While many assume that millennials want to do everything online – particularly those in the insurtech community – one young broking CEO thinks differently.
James Noble, 24, set up MyFirst in 2014 as an insurance broker catering specifically to young drivers, becoming inspired to start the company after going through the process of insuring his own first car and finding the options frustrating.
“What I realised was that you’re really left to your own devices when it comes to choosing the right policy first time around,” Noble told Insurance Business.
The brokerage works with a panel of insurers including
Aviva,
AXA, and
Markerstudy, all of which backed the upstart early on. Emphasis is placed on providing advice and guidance to young drivers, which Noble says sets the business apart from its online competitors who often encourage customers to pick the cheapest deal.
MyFirst brings in most of its business via social media, having gained a Twitter following of over 15,000, but all of its business is transacted over the phone, rather than online.
“We’ve not actually invested in a quote and buy facility online,” Noble explained. “We are bringing in a quote facility online, but part of our deals with our insurers is that we take out all of our policies over the phone with young drivers, and the reason for that is that we can really give them the advice and guidance they need, but also ensure they know what sort of product they’re buying.”
The company has cultivated brand awareness and grown its Twitter following through hosting competitions and give-aways, often requiring entrants to give their insurance renewal date as a method of entry.
“It’s things like that that we do that separate us. We don’t have the budgets of the big comparison sites, so we try and really keep everything we do to what we believe young people are interested in and what’s going to connect with them,” Noble commented.
As for those comparison sites, many of which are big names in the UK, Noble says that MyFirst is able to differentiate itself through the services it offers. However, he admits that it would be “impossible” to say they aren’t competitors, “because at the end of the day we’re all vying for the same young drivers, and drivers of any age for that matter.”
“I think it’s about making people aware of the fact that – especially for young people – if you mis-insure yourself and you don’t do things properly, if you then have a claim it can really have serious implications with regard to being paid and serious injury claims,” Noble noted. “It’s giving people that awareness that it’s not always best to take the cheapest policy, sometimes it’s best to take the right policy, and there’s a big difference there.
Comparison sites push you towards taking the cheapest option possible and I think that’s the big difference between us and them.”
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