Everyone loves progress, but nobody likes change! Are you in the insurance business and does this apply to you? Then continue reading this article, you won’t regret it!

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In this "See you on the internet" blog series, we will guide and support you in setting up your digital insurance shop and gaining more online customers. In this first post, we'll look at the challenges and opportunities that come with starting your own online insurance shop.

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The myths preventing you from entering the era of digital insurance distribution

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‍Starting a digital insurance shop and entering the insurtech business requires a lot of capital

Current digital brokers or insurance companies invest lots of capital in technology to serve their customers via websites and mobile applications. To help entrepreneurs like you, emilian can now offer you no-code plugins that will help you overcome this challenge. No-code plugins are small programs that can be quickly added to your website. They enable you to extend the functionality of your website as needed, such as by communicating with your customers via popular chat plugins. Because of "pay-per-use" pricing models, you always have control over your budget and only pay for what you need.

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Starting an online business is difficult and financially uncertain

Starting your online business is not difficult, but requires discipline and a good understanding of the sort of customer that wants to do their business on the internet.

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All lucrative niches are already full so my online business won’t be profitable

If this is something holding you back, here’s why it shouldn’t: The internet is enormous, so you can easily find your own customer base with the right digital marketing strategy. Remember, customer experience is key! And as long as you focus on providing your customers with a service they like, profits will follow.

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The insurtech segment is developing rapidly in the worldwide market and this represents a great opportunity. In their Market Analysis Report, Grand View Research expects the global insurtech market to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 48.8% from 2021 to 2028, reaching USD 60.98 billion by 2028. This confirms just how fast new insurtech solutions are being adopted in the global market.

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The opportunities available when you start your insurance business online

Online businesses are more scalable

Once your online insurance shop and digital marketing strategy are in place, profits will begin to rise as more and more potential customers notice your service/product.

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An online business provides you and your customers with flexibility

Consider this: The majority of current services are delivered digitally. Have you ever wondered why? Simply because customers have smartphones and enjoy saving time. Anyone would prefer doing business online if it meant not having to visit their service provider in person. Plus clients got used to buy at any time of the day. This also applies to the insurance industry!

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Reduce your offline business costs

Office space and long-term leases are often very pricey for a company. If you can avoid these costs you will be able to invest more in your digital presence and marketing strategies and attract more customers!

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Simple market access

In many ways, insurance entrepreneurs' market access has never been easier. As internet access and adoption grow at a rapid pace around the world, the number of digital buyers also grows year after year. Over two billion people bought goods or services online in 2020, and global e-commerce sales surpassed 4.2 trillion US dollars in the same year. Global retail e-commerce sales increased by more than 25% in the year of the pandemic, with Argentina reporting the highest percentage growth. As consumers' mental models shift toward a more digital environment, the same is true for financial products.

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Consumers are now more ready and willing than ever before to buy financial products using the same model as e-commerce.

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Expand your market base

One major advantage online insurance agencies enjoy over their brick-and-mortar competitors is the ability to quickly expand their market beyond local customers. You may well find that there is a high demand for your insurance products in other regions, which you can meet through targeted marketing, offering your website in a different language, or possibly partnering with companies from other industries.

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Find new business models

The rise of the insurtech space is paving the way for combinations of new business models, including comparison portals, digital brokers, on-demand insurance, embedded insurance, etc. This gives you the option of developing a new business model to take advantage of new digital trends.

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Customer intelligence

Use online marketing tools to target new customers and website analysis tools to gain insight into your customers' needs. For advice on improving your customer's on-site experience, read how to measure your online marketing.

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The challenges

In our next blogs we’ll be providing more information on the ways to overcome these challenges.

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Website costs

Planning, designing, creating, hosting, securing and maintaining a professional digital insurance website comes at a cost, especially if you expect large and growing sales volumes.

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Infrastructure costs

Even if you aren't paying the costs of customer-facing premises, you'll need to think about the costs of staff to be available for customer support and related tasks.

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Security and fraud

The rise of e-commerce has piqued the interest of sophisticated criminals. Your company's reputation could be harmed irreparably if you don’t invest in cutting-edge security systems to safeguard your website and transaction processes.

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Legal & regulatory aspects

Understanding digital insurance distribution and its regulatory aspects can be a challenge, and you'll need to be aware of, and plan for, the additional customer rights that come with online sales.

Our legal counsel will soon share a report on the main aspects to be considered. Sign up to our next newsletter to make sure you don’t miss it.

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Advertising expenses

While online marketing can be a very effective way of attracting the right customers to your products, it requires a sizeable budget. This is especially true if you're competing in a crowded market or for popular keywords, or positioning new ones.

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Customer trust

Establishing a trusted brand name with customers can be difficult, especially if you haven’t interacted with them face-to-face first. You need to think about establishing a strong customer-service system as part of your online offering.

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What’s the next step?

We’ll be publishing more blogs in the upcoming weeks that focus on the 10 steps necessary for transferring your business online and overcoming some of the main challenges addressed in this first post.

Subscribe to our blogs to learn more about transforming your offline business into a digital insurance shop and growing your business!

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emilian team

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