bsurance
A Digital Platform for Tailor-made Insurance Products

Complex paperwork coupled with insurance agents and sales representatives trying to persuade people to purchase insurance policies through discussions is still a prevalent practice in the insurance industry. In today’s digital world, people rarely give in to these agents’ persuasion and don’t readily buy insurance unless it is of any relevance to their needs. Insurance companies oftentimes miss a trick by selling insurance directly to customers instead of clubbing it with the goods they buy. For modern customers to readily purchase insurance, it is imperative for insurance carriers to offer their services to customers not only in an appropriate context but also at the right moment.

The importance and benefits of selling a suitable insurance product along with insurable goods and at the exact time when customers make a purchase decision can be elucidated using AppleCare’s example. Not only does AppleCare sell iPhones with a hardware repair coverage but it also provides insurance options for accidental damage like glass breakage and more. Also, a mobile operator that incorporates mobile insurance into its tariff structure will certainly be more attractive to users from a commercial perspective. “What I believe is that such a combination of insurance and services significantly enhances the product’s value in addition to increasing the overall sale of insurance,” states Lorenz Gräff, CEO of bsurance—a provider of embedded insurance products.

Austria-based bsurance has built a digital insurance platform that allows insurance products to be implemented directly via simple and easy-to-use application programming interfaces (APIs). The company upholds the importance of contextual offerings by focusing primarily on creating relevant and tailor-made products that go hand in hand with consumers’ unique requirements. Further, bsurance directs these insurance products to the client’s point of sales (POS), thus delivering insurance to consumers bundled with the retailer’s core product.

The amalgamation of insurance with the core product saves time and money for consumers with regard to buying a pertinent insurance cover for their new purchase and in turn, gives the client’s sales a major boost. Additionally, by integrating insurance with a company’s core offering, bsurance delivers a one-stop buying experience to the company’s customers, which is a crucial factor that makes bsurance unique in the market. Embedded insurance products that bsurance offers for payment transactions, cybercrimes, and more result in increased levels of satisfaction and trust for an organization’s customers. “As a result, both the insurance carriers as well as the POS partners can gain equally and enormously from our digital platform and products,” says Gräff.

Implementation of an Embedded Insurance Product

In addition to providing clients with the sales advantage of embedded insurance, bsurance focuses on customizing insurance solutions based on the minute specifications of a client’s requirements.

bsurance directs relevant insurance products to the client’s point of sales (POS), thus delivering insurance to consumers bundled with the retailer’s core product

The efficacy of these tailor-made solutions can be illustrated by the company’s first minimum viable product (MVP), implemented with dental accident insurance for Playbrush—a London-based technology company that digitalizes oral care for children. Playbrush builds an IoT device that acts as an add-on to a toothbrush with an aim to make children brush their teeth more effectively. In order to address the issue of children losing their teeth in various accidents, Playbrush wanted to attach a dental insurance cover to their product. “However, there hardly exists any insurance company that specifically offers dental accident insurance. Besides, a general accident cover offered by most insurance companies is way too expensive for a dental insurance that would require around 50 euro cents per month,” points Gräff.

With UNIQA, one of the leading insurance groups in Austria as well as all other central and eastern European (CEE) countries, Playbrush and bsurance were able to get the perfect insurance carrier on board. “We convinced UNIQA to drop off other features of its general accident policy and focus only on the dental aspect along with making them understand the benefits of integrating with the Playbrush’s device,” adds Gräff. Every subscription from Playbrush now includes a UNIQA dental accident insurance, which is automatically activated for customers at no additional charge when they purchase the IoT device including the subscription online.

Furthermore, bsurance’s digital platform that connects Playbrush to UNIQA in the background led to the otherwise complicated process of policy creation being completed in real time. At the same time, bsurance completed the technical implementation—which usually takes months—within a few weeks’ time, thus bridging the gap between digital marketplaces and the traditional insurance world. “This concept will also work with electronic brushing solutions for adults and we are already preparing an embedded insurance solution to cover this market, too,” remarks Gräff.

A Partnership-driven Approach

The key differentiating factor for bsurance is its partnership-driven approach, which enables the company to scale seamlessly along with constantly enhancing the features of its offerings. This approach also assists bsurance in developing simpler and more secure products, and more importantly, delivering them in a fitting context.

“Our partnership with UNIQA helps us deliver products across central and eastern parts of Europe while Munich Re—the biggest reinsurer in the world—leads us further to Asia and America,” elaborates Gräff, on the advantages of partnerships. With an established presence in Austria and Germany, bsurance now plans to expand to rest of the European continent in the upcoming months.