"Insurance is proof of our humanity.”
That’s the belief of Jason Wilby (pictured), the positive-thinking co-founder of Open Insurance. For Wilby, the ire occasionally drawn by the insurance industry clouds the basic fact that: “People pooling their money together in a pot to help those who are facing difficult situations is something that we should be proud of.”
Wilby’s optimism is reflected by his belief in the power of technology to transform insurance. In 2016, Wilby and Jonathan Buck, Open Insurance’s other co-founder, set out to establish an insurance company that would allow brokers to sell and manage insurance in an entirely digital environment. The pair took inspiration from the recent success of neobanks such as 86 400, which gives individuals the opportunity to open a bank account just by using a mobile app.
“Though insurance is something that can be bought online, it’s not an industry that has really implemented a digital-first approach,” Wilby told Insurance Business. “From where we stood, it was crying out for end-to-end digitalisation.”
At Open Insurance, this process of digitalisation is enabled by products such as OpenBroker, an app that lets brokers offer their clients the ability to submit and track claims, and manage their insurance policies, online. Powered by a technology stack that was built in-house, the app has no set-up costs and was recently presented with a 2020 Good Design Award in the “Digital Design – Apps and Software” category.
“If you’re purchasing insurance over the phone, it can sometimes feel a bit unclear as to how the actual process works and whether or not you’re getting good value,” Wilby said. “We’re looking to increase reliability and help customers understand what they’re buying, since we’ve found that, sometimes, the more we get out of the way of our customers, the more transparent the process becomes for them.”
Though they have offices in Sydney and on the Sunshine Coast, Open Insurance’s tech-savvy approach meant that they were able to transition easily to remote working when the pandemic hit this year, Wilby noted.
“Our workforce is about 50 people at this stage, all of whom were set up and able to switch to remote working basically overnight,” he said. “Of course, our customers generally interact with us as an online business, and so this increased uptake of technology during this time, along with such products as our pay-as-you-drive car insurance, have really helped us prosper during COVID-19.”
Wilby is bullish about Open Insurance’s prospects for growth during this digital age, pointing to the company’s elevated customer service as a key differentiator. “We’ve developed technology that enables us to deliver the best customer experience across broker channels, and so I’m quite optimistic about our medium-term growth in Australia,” he said.
“There are always incumbents and challengers in every market, and as we start to expand into other markets, we’re finding that we’re well-placed to challenge, to innovate, and to help customers understand the investment they’re making.”
