Smart home insurance startup Honey Insurance (Honey) has teamed up with financial aggregator Specialist Finance Group (SFG) to accelerate the digitisation of the home settlement process.
In Australia, 70% of home purchases are facilitated through a broker. However, with lenders requiring home insurance to progress applications, many home loan settlements are delayed due to the insurance certificate not being in place. Moreover, depending on how long the settlement is delayed, the total penalty interest and additional fees from the vendor could become costly.
Honey’s partnership with SFG aims to solve these issues by embedding the insurance application in the mortgage processing platform, enhancing customers’ digital experience by providing an effortless, time-saving, and competitive way to get proactive protection for their new home.
Eoghan Trehy, VP of partnerships at Honey, said the partnership aligns with the insurer’s goal to provide a smarter, easier way for Australians to take out home insurance easily.
“One of the things that excites us most about the Honey and SFG partnership is being able to extend this to the SFG broker network, who, in turn, will be able to provide additional value to their customers. We’re providing a simple and streamlined process for brokers to ensure their clients’ loans settle without delay, something we know has been a pain point in the past, and with Honey’s pricing agnostic approach, the broker can offer the same price to their customers as they would get online, which solidifies the value of this partnership,” Trehy said.
Blake Buchanan, general manager at SFG, commented: “SFG is thrilled to increase the opportunities available to our brokers that help consumers. Insurance is a crucial part of a consumer’s journey when seeking finance solutions, and this partnership brings efficiencies and products that we have not seen in this space before. SFG is proud to partner with Honey with a digital process that is embedded in our SFGconnect technology that makes the referral process simple with results available within minutes.”
