INSHUR: The five ingredients for #insurtech growth
Paul Doran, VP Marketing for INSHUR, spoke at Instech London2019. We asked him how INSHUR has grown and the impact it’s had on the world of professional driver insurance.
In your best elevator pitch, can you tell us what INSHUR is doing?
We’re making the process of exploring, renewing and buying professional driver insurance easy, fast and transparent. We’re a mobile platform that shortcuts the sometimes lengthy and often frustrating process of buying commercial driver coverage. We were founded by ex-professional drivers and we’ve been active in New York for two years. We arrived in the UK in November 2018. Our mobile app allows the driver to get a quote and policy in minutes instead of hours, days or sometimes weeks.
That’s certainly something new. How successful have you been, give us some statistics?
We have over $24 million GWP, 60% word of mouth introduction, a 50% conversion rate and at peak times, we’ve been writing policies at a rate of 40 per hour. That’s in our first 12 months.
Exactly who is buying from you?
Private-hire and for-hire professional drivers. Uber drivers are hugely important to us. We’ve been fortunate in achieving an excellent working relationship with Uber.
Can you pinpoint how you’ve achieved success?
It’s been a mixture of many things, but most importantly, we’ve spent a lot of time getting to know our customers. This has entailed physically meeting them on their turf and while they’re working. It’s taken old-fashioned shoe-leather work, but we had put ourselves in their boots to discover what motivates them, what their needs are and how we can serve them better.
What about your product? Where’s that in the process?
It’s at the core. As we worked to understand our customers, so we simultaneously developed the programme. Having an excellent product is essential to any tech business – and that’s how we see ourselves – we’re a tech company that sells insurance. Some businesses are forever promoting and pushing inferior products. That’s just polishing turds. If the product isn’t excellent, no end of buffing will make it good. Product is everything.
What motivates your team?
Their motivation comes from seeing the success build up. Everyone at INSHUR buys into a lean culture and we’ve adopted the tech philosophy of failing fast. We’re constantly trying new things, expanding what works, dumping what doesn’t. It’s meant a lot of trial and error and learning from experience, but the results speak for themselves. We’ve achieved significant success by spending very little.
Can you summarise the INSHUR story so far?
Our return on investment demand has been very high and then there’s what we call our Focus on Five. These are five simple actions, but they’re key to what we do. Firstly, there’s Capacity. We made sure we could handle the underwriting demand by partnering with Munich RE. Next is Distribution. We immediately went to Uber and that gave us a level of reach that we could never have achieved on our own. In the area of Data, we took a strategic decision to take the time to build better and make the software process the best in the business. With Technology, we provide a solution to a real-world problem, we don’t just play at the edges. Buying professional driver insurance has always been a headache. Well, it isn’t anymore. Finally, there’s our Team. We have a people-first culture and we give everyone the freedom to learn, grow and improve. As a business we’re still learning. We expect our colleagues to do the same and we encourage that. We nurture people who remain inquisitive.
What did you think of Instech London 2019?
The event continues to be a great meeting place. It’s a melting pot for both established and the new generation of the Insurance landscape. It’s always well organised and well worth attending.
