Do Robo-Advisors Have a Place in Insurance?

entrepreneur.com

70 NEWS JAPAN - When my co-founder and I were fleshing out the foundation of PolicyGenius, we knew our goal was to bring the insurance-buying process -- from education to shopping to application -- to the modern online consumer. The question was, "How do we do this?" And as we spoke to consumers about their decision journeys, we realized that the answer wasn't new. It had been around for 30 years.

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Time after time, unprompted, we'd get asked why there wasn't something like TurboTax for insurance. TurboTax helped pioneer robo-advice in household finances by offering expert-level guidance without requiring a face-to-face appointment with a specialist. It showed that it could be done for a complex financial process (there isn't anything more complicated than filing your taxes, is there?) and now robo-advisors are taking over the investing world thanks to the likes of Tradeking, Wealthfront, Betterment, and more.

So the people we wanted to reach wanted TurboTax for insurance: something where they could go through the insurance shopping process -- the whole process -- online, getting guidance that they could follow at their own pace.

You can find and compare insurance policies on PolicyGenius, so it's tempting to describe the process as like "Kayak, but for insurance." But unlike travel aggregators, we don't just gather a bunch of deals and show them side-by-side on the screen. We can't. Insurance is more complicated than flights, so we have to do more.

When you go on vacation you buy your plane ticket, go on the trip, post the pictures to Facebook, and go back to your life. Insurance, especially life insurance, is more expensive, longer-term, and more complex. Choosing the wrong flight means you have to wake up early or have no legroom, but messing up your insurance policy has real consequences. That's why we emphasize education and decision support.

We built a resource center with content that explains different concepts, terms, and scenarios. During the application process, we explain why we're asking for each piece of information. And with our Insurance Checkup, we show you not only what sort of protection you need, but why you need it.

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For a lot of people, shopping online for insurance means plugging your personal information into a form and waiting to get called by a horde of salespeople. That's not a good experience. Customers don't want to just be added to a call list. They're trying to protect the wellbeing of themselves and their family; being little more than a stepping stone for a salesperson to get closer to their quota isn't reassuring. Instead, we gave people a full shopping experience: go from research to application at your own pace, and only give up your contact information when you're ready to take the next step in completing your application.