Cove has been in the news a lot recently, mainly focussed around how chatbots are revolutionising complex services internationally, and how we plan to use chatbots to make insurance in New Zealand simple.

Some of the stories that have covered Cove have been Would you make an insurance claim by chat-bot?, Insurance: the chatbots are taking over, and Expert speaks out on whether chatbots can replace brokers.

But chatbots aren’t for everyone.

Cove’s goal is to make insurance simple, and conversational interfaces are just one way to achieve this.

Chatbots allow complex questionnaires to be broken down into simple conversational steps. This is perfect for buying insurance as the fundamental process is asking the customer a number of questions to get to know them before providing them with a quote.

Such a simple conversational-like interface can also be achieved outside of a chatbot, and within a standard website. The most common way to achieve this is to break complex forms, which are typically all crammed together onto one page, across a number of pages with just one or two basic questions, and only asking what is essential to provide a quote.

With this in mind, what’s next on Cove’s roadmap towards making insurance simple?

The Cove development team has started turning their attention to providing insurance outside of our chatbot, and within a simple conversational web experience.

New Zealand has recently been doing exceptionally well in transforming complex experiences into beautiful online interfaces….just not in insurance. Three companies we believe are doing great work transforming complex experiences are Xero, Sharesies, and the Simplicity KiwiSaver scheme.

Xero’s tagline is “Beautiful Accounting Software”. Who even knew accounting software could be intuitive to use?! Xero is one of New Zealand’s top business success stories, and before Xero’s tagline of Beautiful Accounting Software was conceived, we never thought we would see the words ‘beautiful’ and ‘accounting’ within the same sentence!

Sharesies has the tagline “Investing Made Easy”, which is why Sharesies is popular within the Cove office when it comes time to dabble in the share market. Sharesies is doing for investment what Cove is doing for insurance. From any mobile or desktop device, Sharesies allows you to buy, sell and track your investments. You’re able to invest as little as $15 or $20 and contribute more as money becomes available, essentially building your portfolio one day at a time.

The company has no hints of being a large corporate, run by the old boys club in the financial services industry, and is led by CEO Brooke Roberts.

Through Sharesies, investing has become understandable and accessible for everyone and is opening up investing to a new audience (80% of Sharesies customers are under 40).

Simplicity claims to be the online “KiwiSaver plan that’s simply better”, and features a signup form that can literally be completed in just two minutes. Simplicity has set out to create a fairer, more honest Kiwisaver plan that strives to maximise their customer’s returns by charging the lowest possible fees.

Simplicity is able to charge the lowest possible fees “because it’s 100% online” and they have no “shiny head offices, branches or commissions.”

Cove’s tagline is “Insurance. Simple.” Part of making insurance simple is making insurance understandable. If the buying process is simple and intuitive, our customers will naturally have a better understanding of what exactly they have purchased. When it comes to claim time they’ll know what to expect.