Cove Insurance : Everything you need to know

Cove Insurance – Everything you need to know
Headquarters Address: 6 – 10 The Strand, Takapuna, Auckland
Size (employees): 10+
Locations: Auckland, New Zealand
Key People: Rob Coon, Andy Coon, Brett Wilson, Sonya Whitney

About Cove Insurance
Cove Insurance was founded in 2017, and launched to the New Zealand public in 2018. It is an underwriter selling insurance entirely through a chatbot, using Facebook and its own website as platforms where customers can enter their information and receive fast, on the spot quotes.

Cove Insurance was founded by brothers Andy and Rob Coon, and their friend Brett. Together they identified a gap in the digital insurance market, and set out to provide customers with a simple and fast digital experience.

In 2017, they assembled a team to create the offering, and the company obtained Lloyds coverholder status in June 2018. It entered a phase of beta-testing on friends and family, and Cove Insurance officially launched to the general public and sold its first policy by chatbot in the same month.

It is comprised of staff who left companies including Suncorp, Very, AA Insurance, QBE, Tower and Sovereign to make the switch.

Cove Insurance currently offers comprehensive car insurance for cars worth under $80k, as well as phone insurance. It is currently looking into creating home and contents insurance policies for sale in the near future, and is also looking to offer more flexibility in terms of payments and explore other products such as boat, motorcycle and life insurance.

Leadership at Cove Insurance

Rob Coon – Co-founder
Coon graduated from Auckland University in 2003, and spent nine years working across Australia, the USA and Hong Kong as a sales and marketing manager with Evolution Yachts. He became the CEO of Seahawk Marine in 2012 before moving to FinanceFox, an independent insurance broker utilising artificial intelligence (AI) to analyse the insurance market and present customers with the best deal. He started work on Cove Insurance in 2016, where he is currently one of the three co-founders.

Andy Coon – Co-founder
Coon spent a number of years working in the finance sector as an analyst before moving into the insurance space in 2016, also working with FinanceFox’s AI-powered insurance broker. His work for Sovereign, Ondra Partners and Infusion has taken him across New Zealand and Europe, and he started up the Cove team with his co-founders in January 2017.

Brett Wilson – Co-founder
Wilson has over 20 years’ experience in the finance sector, having started his career as the general finance manager at Sovereign before spending several years in the same role at ASB Bank. He joined Tower Insurance as chief financial officer in 2015, but left to set up Cove Insurance with Andy and Rob Coon in 2017. He graduated from Auckland University with a Batchelor of Commerce and Accounting.

Sonya Whitney – Chief Operating Officer
Whitney has been in the insurance sector for over 15 years, having started out as a claims adviser with IAG before moving to rural insurer FMG, where she held various roles including portfolio analyst, business improvement analyst and product manager. She spent five years at Medical Assurance Society (MAS) before joining Cove Insurance in May 2018 as chief operating officer.

Culture at Cove Insurance
Cove Insurance is focused on developing an insurance service that makes it easier for customers to buy and manage their policies, and provides 24/7 support through its chatbot. It also offers its policies on a monthly subscription basis, rather than as an annual contract, and the policies can be cancelled at any time. According to co-founders Andy and Rob Coon, this allows Cove to maintain a large level of transparency and efficiency with its customers.