A new online insurance business targeting the country’s small-to-medium sized business market
launched last week promising customers greater transparency, time and cost savings and simplified insurance processes.
Insurance Business talked to founder Brendan Tobin about Insure Online and the opportunity he sees to offer small businesses – the businesses that form the backbone of the economy – better options online - and it’s not necessarily good news for brokers.
“Market research over the past five years has consistently pointed to customer preferences to do business online and to do it more simply - and customers (small businesses) have continually questioned what value a broker brings to the relationship,” he said.
“We know from research from all around the world that small business owners want to buy insurance online. They want to get quotes online. They want to do it all online, and they’re doing that more each day (in other areas of their life) whether that’s flights, bookings, accounting services and they question, why can’t we buy insurance online? So, that’s where the market opportunity has arisen.”
With a strong background in insurance and technology, Tobin believes he knows the market and has done his homework.
“My background is in insurance and technology,” he explained. “I started in insurance in 1985 and have worked for several companies -
Allianz for 17 years, I ran Westpac General Insurance, and as CEO of Telstra e- business which provided a technology hub to the insurance industry.
“Our target market is businesses employing less than 20 people anywhere in New Zealand. We see a market opportunity in New Zealand - it takes a week to get a quote, and we know we can do it faster.
“We also know on average that the commission rates collected by insurance brokers in New Zealand are on the higher side, and we’re able to provide our service (cheaper) to customers and pass on our savings to customers as well, and that’s essentially what the opportunity is.”
The business officially launched last week after a soft launch that saw the website go live in December.
“We’ve spent the last nine months building up our presence online in our newsroom, on our website and posting content that has really driven our search engine results quite high,” he said. “It’s important in an online business that we are presented on page one on Google, and it’s worked quite well and we’re getting a lot of traffic to our website.”
Despite the fact Tobin is going up against brokers, he feels there will always be a need for specialised advice but not all businesses need that – and that’s where Insure Online comes in.
“There will always be a future for brokers because there will always be customers who want and need risk management advice,” he said. “There will always be customers who need products that are specific to only their business. I know the brokers are the only ones that can provide that particular service, so there will always be a demand for them.
“But small business will see that they can achieve better value by taking control of their insurance themselves online, purchasing it at any time of the day, seven days a week, 24 hours and make changes when they want and rest assured that they are covered from the time they receive their policy information.”
What is your opinion on Tobin’s thoughts? Is there a market opportunity with cheaper insurance online for small businesses in New Zealand? Or should the added value brokers offer, always come first? Leave a comment below with your thoughts.
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