Courier and delivery insurance, the INSHUR way
The delivery market is booming. While the coronavirus pandemic has played a significant part in this, home delivery of goods and food was already on the rise. Demand for UK food delivery had grown by 39% in the three years leading up to the start of 2020, according to Consumer research organisation NPD Group’s report. INSHUR is perfectly positioned to respond to this growing need. With the pandemic dramatically accelerating the trend, we’ve launched our insurance product for courier and delivery drivers to support the expanding market and the increasing need for flexibility from the drivers who are powering the new world economy.
The courier and delivery market is booming
A massive 7.5 billion food deliveries were made in the UK in 2019, according to NPD Group. Add COVID-19 into the mix in 2020 and you’ve got a mammoth market fuelled not only by convenience but also necessity. Having food and essential items delivered to our door has become a part of everyday life for the majority of the UK population. With social distancing in place, we use couriers for all sorts of purchases, from vital groceries and medicines to impulse purchases and things we cannot visit non-essential shops for, like home furnishings.
The ‘last mile’ market is on a continual upward trend. In the middle of 2020 alone, Just Eat, Uber Eats and Deliveroo captured more than £1bn in annual fees from UK restaurants, while major parcel carriers recruited thousands of new drivers to deal with the surge. DPD’s 2020 announcement that they will be hiring 6,000 additional employees captures the astronomical demand:
“Even before lockdown restrictions were announced in March, demand for DPD’s seven day a week, nationwide next-day delivery service had risen significantly as people started increasing their reliance on online shopping. The trend has continued… DPD is forecasting the growth to continue… despite shops reopening, as households continue to rely on online deliveries for a greater proportion of their shopping, including food and drink”.
INSHUR is powering the booming market
The growth of the delivery market shows no signs of stopping. Introducing INSHUR.
INSHUR’s innovative digital insurance platform is ideally positioned to power the growth of the courier and delivery market. Drivers can now get insurance coverage in minutes from their smartphone so they can get on the road and start earning, without the hassle of calling or visiting a broker’s office or filling out numerous online forms.
The courier and delivery market is seeing a lot of new drivers who are joining the industry to supplement their income. With INSHUR’s flexible 30-day insurance cover, we’re helping drivers pivot their business at a difficult time. Not only does our online platform speed up the process of getting a quote and a policy, it also seamlessly integrates with the way drivers get their work, something traditional insurance companies are unable to support with their reliance on telephone calls and fax machines to get drivers covered.
A demographic shift is making the market ripe for disruption
At INSHUR, we believe in looking after drivers by not bogging them down with unnecessary jargon, red tape and forms. We’re also tapping into a new and growing demographic of delivery drivers. The gig economy for courier services has had a similar effect to that of the taxi marketplace, with career drivers working alongside part-time drivers often paid per drop to suit their lifestyle and supplement their income. These digital natives are used to getting their driving work from their phones, and even more, traditional drivers are increasingly accustomed to getting their delivery orders from their mobile.
INSHUR is disrupting the commercial motor insurance market, traditionally heavily reliant on brokers, by delivering insurance in a way that makes sense for the modern driver.
“The idea for INSHUR was conceived when our CEO Dan Bratshpis was working in a brokerage in New York that specialised in taxi insurance”, shares our Co-Founder and COO David Daiches. “He saw that when Uber came to town there was a big change in driver demographics. The typical yellow cab driver was in their fifties and had been driving for at least 5 years. They were quite happy to come into the office to buy their insurance. The new rideshare drivers, however, were typically millennials who were in their twenties; digital natives who didn’t want to talk to anyone, let alone have to go into a broker’s office, sit down and manually fill in forms”.
Commercial insurance needs to evolve
Traditional commercial motor insurance hasn’t evolved quickly enough to adapt to the demands of the market and the new demographic of drivers.
“The traditional commercial auto insurance market is way past its sell-by date”, explains our VP Legal & Commercial, Simon Logan. “It can’t really support the digital economy in the way that digitally savvy, gig economy workers expect. The industry is still very analogue. You’re dealing with broker offices on high streets, it’s very slow, it’s expensive because you’re paying for the middle man and it’s a hassle for courier companies to get people onboarded with the right insurance”.
Our new insurance product for courier and delivery drivers is a natural progression from our hugely successful private hire insurance product as it caters to a very similar type of driver. “Since the outbreak of COVID-19, we have allowed drivers to utilise their INSHUR private hire policy to supplement their work to use their vehicle for food delivery”, shares our VP of Insurance, Ed Hill. “We have subsequently seen increased demand for a stand-alone product focussing entirely on the food and parcel delivery sector. With our experience in private hire and the fact that the driver demographic is similar, we are well placed to provide a digital solution for drivers to obtain this cover and get on the road quickly.”
INSHUR is a virtual insurer, enabling drivers to get flexible cover to suit their work and companies to onboard new drivers quicker. It’s our mission to get drivers insured and earning within minutes in a way that’s fair, easy to understand and up to speed with the pace of the growing industry.
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