How do you get customers to buy from you rather than from competitor brands? How do you expand your share of each customer’s wallet? One approach is to think like a supermarket. If you enlarge your catalogue of products and services, the customer can pick up multiple items at your store and maximize their spending with your brand.
Embedded insurance creates an interesting opportunity here. By embedding insurance products into their digital user journeys, product and service providers from non-insurance sectors can develop more purchase options for customers. Insurance is no ordinary value addition either, for everybody needs risk coverage at any given time.
Everybody needs insurance
Insurance is a form of protection against financial risk. The right mix of insurance plans helps policyholders cope with the monetary impacts of undesirable events, such as death, medical emergency, theft, fire, and so on. When the worst-case scenario comes to pass, the policy pays for all related expenses. So, the insured person is able to tide over the crisis without emptying their bank balance.
Consider a car accident: There may be damage to the vehicles that collided. Drivers and passengers may have sustained injuries. While vehicle repair and medical treatment costs can be substantial, adequate insurance would ease the burden.
Comprehensive car insurance could cover repair costs and any third-party liabilities.
In case of hefty hospital bills, policyholders could file health insurance claims.
If the accident led to casualties, life insurance pay-outs would support the family members of the deceased.
Car, health, and life insurance are standard insurance plans, but they are hardly the only options. Some other types of insurance include:
Home and asset insurance as safeguards against damage to and loss of property and belongings.
Two-wheeler insurance for owners of motorcycles or scooters.
Business interruption insurance and cyber insurance for business owners.
Crop and livestock insurance for the crop, poultry, and cattle farmers.
The trouble with insurance purchase
Insurance brochures can be heavy on jargon, which makes policy selection hard for the average person. Moreover, insurance products are often generic and designed for the broader populace rather than tailored to the unique needs of each individual. This adds complexity to the purchase process, causing people to hold off on insurance-buying plans.
When people don’t buy insurance, the protection gap widens. And that is never a good thing. The protection gap is the difference between the amount of insurance that people need and the amount of coverage that they actually buy.
For example, India currently has a risk protection gap of around 83% to 92% (Source: Economic Times, SBI). When the gap is 83%, it means people have bought merely 17% of the coverage they need. So, if each person needs insurance worth Rs 100, they have coverage worth only Rs 17. For the remaining Rs 83, they are on their own.
Can embedded insurance be a solution?
Let’s dive in with a question: What do customers want when buying insurance?
They want an easier and more satisfying purchase experience. Embedded insurance can help with that. Bundling plans into the transaction flow of other products and services is a great way to simplify and enrich the customer experience.
Say, a digital user purchases an e-bike through an eCommerce website. As the user approaches the checkout page, she receives an offer to insure the new e-bike. This is an optional policy, which means the user can either accept the offer or ignore it. If she accepts the offer, the insurance policy gets added to her digital shopping cart. She can pay for the e-bike, any accessories, and the policy at one go during checkout. There is no extra step.
Traditional channels of insurance distribution are never this seamless. Suppose the e-bike customer did not receive an embedded insurance offer. She would have to buy the e-bike and then shop for insurance products through the websites and apps of insurers, insurance aggregators, and agents. She might even visit the insurance company’s branch office for help. This is far more complex than just clicking a button to accept an embedded product.
Embedded insurance is great for business
The embedded insurance model opens up the insurance landscape to e-business players from non-financial backgrounds. e-commerce companies, retailers, and service providers can sign up just as readily as banks and financial service businesses. To participate, the business simply needs a digital sales platform and a core offering that can be tied in with an insurance product.
Once the embedded insurance software is integrated, the third-party business can impress the customer and increase their share of the wallet. Here are four reasons why embedding insurance can augment wallet size for a partner business.
1. Businesses can provide integrated experiences. Multi-product platforms enable digital users to cross many items off their shopping lists. Such experiences delight customers, persuade them to spend more, and keep them coming back. By joining the insurance ecosystem, third-party businesses can delight customers and solidify their brand position. Since buying an embedded insurance plan is easy and intuitive, customers may not resist the policy offer that pops up around checkout. They may buy the insurance product simply because it is there. And each time they buy an add-on policy, the seller will note an increase in their share of the wallet.
2. Businesses can reach untapped audiences. Insurance distribution in India is lopsided. Insurance companies have a strong presence in the metros and are extending their operations in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. But for consumers in rural India, insurance is not easy to come by.
With embedded insurance, e-businesses could create a simple policy-buying process for rural consumers, who represent 65% of the Indian population (Source: World Bank). Brands that have the trust of rural consumers could include embedded policies in their customer journey. This might encourage uninsured rural customers to add insurance to their other purchases, leading to more revenue for the brand.
3. Businesses can capitalize on trust. Owing to the lack of knowledge and clarity about insurance among consumers, trust is a major hurdle for insurers. And that’s where third-party businesses have an edge.
Digital customers frequently transact with businesses that they trust. These
businesses, therefore, have access to large volumes of customer data.
Embedded insurance technology can use this data to underwrite policies that
are tailored to the customer and the items in their cart. Since the personalized
offer comes from a brand they trust, users may be more inclined to spend a
little extra and buy coverage.
4. Businesses can scale easily. Embedded insurance is distributed to consumers via application programming interfaces (APIs). The insurance API needs to be integrated into the digital sales platforms of a third-party business. Once that is done, the business can sell embedded plans to any number of customers.
The one-to-many distribution model works well. Even if the business sees a surge in the number of users, the underlying API continues to embed policies wherever relevant. The software ensures the necessary backend support as the company’s user base and the consumers’ share of wallet continues to grow.
Increase wallet size with Turtlefin
The embedded insurance segment is open to all businesses that have insurance-adjacent products or services, robust sales platforms, and a healthy client base. If you want to get involved, Turtlefin can set you up with the right tools and infrastructure.
Turtlefin OneAPI is a dynamic tool that powers your sales channels with embedded insurance technology. This scalable solution is based on innovative technology that guarantees frictionless experiences for your digital customers. Our plug-and-play API transforms your business model and creates a new vertical in less time and with zero hassle.
Here’s what to expect when you partner with Turtlefin:
Seamless, speedy, and hassle-free API integration
Handholding throughout the setup and testing phases
Continued tech support for your team
Insurance products from 30+ leading insurers
Commissions on every policy sold
Embedding insurance creates more touch points with existing customers and new prospects. Insurance as a value addition enriches the customer journey. This extended opportunity to interact with clients increases their willingness to spend, which naturally amps up your wallet share.
To know more about Turtlefin:
Takeaways
Embedded insurance may prove a profitable opportunity for a range of non-insurance businesses. Bundled policies are easy to understand, hyper-relevant, and offered to the user at a convenient time and place. Powered by innovative technology, embedded products are often too good to pass up for customers—and that brings healthy revenues for partner businesses.