An insurance brokerage that uses social networking to connect people who pool their money together to purchase insurance is expanding to other countries.
The German brokerage Friendsurance is set to launch in Australia, according to Perry Abbott, executive director of Friendsurance and Vantage Fund, which has a stake in the peer-to-peer intermediary.
“Friendsurance will take the products being sold in that country,” Abbott told Insurance Business, “and apply the Friendsurance model to create value for insurers and customers and increase the market share of insurers.”
According to Abbott, the more people that connect on Facebook to form an insurance network and the fewer claims they make, the more money they are likely to get back at the end of the year.
The brokerage makes “insurance salesmen a thing of the past,” states an actor in a Friendsurance YouTube video; but Abbott – whose company has stakes in brokerages Australian Reliance and Reliance Partners – stressed that Friendsurance’s objective was not to displace brokers but provide customers, who will always opt to buy insurance online, with other options.
“There are customers who will always buy certain products online,” he pointed out. “We are creating options for them. It’s not about displacing brokers.” (continued.)
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Friendsurance distributes a range of insurance including household, liability and legal expenses. Last year it launched a new offering, providing insurance for electronics including TVs, laptops, mobile phones and tablets.
Insurers have to sign up to Friendsurance to offer their products to customers.
Looking to the future, Abbott said the company – which launched in 2010 – is focused on evolving.
“Friendsurance is looking at every insurance category. The key thing in the first two years is to get a stable and scalable model to do what they are doing,” he said. “They have a solid structured approach to the model and have bedded it down. Now they are in the space to add new products.”
