better part of three years to get to this moment [with the brand and new platform].
I would say to someone looking at a technology company that trust is fundamental. Make sure that the management teams of those technology companies are a combination of what we call “suits and trainers” – techies and people with industry knowledge. Make sure that there’s a good combination in the team of people that understand your business, understand the challenge you’ve got and understand what’s important to you and your customers. They should also have ‘been there’ and experienced it as well. There’s also whether they have leading edge technology capability inside of their management team to deliver.
In addition, there’s no such thing as a single answer to technology. For me, the most important thing is partnering with technology companies that have architectures that are easily integrated, so that you can combine a couple of platforms to formulate an end to end customer experience.
Advisers need to make sure that technology firms solve their problems and in a way that that gets what they need out of their business.
Having spent time during my career working in private equity, the potential of many business owners being able to sell one day is largely dictated by advanced preparation and awareness of what buyers and investors are looking for. Even if your exit strategy maybe many years away, the practice of thinking and acting like an investor, will only be positive for your business in the long run. After recently stepping into my role here, I often wonder why insurance isn’t offered consistently as a core product in an advisory service. This is from the perspective of servicing a client need alongside a mortgage, but also from a business lens of strengthening the foundations that occur from a recurring revenue flow.
Lost recurring revenue
Across our industry around £367m of potential recurring revenue is lost over five years because advisers do not provide insurance advice consistently. To put that into perspective, a mid-sized mortgage firm advising 35 insurance policies a month will create about £212,000 of additional recurring revenue over the next five years, simply by adding a few minutes of advice. It equates to around 30 per cent growth in revenue per mortgage client, but on top of that, it creates a book value that can be sold at a multiple to create a future income.
For many advice firms today income is largely transactional, one-off proc fees and indemnity commission. The model is sensitive to cash flow challenges and the assets are hard to value. Plainly speaking, a single change in the market, not to mention a global pandemic, has the potential of destabilising a business overnight. The ability for businesses to absorb short to mid-term shocks to cash flow is therefore a common deterrent for buyers, if not probably one of the biggest risks.
Quality data
Another area of interest for potential buyers is a data source that can comprehensively and accurately evidence revenue, margin and multiple product holdings per customer.
The questions I would ask myself as a business owner are how active is the client base? Is it growing? What engagement do I have with clients between arranging one fixed rate mortgage to the next? The simple and most relevant answer for firms thinking about an exit strategy is general insurance. It may not have instant value, but there is certainly value over the longer term. It can help weather the storms, drive regular client engagement and most importantly create saleable value that reflects the effort, time and daily grind that you’ve put into your business.
Uinsure announces strong results with 33.5% growth in Q1
By Tom Gibson
Insurtech firm, Uinsure, has announced strong initial results in the first phase of 2021, with 33.5% sales growth in the opening quarter.
The results are the latest piece of good news for the B2B insurtech firm, which was, this weekend, announced as one of the businesses on the Sunday Times BDO Profit Track 100 league table, which ranks Britain’s 100 private companies with the fastest-growing profits over their latest three years.
The strong financial performance comes directly as a result of innovative work by the company to reshape how advisers offer insurance to customers in the homebuying process.
What has traditionally been a lengthy insurance process, which included numerous, detailed questions and could take anything from 20- 30 minutes to complete, has been whittled down to three questions to get a quote in 20 seconds and apply via a new Adviser Platform in under a minute.
The launch of the platform, coupled with the mortgage market stimulation driven by the stamp-duty holiday, has allowed the Manchester-based firm to go from strength to strength despite the challenges Covid has put on virtually every sector.
Uinsure’s Chief Commercial Officer, Martin Schultheiss, commented: “The strong start we’ve been able to enjoy in 2021 is a direct result of the innovation and creativity shown by the Uinsure team to completely remove the complexity behind offering insurance.
“Our strong start is also as a result of the incredible relationships we hold with our key partners and advisers, who have been able to turn around such a high volume of mortgages to meet current demand.
“We’ve also welcomed new advisory firms as a result of our new technology and, as with all of our existing relationships we will continually take their feedback on board to ultimately make our product offering, and platform, better.
“Hopefully, as lockdown eases through 2021, our tech can help customers and advisers get back to enjoying some of the better things in life.”
You will have seen that on 28th May 2021 the FCA published its paper on pricing rules in the GI Market. This follows several years’ work from the regulator to address the harms suffered by loyal customers of home and motor insurance providers.
New ruling
It has long been the case that regulated firms have a duty to treat their customers fairly, however the work performed by the regulator has shown that in many cases this has not been delivered in the GI space. The most prominent change that the FCA brings in is that firms will no longer be able to slash new business premiums in order to attract new customers, only to penalise them in subsequent years with hugely inflated prices which bear little resemblance to the actual cost of providing the policy. This unfair profiteering has become known as ‘Price Walking’ and it will be banned from the start of 2022, removing the need for customers to outwit insurance providers and move their polices year on year in order to get a fair deal.
As we know, price is only part of the story and there is a raft of new rules on product governance which take effect from September 2021, meaning firms must test the products they provide for “value” on a regular basis.
Key considerations
There are some key considerations for distributors and firms as a result of the FCA’s recent moves. This will include having a clear understanding of GI provider panels value proposition and whether or not these providers have undertaken the practice of price walking your customers, whom will probably have paid a financial penalty for their loyalty. In the case of legacy back books there is also a strong likelihood that some customers will be holding policies that are outdated, have not benefited from product development and would not pass any of the tests that the FCA has introduced.
The ultimate aim for the regulator is to create consistent pricing; this may well mean the end of cheap deals in the first year, but it will bring about a more sustainable ongoing insurance bill for the customer who will have a better idea how much their home insurance costs year on year.
What this means for advisers
For advisory firms, the new rules will mean that, as price will no longer be the sole representation of value, the profession can lead the insurance conversation without the traditional sensitivity on first-year prices. It’s a significant opportunity to reclaim intermediary market share from price comparison sites which had become more successful when new business pricing competition became artificially more aggressive.
Most are familiar now with the FCA’s intention to ban the practice of price walking for general insurance but, with the rules still in consultation, should advisory firms sit back and wait for the proposed ban to come into effect, or be acting with more urgency?
The FCA’s proposal to prevent insurers from price walking will mean that every customer will be offered a new business price at renewal. This would outlaw a practice which has helped providers pocket an extra £1.2bn in fees from six million policyholders it identified in October 2019, as paying high or very high premiums.
Price has always been the dominant factor in any insurance purchase decision and although a low price doesn’t necessarily translate to good value, it’s easy to assume when comparing like for like cover across multiple insurance providers, that the cheapest price may seem like the best option.
However, in the interim of any regulation, Boards and Senior Managers should take some time to consider their customers best interests in relation to how they are comparing these policies. The reality is that what appears to be the cheapest first-year price, may ultimately become a bad deal if not calculated over the lifetime of the policy.
Uinsure has never price walked. This strategy has been under pressure given the nature of a very competitive market, but our practice and offering has remained consistent since our inception in 2007.
It’s an ethical standpoint that we believe is fairer and more transparent for customers, while ensuring a better outcome. Of course, refusing to price walk has occasionally meant that our first-year prices might be slightly higher than those of our competitors, but our fair pricing strategy has meant that prices are consistent and honest with no hidden fees and, therefore, representing fairer value of the lifetime of the policy.
As we move forward, our strategy will remain the same for what we believe is the ultimate benefit of the end customer and this will ensure all of our customers are treated fairly, in return for the trust they put in us.
As a continuation of Uinsure’s ‘How the pro’s do it’ campaign, Makayla Everitt, Head of SimplyBiz Mortgages discusses the insurance opportunity that lies within the Buy-to-Let market with her top 10 tips… Don’t forget the tenant!
Tenants could hold the key
With many struggling to get a foot on the property ladder, the demand for rental properties has soared over recent years.
The stigma around owning your own home has changed as more people see long-term rental solutions more financially viable than getting a place of their own. Bearing this in mind, tenants are no different to homeowners in the respect that should something happen to their home, their most cherished possessions are covered. Not only that, but should the property become uninhabitable to any reasons, tenant insurance would find them a place to stay whilst the repairs are made.
Commonly, many tenants believe it is the landlord’s responsibility to arrange contents insurance, where of course, it isn’t. There is also a real risk that many tenants maybe unaware and in breach of tenancy agreements of their contract stipulates contents insurance is required.
Raising awareness in their area is essential. By partnering with local letting agents, you would be able to promote this issue whilst also opening to a new, under-serviced area of the market, with potential to re-engage with these clients further down the line if they do require potential mortgage and protection advice.
You can make a real difference
Don’t forget tenants want to protect their income and families too. Offer them a review to ensure they are kept secure.
Don’t forget that Landlords also need protection and there are a number of landlord focused products available to support across a number of areas.
Don’t have the time? Referring Landlord Insurances, LPS and Rent Guarantee offers security and will open the door to new future clients.
Win, win – offer an enhanced letting agreement for better protected tenants.
You can support your landlords in getting back to auctions and undertaking refurbishment with Bridge-to-Let products.
Clients of tomorrow – don’t underestimate the value of Contents Only policies.
Create loyalty with existing landlords, use the agent’s knowledge to guide where they buy. This will create an instant let, the landlord is then happy to give the agent yet another property.
Tenants giving notice are potentially your purchasers of today. Referrals from the letting agent can benefit all concerned.
Free marketing literature to support referral business is available from most insurance providers.
Increase your brand awareness, board presence and overall business growth by developing string relationships with agents in your area.
Let’s not forget landlords
With rental property demand the highest it has been in decades, and more clients entering the Buy-to-Let space- have you considered targeting portfolio and landlord clients in your area?
Following the turbulent year that was 2020, the mantra ‘expect the unexpected’ never rang truer. Landlords and letting agents place great value on loyal and dependable tenants who provide regular income. Landlord insurance is a viable solution to all landlords ensuring that if the property is damaged, uninhabitable or lays vacant for an extended period that the property is repaired, and the landlord is not left out of pocket.
You can offer to work in association with your local letting agents in a mutually beneficent manner, you work can provide them, and you, with an income, it can safeguard the owner of the property against having to find another tenant, thus running the risk of a loss of income and, perhaps most importantly, it will also provide safety and security for the renting party. Quite literally, and like every fairground across the UK, everyone’s a winner.
So, hopefully you are now thinking which letting agents you have in your area, and who will benefit from your experience, knowledge, and professionalism. Please remember a lot of these business leads can be referred, ensuring you receive maximum income for minimum time spent.
Simple products and services stand out. It has become a necessity worth striving to achieve in a complex market and within busy mortgage firms across the UK.
Creating Simplicity
So how do you go about achieving simplicity in your business? Simplicity is all about finding the right balance of what is necessary and what is not.
In the past, many advisers preferred to structure their sales process across several face-to-face client appointments. The pandemic forced a move to online meetings, which resulted in much improved efficiencies for both advisers and customers alike with many firms choosing to continue this approach post lockdown. This even led to wider benefits such as being able to return mortgage recommendations within a few hours of the call because of the time savings generated.
This is a great illustration of how simplicity has been created on such a wide scale, despite it being forced on us by a global pandemic. And, importantly, it makes the advisory community stand out.
Hiding complexity to create simplicity
Once you cut through everything in your business that isn’t necessary, the next stage is to look at what is necessary but repetitive.
This is where good technology solutions come into play, effectively hiding the complexity of most repetitive actions (that’s what it’s really good at), so the users only see simplicity.
As an example, Uinsure knew that asking lots of questions to apply for insurance was complex, boring, arduous and sometimes ambiguous. So instead, we decided to shed all the complexity of traditional providers, by only asking the critical questions and sourced the rest of the data from other places. This was a meaningful innovation because it simplified the experience of accessing insurance and hid the complexity to the end user.
In a world full of complexity, it is simplicity that makes a product or a service stand out. It’s therefore crucial that we understand how to balance complexity with simplicity and can implement this understanding in our businesses.
