April Unveils a Multi-Brand Insurance Marketplace
FACTS
- The broker April introduces a marketplace for partner insurance groups.
- This platform relies on an open, multi-brand model, allowing brokers and insurance companies to feature April products, as well as products from other groups including AXA and Generali.
- At launch, April chooses to include their entire set of loan insurance offers as well services by AXA and Generali.
- This marketplace is AI-powered using MIA (standing for Mon Intelligence Artificielle, literally “My AI”), designed by the start-up Hyperlex. This AI scrutinises mortgage-related documents so as to adjust loan insurance offers at best.
- The marketplace has been made available to brokers via their April extranet. In addition, the April app provides customers with a remote subscription portal.
KEY FIGURES
- 20 brokers for Beta test phase
- 18 months design work before launch
- 5 offers already available from the platform
- 15,000 partner brokers
CHALLENGES
- A marketplace for materialising long-standing efforts. In September 2018, April started considering making deep changes to their brokerage and insurance distribution models.
- Making room for customers’ needs. This marketplace provides brokers with a simple means to compare offers based on prices as well as other criteria. A tool for assessing offers- relevance has also been included.
- April overthrows a long-time prevailing distribution model as their marketplace makes their offers as visible as rival offers. Unlike conventional insurance players, they see this as an actual asset for securing their brokers’ loyalty. They would be provided an advanced tool for improving their sales performance. A win-win agreement enabling April to look into additional revenue sources.
MARKET PERSPECTIVE
- With a similar goal in mind, April already started dematerialising their offers. They also launched their own InsurTech to craft the affinity-based “on-demand” insurance offer Objhey !.
- Besides April, as the Open Banking trend gains ground, marketplace-based models are becoming more popular on financial and insurance markets. In Europe, this evolution is highlighted by the FinTech Raisin, for instance.