Bitesize InsurTech: Safeture
September 17, 2016 Chris Sandilands
Safeture (formerly Global Warning System) IPO’ed in 2014.
What? It’s IPO’ed? That’s not a startup!
Actually, it is. Safeture opened up shop in 2012, and raised money by listing on the Stockholm Nasdaq in 2014. They’re a tech business and only just starting to make material revenue – so as far as we’re concerned, they qualify for this newsletter!
Safeture’s core offering is real-time security information for travellers: security threats, natural disasters, and travel delays, just to name a few. The app uses patented geo-positioning technology to feed information and warnings to travellers curated by an in-house analyst team.
There are also some other features like country information, maps for medical facilities, and updated emergency numbers. (Read on…there’s a reason we mentioned this!)
Safeture has made an initial foray into insurance. A European insurer and a German broker are using one of their products, Safeture, as a communication tool with their policyholders.
This sparked a thought in our minds.
Travel insurance is arguably one of the lowest touch insurance products. It’s cheap and it’s simple. Many people don’t even buy it, but get it through their credit card or another affinity.
But it’s a critical product when you need it. Let’s imagine you fall over in the USA. You need to work out which hospital to go to, possibly pay upfront for treatment – and hope that you subsequently get repaid.
On the other side, insurers have no control over the claims process in many cases, and just have to hope that you’ve gone to one of the cheaper hospitals in town.
We wonder therefore whether there’s a huge opportunity for insurers to work with companies such as Safeture to: a) improve their travel insurance customer experience/engagement, and b) reduce their claims costs:
- Reduce claims cost by directing policy holders to your preferred suppliers through a nice interface using geo-location technology…
- …whilst improving customer experience by supporting customers through the claims process
- And using the risk information as a means to help them stay out of trouble in the first place.
If you’re interested in a discussion about using technology to manage your travel insurance experience and claims cost management, please drop us a line!
