In part one of of our Building a Digital Insurance Experience article we heard from a number of New Zealanders who had given Cove feedback on what they want to see in their ideal insurance experience.

The key requests were for Cove to make insurance digital, to provide an exceptional claims experience, be genuine, and to demystify insurance. Aana summarised this sentiment with her concise request to the Cove team below…

Make my insurance simple, easy, and intuitive. Digital everything – Aana

As we continue to gather consumer feedback, the idea of “digital everything” is still the main theme of requests submitted to Cove.

However there are some new requests which focus on transparency, the ability to manage existing policies, and being flexible enough to provide an insurance experience to Cove customers that can be tailored to their lifestyle.

Let’s explore these new themes, starting with flexibility.

Flexibility

Understanding our customers, and acknowledging they they don’t all fit in the same boxes, leads us down a path of providing more flexibility in our products.

Understand me and my situation and give me value across my lifestyle – Ghanum

In Andrew Kucheriavy’s article for Forbes.com, he states “Imagine getting a policy that is custom-tailored to your exact needs, lets you start and stop coverage on demand, makes you pay only for the coverage you use, and that can be underwritten within seconds on your smartphone”.

Although many insurtech startups are striving to meet this utopia, it is still a little while off. While working towards reaching this point, steps are already being taken to get closer to insuring just what you need insured, with the level of cover that you personally desire. Digital insurers offering such a service are starting to appear overseas.

Insure household items for arbitrary amounts – Dylan

The ability to insure individual items was one of the more common requests Cove received. The thought behind these requests was that many Kiwis have a few valued assets that they would like to insure. People’s laptops, phones, cameras, and tablets were generally cited.

Transparency

For Cove, transparency means knowing exactly what it is you are purchasing, what level of cover you have, and being kept informed of how much you are paying for this level of cover.

If your premium is due to change (either upwards, or downwards), our customers need to be kept informed and notified of this change before it takes place. We want our customers to have no surprises when they look at their bank statement, or review their policies.

Transparency around premium and cover changes – Jenee

Insurance policies in New Zealand currently have a number of variables, and optional extras, that affect the price of the policy. An example of a variable which has a direct effect on the premium is the amount of your excess. David’s request to Cove was to be able to play with these variables and see the effect in real time…

Be able to play around with benefits and sums insured to easily see what the effect will be – David

With a digital first offering, showing the effect of your changes in real-time becomes possible. You will be able to make changes to your policies level of cover and see how this affects your monthly payments.

Policy Management

Managing an existing insurance policy online is functionality that established insurers in New Zealand are starting to make progress on. Existing self-service portals allow customers to login and amend a limited number of policy features, on a select group of insurance products.

But what if you could manage all aspects of your insurance, for all your insurance products? A true digital insurance experience will enable you to conduct all your insurance maintenance online, without the need to call a call centre.

Make it easy to pick a plan and change it if required, all online – Cameron

As with providing flexible policy coverage, and enabling transparency on how policy features affect price, the digital-first nature of Cove means that exceptional online policy management becomes a core aspect of our service. Making amendments to your policy, no matter how small, needs to be able to be completed in just minutes online.

Where to from here?

Cove will continue to advocate for innovation in the insurance sector. New Zealanders deserve a delightful customer experience. As we develop our product and improve it based on customer feedback, our aim is to provide the most intuitive insurance experience in New Zealand.

 

 

We are proud to be part of FintechNZ, and a member of the FintechNZ Insurance Working Group which has been established to lead the insurance technology revolution.

Thanks to feedback from many Kiwis, we have a great understanding of what New Zealanders want, and we are aiming to deliver.