Recognized as one of the
But the journey of INZMO’s co-founders didn’t start with insurance at all. Savolainen previously worked as a lawyer for Ernst and Young and other advisory companies as a tax and legal consultant. Her co-founder, Risto Klausen, is a former professional motorcycle racer and an Estonian and Baltic Champion Superbike racer. Savolainen and Klausen have worked together on numerous projects in the past, and in 2015, the Estonian-born pair founded Bike ID – an international bike registry with a database of users from over 70 countries.
Though Bike ID was an international success, Savolainen notes that the team was actively searching for a better way to monetize the registry. After deliberating and consulting with their developer, the team decided to create a new app and platform that would offer bike insurance for Bike ID registrants.
“Our ambition has always been to not operate on the Estonian market only… We immediately went to Germany and started pitching this idea to different German insurance companies,” says Savolainen. “When we showed the technology and we pitched the idea, they said, ‘You have built up such a great platform, and such a great app and web, to sell bike insurance – why just bike insurance? We would like to sell other products like this to our consumers.’”
In 2016, BikeID pivoted to INZMO – an insurance mediator and agent for bicycles, consumer electronics and, more recently, rental home insurance. INZMO prides itself on its customer-centric platform; simplicity, reliability and instantaneous processing are core components of its digital app.
“We have built up our own back-office solutions and it basically serves, fully digitally, the whole process of insuring... And what the customer sees is a nice interface as a website or a mobile app, whichever they prefer to use,” says Savolainen. “We have also built up our products and then technology in a way that it's primarily serving people who have a very digital mindset, so this is the kind of experience our audience is expecting.”
The platform performs instant insurance operations, including underwriting, insuring, customer support and claims handling. INZMO’s claims process is almost fully digital and automatic, and customers can quickly submit claims with just a few steps and track the live status of their claim on the web or on the app in real time.
“Instant insurance is something that we really aspire for… Today, you can buy any insurance product online quite easily. But the ugly truth comes out in the claims handling process, which takes weeks to settle,” explains Savolainen. “We are aiming for an experience that is instant in all aspects – not just getting the policy, not just changing some information in your policy, not just canceling the policy but also with claims handling.”
Savolainen says that INZMO aspires to build an even more instant claims handling system; if a customer were to submit a claim for a broken cell phone, for example, they would receive money in their bank account within about 10 minutes.
Another key to INZMO’s customer centricity is its “invisible” embedded offerings included in its B2B2C partnerships. The embedded insurance is included in the consumer products and simplifies the customer’s experience as an all-inclusive package.
“[Insurance] is something that you have to have, but you really don't want to deal with…We see that in the future, insurance has to be embedded with different products and services,” Savolainen explains. “This is what we're striving for – that insurance products are hidden inside other products and services so that the customer never has to think about it.”
INZMO plans to become a licensed insurer in the near future, and has put together an experienced team “to build the next insurance unicorn in Europe,” Savolainen states.
