I recently attended a Bay Area InsurTech meetup, sponsored by AXA Lab, with the theme of “Millennials, mobile and the future of Insurance.”
The session started with an overview of findings from an AXA-Alpha UX survey. Notably, Millennials’ preferred method of interaction with insurers is in-person, and they view insurance as important for safety but not engaging; expensive, but necessary.
Next, speakers from three startups, moderated by Tuan Pham from Silicon Valley Bank, discussed both the survey findings and a broad range of issues ranging from how to design products to appeal to Millennials to establishing brands.
Automatic (https://www.automatic.com) offers an adapter that plugs into car’s ODBII ports, plus an app that displays info on your car and your driving habits. They offer everything from vehicle diagnostics to real-time driving feedback to finding where you parked your car to exporting data for T&E and taxes.
One Financial (really, their investment Bee: http://www.beecard.us/) reaches out to the unbanked, and has lower customer acquisition costs than banks because of use of kiosks. The company is building presence at farmers’ markets. Vinay Patel, One Financial’s CEO and co-founder, realizes banks can copy what he does, but by that time he’ll have built up a nice business.
Sure (http://sureapp.com/) offers what they call episodic insurance, which right now means being able to buy flight insurance on-demand from your phone. Wayne Slavin, the CEO and co-founder, discussed the importance of transparency, bundling opportunities, and the potential for outsourcing some function such as claims handling.
I was surprised at how conservative discussion ran, compared to invocations of disruption and touting of Uber and Zenefits at other locations. For example, there was a discussion on the importance of following regulations. Connected cars, UBI, and driverless vehicles were seen as transformative, but the real impact would not hit for twenty years or so.
A takeaway was that there was plenty of room for innovation in products and in engaging and serving Millennials, without startups seeking to be insurers in their own right.
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